>>39165875

Few notes as we get started here

>I’m putting everything into a single place where I can go in an edit stuff and junk. If you’d prefer to see these stories all in one spot instead of spread out over a thread or in a cap you can see the semi-finished product here:

https://googledrive.com/host/0B3Z9sXPTD9rpN2owNGdVWmdFWXM/agp.html

>Criticism and Questions are always welcome

>I'm proofing and grabbing pics on the fly here, but I'll try to keep things moving.

>This is a VERY long one, and will unfortunately need to be split into two pieces. The second one will be at 6pm MST tomorrow. I'm not sure where the split will fall, but tonight's thread won't stretch too late. Tomorrow's will go until it's damn well finished.

>>39165875
Thanks Shoggy

>All Guardsman Party
>Just as i'm going to bed
>Can't find the reaction image I want
just fuck everything

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>>39165875
Aww yeah.

Fuck yeah its back!

>>39165875
Aw yeah, best day of the month.

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>>39165875

The shortest and most amiable of the three troopers, Nubby, explained that Sarge was working with the adepts and Doc was staying in the medbay on account of his legs not working. Several complex and undeniably obscene gestures accompanied this, either conveying Nubby's opinion of the adepts or what he thought Doc's actual reason for staying in the medbay was. Jim wasn't sure which.

Twitch interrupted the show to ask Jim if he was here about the servitor, because that was entirely not-Twitch's fault. He'd clearly explained that no-one was to attempt to clean or do maintenance on this room without an escort. Also, sharing access codes, even if it was with a servitor, was a severe violation of proper security protocol. Actually, change that to ESPECIALLY if it was with a servitor, those damned things couldn't be trusted; Jim should know, he'd been there and seen what the psychotic murder machines had done the second they got a chance.

Jim shuddered at the memories Twitch's rant dredged up, then turned to the third guardsman. While the other two had been talking Tink had been having a quiet, one-sided argument with the small xeno-tech dataslate he was holding. Occasionally he'd switch from swearing at the controller to cooing at the hovering disk in front of him as it tried, with mixed success, to pick up pieces of servitor with its small servo-arm. Jim summoned every scrap of courage he could muster and walked up to the goggle-wearing guardsman.

"Tink, this tech-heresy needs to stop. If you don't destroy that unholy xenos contraption I will-I will-I, um, uhhhh, pleasedon'tkillme."

Tink pressed the the humming plasma gun, which Jim swore he hadn't been holding second ago, a little harder into the enginseer's chest. In the most threatening voice he could muster, Tink asked:

"What did you just call my waifu?"

>The All Guardsmen Party and the Xeno-Tech Heresy

I just checked /tg/ for the first time today, and it's All Guardsman Party time. I'll buy a lotto ticket after this

>>39165875
PLAYTIME BEGINS!

Shoggy, were you responsible for the April Fools version of this?

>>39165875
SHOGGY!
fuck yeah caught it live

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>>39165985

Nubby came to Jim's rescue before long. He carefully pushed the plasma gun to the side and reminded Tink that Sarge had banned the "W Word". Furthermore, this was Jim, the bro-est of cogbros! He was definitely on the do-not-blow-in-half with a plasma gun list, and hadn't meant to insult Tink's favorite toy. There was undoubtedly a reason behind his request and if everyone would just settle down this could all be sorted out without Sarge yelling at anyone.

Tink grumbled about it not being a toy. SHE was a DX-9F Exploratory Drone, configured for stealth operations and tech interfacing, and HER name was "Hannah Two-Point-Oh". Jim went blank as he processed this, then started sputtering in a mix of shock and revulsion. Nubby groaned and waved a hand at Twitch, who obliged by pegging the ranting trooper in the back of the head with a chunk of servitor. Both parties were hauled off and seated in front of one of the several whiteboards that had gone missing from the official briefing rooms.

Jim boggled at the list on the board as the Nubby forced a surly Tink to read off the last six items on it.

SARGE'S XENO-TECH RULES
>1. Keep your stupid mouths shut.
>2. If you want to use a weapon it MUST be disguised as a lasgun or something. THIS INCLUDES YOUR PLASMA HYBRID MONSTROSITY.
>3. The drone is SECRET. It does not leave the barracks unless it's in its box or you can make it look like a servo-skull.
>4. Sarge will be the judge of whether the drone ACTUALLY looks like a servo-skull.
>5. The drone is NOT a she.
>6. The drone does NOT have a gender at all.
>7. The drone is NOT named Hannah or Fio'whatsit.
>8. The drone is NOT named after ANYONE, regardless of if we've met them.
>9. The drone is named Spot. It is a good name and is actually sort of witty. All complaints must be hand-written and submitted in person to Interrogator Sarge.
>10. Anyone who violates these rules or actually submits a complaint will be made to suffer in ways they cannot possibly imagine.

>Start thread on Sunday remembers that tomorrow its city holiday.

Let's go!

>>39166011
No, I was not.

>>39165875

ITS ACTUALLY REAL.

Was so salty after the last false flag.

OH MY GOD I'VE FINALLY CAUGHT ONE LIVE

Tell your DM he is a fucking genius with the parody storylines.

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>>39166016

After the base rules were re-established and Tink had accepted that no-one was going to be allowed to shoot anyone, unless it was Twitch and there was an Ork attack, Nubby asked Jim what the problem was. If he was here about our recent acquisitions, it should be obvious that we had the situation in hand. Everyone was aware of the Mechanicus' little rules about xeno-tech and would be keeping a low profile, so no worries. None of us were ready for the explosion that the phrase "little rules" triggered.

The young enginseer leapt out of his seat and started pacing back and forth, frantically explaining that this wasn't a matter of laws or protocol, this was dogma. See cogboys tend to be a little more religious when it comes to technology than most guardsmen. Which isn't surprising, they're called TECH-PRIESTS after all, but the exact nature of their religion is a little complex.

Some of them loved all tech, especially the old and complex stuff, and would go around worshiping random things they dug out of space hulks. Others were all for getting and keeping their technology working as well as possible or maybe even pulling apart things to see how they work. Some cogboys though, were completely focused on stamping out any piece of tech, no matter how amazing, that didn't originate from Mars. According to Jim, about half the senior tech-priests on the ship fell into that last category.

>>39166122

And where does jimmy and hannah fall into?

>>39166041
Pity, that was some grade-A hilarity, and they had the writing style close enough I couldn't tell.


>>39166122
Awh shit, son, this gon' be bad. Well, clearly the solution is quarantine. Xeno-tech stuff stays in the barracks or leaves the ship, and ONLY does those two things, and the only cogboys or cogirls allowed in the barracks - on pain of meeting the same fate as that Servitor - are certified Cogbros, IE Jim and Hannah, who we can be damn sure can keep their traps shut in the name of serving the Emprah, camaraderie for mutual horrors endured and survived, and the desire not to see what happens when a ship turns to in-fighting over a point of religious dogma that is not related to the Emprah.

>>39166187
Given that they were party to some pretty impressive, if more covert, tech-heresy during the first voyage of the Occurance Border, I'm inclined to think they don't particularly care as long as shit isn't sprouting tentacles and trying to rape their souls, they're just afraid of the gigantic clusterfuck that will happen if the cog non-bros find out.

>>39165875
Goddamnit Shoggy. I'm supposed to be sleeping. Why, WHY.

Please continue

catching this live and fresh like the catch of the day. yes.

Based Shoggy reveals his presence once more!

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>>39166122

Jim claimed these were the sort of guys who wouldn't just destroy a device they suspected of being xenos-made, they'd also convert anyone who'd ever used it into servitors, then push the servitors into a plasma reactor. Nubby suggested that this was a bit of an exaggeration, the Inquisition always got a fair bit of leniency on this stuff.

Didn't that Interrogator with the big hat have a sword that whispered at anyone nearby about drinking their blood? What about sister what's-her-face who had a Sternguard Pattern Bolter that she'd looted from a dead marine? And no one commented on the fact that the guy running recruitment had actually purchased a medium-sized tropical island with the funds he'd been embezzling over the last few decades. Surely a little xeno-tech could be swept under the same rug those guys were using. Jim just shook his head and pointed out that all those were things that the Inquisition typically had jurisdiction over; believe it or not, hardcore orthodox tech-priests were a lot less forgiving.

Jim suggested that as a baseline we imagine a three hundred year old Redemptionist preacher. Now combine that general cranky outlook with the fact that the orthodox tech-priests on the ship had been forced to accept that most of its critical engineering staff were not members of the machine cult. These guys were itching to put someone in their place; if anyone caught their attention with a clear case of tech-heresy, their lifespan would be measured in minutes. So Jim was asking, begging really, for us to give up or suicidal fascination with xeno-tech.

>>39166206
Was it archived? Links?

>>39166368
https://archive.moe/tg/thread/39073194/#39074397

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>>39166306

Everyone went quiet for a while as they processed this. Tink frowned at his drone controller, Twitch pondered how many servitors those priests commanded, and Nubby weighed the value of his life against that of a crate of Tau pulse weapons. All of us looked at each other and came to a silent agreement. Nubby thanked Jim for his warning, it'd really opened our eyes to the situation. He promised that we would… be very careful not to show their new toys to any tech-priests. Except for Jim. And Hannah. Oh and those other guys we couldn't remember the names of, but had been pretty cool for cogboys.

Jim sank into his seat and looked like he was about to start crying.

While Twitch and Tink went back to cleaning, Nubby did his best to console the young enginseer. Eventually his weasley arguments about how unlikely the senior tech-priests were to find out, if no one ratted to them that is, calmed Jim down. From there it wasn't hard to convince him to help with the "disguise the xeno-tech" project. Given how much damage a minor war located across the hall from the Gellar Field Generator would cause, Nubby argued, it could even be budgeted under preventive ship maintenance.

The enginseer grudgingly sat down at the workbench Tink had been using for the project and started tinkering. He didn't even pause to question the origins of the pile of slightly-used lasguns or the large crate of assorted human and animal skulls that had been provided for camouflage material. He'd made some real progress and was even managing a nearly-civil technical discussion with Tink when Sarge came back.

Sarge, who'd spent at least twenty hours over the last few days trying to fill the gaps in his team left by Doc's injury and the Infiltrator's death, took Jim's presence as a sign from the Emperor. Before the night was over, the paperwork was in order and the enginseer was officially seconded to us for the duration of the upcoming mission.

Jim was not exactly happy about this.

>>39166429

ahahahaaaaaaa

Dammit Jimmy, dont die.

>>39166429
Where is tour sense of adventure Jimmy?!

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>>39166306
Couldn't resist throwing this together.

>>39166429
OH SHIT

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>>39166429

That upcoming mission was a bit of a mystery. Our little op on the Tau border worlds had gone relatively well: We'd foiled a rather convoluted plot to get neutral worlds in bed with the Tau empire and killed the raiders that'd been terrorizing the area. At least we'd thought that the Rogue Trader we'd doomed to an incredibly gruesome death was behind all the missing colonies and stations, turned out his band of pirates didn't quite fit the bill though.

It's not like they hadn't had it coming, no one but Doc felt guilty about trapping those mercenary bastards in the warp with no Gellar Field, but according to our reports whoever was wiping out the locals didn't leave bodies. Not theirs, and not their victims either. That was pretty ominous, especially coupled with the fact that a few of the other Inquisitorial teams on our little expedition had been on those worlds. None of them had sent out any messages, they'd just vanished with the civies. Yeah, ominous.

All those guys had been the same as us: small teams of underfunded, underinformed, and under-everything-else Inquisitorial agents sent out to look for trouble or do something for Oak. We were definitely the last people to suggest that they should have been able to stop some sort of colony-eradicating doom-thingy… But we'd have expected them to at least get SOMETHING out. Even if it was just an astropath message saying "Shit. Tyranids." or "I FEEL THE WARP OVERTAKING ME. IT IS A GOOD PAIN." They didn't though, which meant that whatever had gotten them was even weirder than usual.

All we had to go on was the information the Occurrence Border's captain had scrounged for us when the teams had missed their pickups. He had a rough map of which systems had been wiped out for sure and a few notes from the one colony he'd personally inspected. That's how we knew he was worried, the Captain didn't like going down to planets. He said they were untidy.

>>39166527

Hi Rogue Trader hauling ass from necrons on his ass for his necron ship.

>>39166556
Seems more like Dark Eldar to me.

>>39166527
Calling now its the fucking dark eldars!

>>39166429
Hey, quick question.
Doc`s player played a new guardsman or as Jim?

>>39166565
I'll admit to leddit-fagging here: The DM has talked about Eldar stuff in the past. IS IT HAPPENING?

>>39166556
This is what I've been thinking when Shoggy said it was a result of their actions.

>>39166565
I would imagine that Dark Eldar would leave traces. You know, the usual discarded weapon, corpses that fell where nobody saw them, the odd crucified virgin-child impaled with an aquolla through the pelvis.

Then again... It could be a lot of things. Crons, 'nids, Dark Eldar who are particularly tidy. Emperor knows, really. They're just gonna have to find out. The poor bastards.

>>39166599
Maybe Necrons?

>>39166618
>Nids
>Tidy

>>39166634
I was thinking that Trader taking the Necron Ship without a Tesseract woke up a bunch of Tomb Worlds.

Though the lack of communication does fit with the Nid's Shadow in the Warp bit.

>>39166668
They do tend to devour *everything.* Of course, that usually includes atmosphere, too...

Guys, im gonna put my money on the underdog horse:
Red Corsairs.

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Did I just stumble upon a live AGP?

>>39166674

If they were tomb worlds, the Occurance Border would have been shot out of the sky.

I think its more likely they're chasing his ship down through his trade route.

>>39166729
No

>>39166674
>>39166668

I play Nids and I have two friends who play 'crons. Trust me when I say both of these factions are VERY TIDY when it comes to destroying a planet.

Nids if they come from below the galactic plane can wipe out a sector before a message could get through. Plus Shadow in The Warp is no joke.

Necron tomb worlds when they wake up just kind of shit on everything if Spesh Muhreens aren't around or Tau + Spesh Muhreens.

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>>39166527

The disappearances charted a sort of winding path through the region, starting on the fringe of Tau space and twisting in the general direction of the Imperium. That was the whole reason we were involved in this mess. None of us gave a shit if a bunch of xenos got killed or really cared much about the fringe worlds, but if the pattern continued some valuable Imperial worlds were going to get wiped out. So Oak had mandated that everyone out here was to drop what they were doing and figure out what the hell was going on. The Occurrence Border had picked up all the teams it could reach in time and was doing its best to follow the trail before it got cold.

Sarge spent a lot of time working with the adepts and the other teams to figure out what we were in for before we ran right into it. Sarge had sat down with the Captain, who he got along with rather better than the other Interrogators and gone over the whole thing from top to bottom. Unfortunately, all they were able to figure out was that the path mostly followed decent warp routes, which told us whoever was driving was probably using a Warp-Drive. Or they just felt like going that way.

The Captain's brief visit to the purged colony had turned up some more useful info. He'd described the place as being mostly intact, but with no creatures, living or dead. There was some battle damage, but the place hadn't just been nuked from orbit and he said it didn't look like the fight had lasted long. Sarge tried to pick his brain for details about the battle damage, hoping to pin down what sort of weaponry had been used, the Captain wasn't much help though. All he was able to tell us was that no one had used Macro Cannons, Lances, Torpedos, or Nova Cannons. Oh, and someone had dropped several million tonnes of powdered silicate and organic matter on the place, that struck him as interesting. A few probing questions revealed that this mysterious substance was, in fact, just the ground. Bloody spacers.

>>39166743
There would still be evidence of nids on the fact that the entire world would be a barren, airless rock that can't support life on it's own anymore.

>>39166527
>"I FEEL THE WARP OVERTAKING ME. IT IS A GOOD PAIN."
Oh Emperor. I bought WH40K Soulstorm on Steam a few days ago because it was on sale. Played Adeptas Sororitas for first campaign and now I've moved on to Chaos. That fucking line is so fucking good. Infiltrator Chaos Marines fuck yeah!

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>>39166771

It was eventually decided that the only way we'd get anything useful was by visiting one of these worlds and looking around ourselves, preferably after the mysterious people-disappearing thing had left. Until then all anyone could do was wildly speculate, so we did what any red-blooded guardsmen would do in that situation: we started a betting pool.

At first it was the usual small wagers between us, everyone sticking to their pet theories and so on, but Nubby smelled profit and the thing quickly grew to ludicrous size. Within a few days both the other teams, the entire engineering department, and half of the ship's officers were in on it. There'd even been a runner from the Navigator's sanctum carrying bets from him and the Astropath, neither of whom had even been told about the pool. That'd sparked a lengthy debate about whether those guys could see the future and if that should invalidate their bets. In the end Nubby held that if they could, then they'd have been able to avoid being assigned to the Occurrence Border, so he took their money like everyone else's.

There wound up being only three popular bets since various factors wound up disqualifying most of the candidates. No one was willing to put money on it being some human force, on account of how Oak would've known if there was a rogue Inquisition fleet out here, and Chaos warbands or cults were never this tidy. On the xenos side the Tau didn't fit, Necrons tended to stick to their tomb worlds, Tyranids either left planets barren or full of Tyranids, and even Twitch couldn't figure out how it could be Orks. That just left warpy stuff, Eldar, or some really obscure type of xenos.

>>39165875
Ah, I'm late. Been looking forward to this all day, but something came up...
'Ere we go.

>>39166796
>In the end Nubby held that if they could, then they'd have been able to avoid being assigned to the Occurrence Border, so he took their money like everyone else's.

it hurts to breath.

>>39166592
Not sayin

>>39166796
>even Twitch couldn't figure out how it could be Orks

Twitch, how could you!? You know it is Orks! Search your heart.

>>39166829

Da Green Shado' Kommandoz

>>39166771
Sounds like Gauss weaponry.

>>39166796
Well...Eldar I guess?

>>39166827
So you are saying that Doc's character player Tink's waifu?

>>39166843
I know nothing about 40K so I'm probably assuming wrong, but wouldn't the regular meaning of Gauss weapons mean that they would leave huge impact craters if they're using big enough rounds....?

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>>39166796

Sarge and Doc had their money on some sort of crazy warp shit, either a greater Daemon or some sort of massive phenomena. They didn't have any real reason behind the theory, but since it was the scariest thing anyone could think of it had a lock on the pessimist vote. Outside of the pool, all the adepts who knew about that warpy stuff were going through their records trying to figure out what could be done if they were right.

Meanwhile, after Twitch gave up on the Orks he'd gone down to the adepts and gotten a list of all the types of xenos that lived out on the fringe. He didn't sleep for three days after that and eventually had to be tranqued by Doc. Well by his girlfriend, Doc wasn't in any condition to chase down Twitch on account of the whole wheelchair thing. Anyway, after he was pried out of his hole, Twitch made a fairly strong case for some obscure xenos horrors being behind everything. Even Tink and our team's adepts threw in with him, either because they believed him or just thought it was good odds to play the field.

The final popular bet was the OCD Eldar Raiders theory. Nubby and Fumbles had started that one by hotly denying that it was even a possibility. The denial had come right after they'd received the Navigator's bet, and even if most folks couldn't figure out why the Eldar would be disappearing colonies, they knew what a rigged game looked like. Nubby hadn't gotten any sympathy from the rest of us when he'd complained about how even the odds were getting.

>>39166873
you'd be right in any other sci-fi setting.
Gauss weapons of the necrons are a type of energy weapon.
think death ray.

>>39166873
In 40k context, "gauss" weapons shoot green disintigrating beams.

>>39166873
Necron "Gauss" weapons strip the atoms off of their targets and turn stuff into dust, it's not magnetic acceleration, it's just baller.

>>39166771
Calling it now, Hrud Migration.

>>39166893
More like super vacuum cleaners with magnets and lightning.

>>39166827
Building up the suspense, uh?

Shoggy, you truly are a master storyteller.

>>39166873
Normally yeah, but this space british gauss which means they're totally silent, green laser beams which flay the flesh off of what they hit. They also tear through armor like paper.

>>39165875
>Reading last thread on the Drive.
>Finish a thread, see the next suspected dates for threads, and decide to check /tg/,
>Shoggy's already got next thread up.
>I was just about to start reading The Greater Good

Emperor damn it. Time to speed read.

>>39166916
Don't worry anon. This will be a two parter that'll be finished tomorrow.

>>39166916
This one will be a while, take your time. Greater Good is fucking amazing, just as good as Bane Johns.

>>39166890

kek, nubby.

>>39166942
>>39166946

Oh, thank god.
I may even be able to go to sleep tonight.

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>>39166890

Between the pool, Tink and Jim's project, and Sarge's scramble to prep for the mission, Doc was the only one with much free time. Of course that was primarily because he was stuck in a wheelchair until his leg and gut-wound finished healing. He spent most of that time in the medbay acting as a handi-capable nurse for his girlfriend, and despite Nubby's constant barrage of tasteless jokes, seemed to be coping with his temporary crippling fairly well. We mostly left him to it, since we risked death by either sap overdose or angry hospitaller every time we visited. Twitch nearly lost an ear to a thrown scalpel when we kidnapped the poor boy for a night of recreational drinking.

While Doc wasn't too bothered about his injury, it was a constant source of worry for the rest of us. Not because we thought he wouldn't get better, but because the Captain had spotted a world in the right direction that had gone dark and was taking us there for a little reconnoitering. Our ETA was a few days, and Doc's recovery was going to be a matter of weeks or months, so it was looking like we'd be going into the field without a medic. Sarge and Jim tried to convince us that the medi-skull they'd requisitioned was just as good, but we weren't buying it. Those things are unsettling just to look at, they're a million times worse when you've just been shot and one's coming at you with a buzzsaw.

Everyone was feeling a little nervous when we finally came out of the warp and confirmed that the nearby planet was emptier than a Munitorum agent's heart. Those of us who weren't creeped out by the prospect of nosing around on a freshly depopulated world were wondering if we were about to lose three weeks pay in the pool.

>>39166974

you're still on duty, guardsman.

Do your Emperor Given Duty.

Only in Death does Duty End.

I think I'm gonna break my mouse clicking the update button so much.

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>>39167034

While everyone worried and prepped their gear Sarge attended one final meeting with the Captain and the other two Interrogators. Now these guys weren't bad sorts, at least by officer standards, but neither of them really played well with others. One was a blond battleaxe of an ex-cleric and the other was a serious agent fellow with a creepy sword that no one commented on.

Battleaxe had been drumming up recruits and Sword-guy had been trouble-stabbing some problem for Oak before the new orders came through, neither of them was very happy about being reassigned mid mission. Despite their unhappiness they'd treated Sarge well enough and their adepts had worked with ours on the data processing, but no one was willing to accept anyone but themselves as the missions leader. That included Sarge, who'd immediately recognized two people who wouldn't blink at sacrificing a few guardsmen.

Since no one was feeling overly cooperative, the basic plan was for each team to send a separate party to the dead planet and look for clues. If anyone found anything interesting they'd call for the adepts, and if they found hostiles they'd call for reinforcements from the ship or the other teams. It wasn't the most efficient plan, but without some clear and present danger it was the best we were going to get. The final meeting between the three interrogators and the Captain was to determine who would go where on the planet and how much support the Occurrence Border would provide.

>>39167103
Just use the auto update function, anon.

>>39167103
Just make sure it is selected and hit enter or use auto update.

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>>39167105

The planet was sort of shitty and probably had a population of only five or six million before it got wiped out. Battleaxe called dibs on what passed for the local center of government and Sword-guy wanted to take his team to the largest commercial shuttleport. Sarge carefully considered the remaining options, then ignored the pointed suggestions that he inspect the planet's only military base in favor of the smallest shuttleport on the planet. Sarge carefully deflected their questions about his choice with vague comments about hunches and feelings, he managed to hold out until the Captain got annoyed and forced the discussion move along.

It was agreed that the Occurrence Border would hang in stationary orbit and handle communications while each team was given their own shuttle. The emergency support options consisted of the remaining two shuttles loaded with all the armsmen the Captain thought he could reasonably spare and the ship's lances. Everyone was reminded that the last time those lances were used at that range they'd missed by seventeen kilometers and had to be walked, while still firing at full power and jiggling a lot, to their target. The Captain recommended not asking for any precision strikes then called an end to the meeting.

Sarge gathered us up in the shuttlebay for a final briefing before we went down. The ground team consisted of everyone except the adepts, who would be hanging out in the Comm room and analyzing whatever we sent to them, and Doc who was only in there to wish us luck before he went to get the medbay ready for whoever got shot this time. Hannah and Ol' Bill were there too, mostly to remind us that Jim was considered essential to the smooth-ish running of the ship. It would go poorly for us if he came back in anything less than factory-fresh condition.

>>39166771
>no lifeforms or corpses, but tonnes of organic dust
IT'S THE NECRO-
>it's dirt
...nevermind

Because any other causes would be unlikely, my guess is this is going to become "The All-Guardsmen Party and John Carpenter's 'The Thing'"

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>>39167163

Our briefing started with Sarge acknowledging that randomly walking around a deserted planet "looking for clues" was about the stupidest way of gathering information invented. This stole Tink and Nubby's thunder and shut them up for long enough for Sarge to explain our real mission, which was to hang out within support range of the other two teams. If something was going to try and kill nosy people, it'd probably start with them and we'd be in a good position to swoop in and save the day or make a clean escape. All we had to do was stay near the shuttle and keep out of trouble while the people who actually knew what a clue looked like did the hard work. It was a very good plan.

The cherry on top was the location Sarge'd picked for us. He'd chosen it for three reasons, firstly he'd figured that running around a military facility that was probably filled with partially activated defences and undetonated ordinance was incredibly stupid and no other locations really had anything tailored to our skills. Secondly it was pretty much between the other teams, which would make supporting them easier. Finally, the planet's climate was cold and wet and that tropical island shuttleport was the only credible location that wasn't currently being rained, snowed, or sleeted on. So yeah, we were going there because it looked like it would be a pleasant day at the beach. Doc and his girlfriend looked vaguely jealous as we boarded the shuttle.

We'd been offered a pilot for our shuttle, but two of us were qualified to fly the thing and we preferred having someone we really trusted in charge of our only transport. Also, Nubby pointed out that they might rat us out to the other teams. Tink and Jim had brief, heated debate about who was pilot and co-pilot, which ended poorly for both of them when their slap-fight over the joystick knocked over Sarge's recaff.

>>39167224
Silicon isn't organic

>>39167253

but it is.

to silicon lifeforms.

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>>39167246

Aside from the brief excitement provided by Sarge chewing out the techies, the ride down was fairly boring, even the view out the window was dull. The top half of the planet was white with snow, the bottom half was mostly water or clouds, and even Nubby couldn't find any obscene looking continents. Twitch tried to liven things up by speculating on what type of xenos horrors had abducted everyone and what unspeakable things were being done to them, but stopped when Fumbles looked like he was going to start crying.

Our first look at the shuttleport confirmed Sarge's genius: the place was obviously built as some sort of vacation resort for rich merchants. A quick flyover turned up a complete lack of people, vehicles, or xenos monstrosities and an environment scan revealed nothing more dangerous than a chance of sunburn, so we set down right on there on the beach. There was a final comm check and reiteration of the ground rules, then everyone went off to enjoy themselves.

Now, you may be getting the impression that we weren't taking our mission as seriously as it warranted, and anyone from the other teams would've certainly said so. There's a difference between not being serious and not being effective though, and we fully intended to complete the objectives we'd set for ourselves.

Since in our eyes our main job was to be ready to save the other teams' bacon, everyone stayed within sprinting distance of the shuttle and Jim kept its engines warmed up. In deference to the fact that this was potentially hostile territory everyone outside the shuttle stuck in groups and Twitch worked with Jim to set up a rudimentary perimeter around the LZ. Finally, Spot the wonder-drone was feeding everything it saw to our adepts and we were definitely keeping our eyes open as we strolled around the beach and inspected all the bungalows. Admittedly Nubby was the one doing most of the inspecting, but it's not like anyone expected us to find anything anyway.

>>39165875
Oh my god I caught one live. Shoggy pls impregnate my sister, I need your babies.

>>39167332
>but stopped when Fumbles looked like he was going to start crying.

Fumbles the Psyker is the best anti-bullying, anti-hazing method ever concieved of. I like Fumbles. And Jim. And Hannah (mostly Hannah, because she was close to crying back on the First Flight of the Occurence Border.)

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>>39167332

Sarge picked through a few beach-chairs until he found one that didn't have a big vaguely human-shaped hole in it, and made himself comfortable. He lounged in the sun and listened to the other teams' comm traffic, from the sound of it Battleaxe had already spotted the silhouettes and didn't to be pointed towards them. The burly noncom laid back and idly watched as Twitch built some truly impressive sand castles.

Jim elected to stay on the shuttle, claiming that sand was bad for his metal bits, but sent out a few servo-skulls and chatted with Tink over the comm. The techie had yanked off the two grox skulls his drone had been encased in, and was nauseating the adepts trying to watch the vid-feed by racing it against Jim's skulls. When they started arguing over whether ramming was allowed and if busting through walls should count as a penalty Sarge made them switch to hide-and-seek.

While everyone else stayed near the shuttle, Nubby grabbed Fumbles and went to do an exhaustive search of the nearby buildings. At first it was for small and valuable items that might need a new home, but after a while Nubby realized that he was being unprofessional. A few minutes later he and Fumbles had acquired a wheelbarrow and switched to searching for large and valuable items that might need a new home. Fumbles happily pushed the barrow and learned several important lessons about the difference between looting and recycling.

Everything was going splendidly and Sarge was considering taking a nap when Twitch screamed "MOVEMENT" and dove into a freshly dug sand-trench.

>>39167443
Anon, do you have a crying fetish by chance?

>>39166827
Aw, I was kind of curious what sort of Psycho/Sociopath guardsman was going to take doc´s place in this mission. Still, cogbros are always welcome.

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>>39167451

Despite the amount of shit the rest of us gave Twitch over his paranoia, we all trusted his spotting skills with our lives. Within seconds Sarge and Tink landed in the trench next to him and overhead the drone engaged its stealth field. On the far side of the shuttle Nubby and Fumbles dropped their loot and got ready to either flank or sprint to safety. The only person who didn't respond immediately was Jim, who poked his head out the shuttle's door to see what the fuss was about.

Sarge screamed at the cogboy to get back into cover and drove the point home by chucking a nearby entrenching tool at the open hatch. The shovel barely missed Jim's head and he scrambled back with a little yelp while the rest of us tried to spot whatever Twitch had seen. When nothing happened over the next few minutes Sarge started ordering Tink, Jim, and Fumbles to scan the area. Before he managed to finish the order a buzzing voice cut in and told us to "Remain in your current position and cease communication. Your vessel will be yielded to our service."

Everyone pegged the voice as a tech-priest of some variety. Anyone else with an augmetic voicebox would've at least tried to make it sound normal, this guy sounded like a cross between a garbage disposal and an opera singer. Everyone was still processing this development when Tink's kneejerk response kicked in and he screamed "JAM IT UP YOUR METAL ASS TECNHOFACIST" into his combead.

>>39167508

Tiiiiiiiiiinkkkkkkkkkkkk

>>39167494
No, it just makes me want to hug them.

And not sexually, either.

>>39167508
>Everyone was still processing this development when Tink's kneejerk response kicked in and he screamed "JAM IT UP YOUR METAL ASS TECNHOFACIST" into his combead.
Oh no.

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>>39167508
>"JAM IT UP YOUR METAL ASS TECNHOFACIST"
IT BEGIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINS

Things got dark mechanicus fast.

>>39167332
Why is there such a zombie feeling coming from that picture?

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>>39167508
Dammit Tink, you had one job. ONE JOB.

>>39167451
>Jim elected to stay on the shuttle, claiming that sand was bad for his metal bits, but sent out a few servo-skulls and chatted with Tink over the comm. The techie had yanked off the two grox skulls his drone had been encased in, and was nauseating the adepts trying to watch the vid-feed by racing it against Jim's skulls. When they started arguing over whether ramming was allowed and if busting through walls should count as a penalty Sarge made them switch to hide-and-seek.
These two are like rivals/grudging friends I can feel it.
inb4 Tink converts Jim to sexual tech heresy

>>39167451
I feel like Twitch and Dorn would get along on many levels.

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>>39167508

Instead of an explosion of angry binary or an immediate attack, the awkward silence was broken by a second voice exploding into laughter. It wasn't exactly happy laughter: it had a definite hysterical edge to it and went on for far longer than Tink's comment warranted. As we sat and waited for it to peter out Sarge cut his comm and asked Twitch if he recognized the voice. Both of them agreed that the speaker was female and someone they'd met before, but couldn't pin it down. Sarge was on the edge of interrupting and asking for some identification when the tech-priest commanded the woman to "Cease her frivolity." This did not go over well.

You know how some people argue like an old married couple and it's sort of cute to watch? Well this wasn't anything like that. They argued like, well, two people who'd been stuck on a desert island together for far too long. Or one person and one damaged blender. It wasn't just awkward to listen to, it was actually a little scary. Weeks or months of pent-up venom poured out in a nearly-incomprehensible tirade from the woman and the priest countered with commands for silence and bursts of binary. It only got harder to listen to when the cogboy cut his comm and she left hers on.

Now that she was talking most of us recognized the woman's voice and at Sarge's order we followed the sound of the argument. After a few blocks of walking we found a familiar guardswoman, face gone crimson, screaming at a senior-looking tech-priest. They were standing in the middle of a half-looted convenience store with half a dozen servitors forming a menacing looking ring around the woman. Nubby and Twitch grabbed Tink before he could anything stupid and Sarge awkwardly cleared his throat.

To everyone's surprise, especially Sarge's, the argument came to a sudden halt. Our fearless leader was nearly knocked off his feet as the guardswoman screamed his name and tackled him. Nubby took a picture.

>>39167566
Yeah, I got the same vibe. Perhaps it's a screenshot from Dead Island?

>>39167253
>several million tonnes of powdered silicate and organic matter
I brushed off the silicates as vehicles, armour, etc. that'd been fucked hard by gauss fire.

>>39167246
Damn, Shoggy; moving right along tonight. But I will catch up!

>>39167606
>guardswoman

who?

>>39167606
Guardswoman...the one they left with the rosette after they dealt with the bitch interrogator?

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>>39167606

While being tackled by a heavily armed and moderately attractive woman is surprising in its own right, what really caught us off guard was the fact that she was crying. See, we knew this guardswoman, both as a fellow passenger from the Occurrence Border, and as one of the few survivors of a rather unsuccessful mission to purge some genestealers. She was originally from some nobby regiment and had one of those thirty syllable names, but we all called her Aimy.

Now, if any of us had been asked to describe Aimy we'd have used words like Solid, Professional, and Dangerous. Never hysterical or weepy or inclined-to-hug-random-noncoms. I mean, it was a commonly held belief that she'd saluted her own mother every night before bed. Which sort of made sense when you remembered that her mother was a Lord General. Anyway the point is that her breakdown was terrifying more than anything.

Sarge disentangled himself and, as politely as possible, asked Aimy why the hell she was here. Last any of us heard her team had been farther towards Tau space and had been one of the ones to go MIA. Nubby chimed in and pointed out that everyone had thought she was dead. Twitch suggested that maybe she was, and asked Fumbles to check if she was a ghost. This triggered another round of hysterical giggling and got Twitch a hug of his own, which terrified the demolitions trooper.

The reunion was brought to a halt when the tech-priest rolled over to us with his servitor posse. In typical high-ranking cogboy fashion he commanded everyone to shut up and take him to the shuttle. Our presence was not ideal, but could be made to serve the Omnissiah. This triggered another shift from hysterical to furious in Aimy.

>>39167642
That's the only one I think they know, unless one of the trainees was female and that just wasn't mentioned as being irrelevant.....

Ahh, yeah, it was her!

>>39167653
Shoggy, we need a reminder. Whos this again? And where did we see her?

Ah shit it's time for some Guardsmen Party!

>>39167691
Guardswoman from the one with the crazy interrogator who was really a heretic as well as really hot.

>>39167691
https://09cd64678bddc0198cca7fef0df8ce7b359fff2d.googledrive.com/host/0B3Z9sXPTD9rpN2owNGdVWmdFWXM/agp.html#title-girl
You want to re-read the All Guardsman Party and Nubby's Girlfriend.

>>39167653
AIMy.

Huh.

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>>39167653

This time we were in a better position to understand what was being said. The main thread of the argument seemed to be that the Magos had gotten everyone killed, refused to call for a pickup, and gotten them stranded on an empty world for his bloody metal god. Aimy was done serving the Omnissiah.

For his part the cogboy, who Sarge finally recognized as the xeno-tech hunting Magos who'd been part of our expedition, turned his vocoder up to maximum volume and tried to counter each individual point. Why he was doing it was a mystery, because everything he said just made Aimy angrier and convinced us that the guy was a complete tool. The bullshit about how his mission couldn't be jeopardized by bringing in unbelievers or how he was not responsible for the behavior of organics was bad enough, but the crowning moment of tool-dom was when he pointed at three familiar looking servitors and claimed that Aimy's companions "still retained the majority of bodily functions." That neatly answered the question of where the arbite and clerics she'd been teamed up with had gotten to.

Over the next few minutes things degraded even further as Tink started needling the tech-priest as well. Sarge was about ready to step in and end the shouting match one way or another when Twitch sidled up next to him. In the quietest and calmest voice he could manage, Twitch told Sarge that these guys weren't the movement he'd spotted and he was fairly sure we were being watched. He asked if we could, very casually, start falling back to a more defensible position. Sarge looked around at the floor to ceiling windows on three of the walls around us and agreed that that might be a good idea.

>>39167733
>>39167735

Oh her. We never did get her name.

>>39167759
>The bullshit about how his mission couldn't be jeopardized by bringing in unbelievers or how he was not responsible for the behavior of organics was bad enough, but the crowning moment of tool-dom was when he pointed at three familiar looking servitors and claimed that Aimy's companions "still retained the majority of bodily functions." That neatly answered the question of where the arbite and clerics she'd been teamed up with had gotten to.
Wwwwwwwow.

>>39167606
>>39167653
>>39167759

Wow. Just...

You know, I hope Tink's plasgun is gonna "misfire" and blow that guy's head off. It wouldn't be the first Magos they've killed, or the first bunch of servitors.

Also, no wonder she's damn-near hysterical. That kind of treatment is enough to unhinge anybody. Twitch would have blown the son of a bitch up alrady.

>>39167759
>The bullshit about how his mission couldn't be jeopardized by bringing in unbelievers or how he was not responsible for the behavior of organics was bad enough, but the crowning moment of tool-dom was when he pointed at three familiar looking servitors and claimed that Aimy's companions "still retained the majority of bodily functions." That neatly answered the question of where the arbite and clerics she'd been teamed up with had gotten to.

What the fuck.

Where those guys hurt very badly? Still he could have given them augs instead of turning them into servitors. Fucker.

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>>39167802

>>39167830
If not for the case of slight immediate peril, I expect the APG would be working out how to arrange an accident for this guy...

Even Jim wouldn't object, I think. There are some things even someone with a ltierally mechanical heart shouldn't be so cold-hearted as to do, and turning allies and friends and friends of allies into servitors AND CONTINUING TO USE THEM IN THEIR PRESENCE is pretty high on the list, even if it is several notches bellow building a daemoni-gnarlo-servo-titan and becoming a Daemonhost.

Maybe once they're back on the Border, they should tell this complete TOOL that the Cogtain shrine had been acting up and someone who was both experienced and ranked well in the Mechanicus needed to go in and fix it. And then wall him in him with the Cogtain screaming.

>>39167759
What a fucking Nigerian.
Like, the toolest Nigerian that ever nigerianed in Nigeria.

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>>39167759

Employing the entirety of his acting talent, Sarge announced that some fresh air might calm everyone down. Nubby took the hint and grabbed Aimy while Sarge tried to chivy the Magos out of the shop, when that didn't work he just got behind the tech-priest and started pushing until he got the point. Twitch, trying to keep his head from swivelling like a nervous pidgeon's, set his eyes on a sturdy looking garage and led the way

Twitch casually gave a hand signal as he walked. Tink correctly interpreted this as an order to send out his stealthed drone and Fumbles got the point after Nubby kicked him in the shin. The psyker swayed a little and tripped over a curb, but when we hauled him to his feet he shook his head and muttered about everything looking clear.

At the back of the group the shouting match continued, even though Aimy's heart obviously wasn't in it anymore. She'd picked up on what was happening and everyone could tell she was trying to hide the fact that she was terrified. The only people that were oblivious to the change in the atmosphere were the tech-priests. The Magos had really started picking up steam now that Aimy was distracted; he was loudly badmouthing just about everyone and made it very hard to concentrate on looking casual.

We'd reached the edge of the garage when Tink made a sort of high pitched wheezing sound and went pale. Everyone took the hint and started power-walking towards the opening. Well, almost everyone. At the back of the group the Magos and his servitors had come to a halt and the tech-priest was in full monologue mode. He stood there, stock still and surrounded by his herd of servitors, and loudly declared his genius, devotion, and general craziness to the rest of the world. As he entered the safety of the garage Sarge glanced back at the Magos then at Tink, who shook his head violently.

Sarge sighed, grabbed a smoke grenade, and chucked it at the Magos' feet at the exact same moment the sniper fired.

>>39167809
>>39167802
>>39167845
>>39167830


If there is one thing that is true in every setting in existence, it's that anyone more than one rank above you would sell you for a ham sandwich and and a backrub. Never forget that.

Shoggy you are the greatest human to post on 4chin.

>>39167915
Happy subordinates are loyal subordinates.
Good, loyal subordinates are worth more than their weight in gold.
Even incompetent, but loyal subordinates have their uses and should not be discarded trivially.


Also, I hate to say that I'm rooting for an enemy sniper for once, but I'm rooting for the enemy sniper to land his first shot.

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>>39167900

The shot was perfectly aimed: a nearly invisible las-beam of came in at the Magos' eye level. It would've been a clean kill if he hadn't had a refractor shield. There was a blinding flash where the beam met the shield and the tech-priest started screaming orders at his servitors.

Now that the charade was over Sarge asked for a sitrep as everyone got their weapons ready. Tink claimed there were two hostiles wearing some sort of stealth suits and carrying rifles, neither of them had line of sight inside the garage. Their stealth was damned good, so there were probably more he hadn't spotted, but they either couldn't hit us or were all focusing on the Magos.

Speaking of the Magos, he'd apparently decided not to come join us in our cover and had hunkered down in the smoke with his servitors. The six meat-puppets had formed a sort of wall around him and were firing an indiscriminate barrage into the surrounding area. It didn't look like they had any real idea of where the snipers were and as we watched two of the servitors went down to incredibly well-placed shots. Our desire to go out there and help him dropped sharply.

All of us were familiar with sniper and counter-sniper tactics. Tink was told to continue sweeping for hostiles and Fumbles was ordered to do likewise. The theory was that once we had their location we could lay down suppressing fire or start flanking. Until we knew where all the snipers were, even if none of them had shot at us yet, we were effectively pinned. Unfortunately, something about these hostiles had Fumbles stumped he could barely even locate the ones Tink had spotted. The little guy gritted his teeth and pump more psyk into his detection field, but we all felt a wave of despair from him as he only succeeded in covering himself in painful sheet of static-electricity.

Outside another servitor dropped to a head-shot and the Magos started yelling at us to help him.

>>39167900
I would have accidentally grabbed the krak grenade. Screw the info, the fucker needs to die.

>Sarge sighed, grabbed a smoke grenade, and chucked it at the Magos' feet at the exact same moment the sniper fired.

Do ork kommando snipe?
I'm still having my money on Red Corsairs

>>39167999
Orks painted everything purple! This is why no life could be found!

>>39167978
Oh, so when the chips are down, the GENIUS AND INFALLABLE MAGOS begs for help from the organics?

Leave that fucker to rot. He's drawing enemy fire.

>>39167979
He does, but while the middle of a trench fight may be a good time to frag someone, pinned down in a small unit action and being sniped at is not.

If he gets blown up, they won't continue shooting at him and giving their positions away.

Anyone hosting a 40k RP game on Sun/Mon/Tues that needs a player?

>>39168066
This is not the thread for this. Welcome to storytime. Enjoy the read.

>>39167978
I hope you called him Honey and told him to get out of the pot and into some cover.

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>>39167978

It was officially time to either shit or get off the pot, at the current rate the Magos was going to be dead before we had all the snipers localized. The more pragmatic members of the squad pointed out that this wasn't such a bad thing and suggested that we just run for the shuttle while he drew fire, but Sarge vetoed this perfectly valid plan. At his order everyone popped smoke and split out in two teams.

Sarge, Aimy, and Twitch pushed out and started laying suppressive fire and grenades onto the two rough locations Tink had given them. Tink, Nubby, and Fumbles went out the back to try and flank the sniper between us and the shuttle. Meanwhile, Jim ordered his three skulls to help the drone search the area, warmed up the shuttle's perimeter defences, and relayed the situation to the ship.

Everything started out so well. The two snipers immediately stopped firing, Tink managed to spot a third and put a plasma-bolt through the bastard's cover, and our flankers were almost in position. It was really looking like we were going to be able to neutralize the hostile or at least get to the Magos and start a nice, orderly retreat. Then two things happened and everything went to shit.

At first we thought the snipers had popped smokes of their own and were falling back. The buildings they were holed up in went sort of hazy and vague, but the fog didn't drift and a second later the snipers resumed firing from inside the cloud. Another servitor went down and Twitch's grenade detonated in mid-arc. Fumbles screamed "PSYKER" at the exact same moment the lascannon fired.

Lascannon really isn't the right world, but damned if we could think of a better one. A lascannon typically fires a large, powerful beam, and brief beam. This thing was barely larger than a multi-laser and walked in a brief arc across the battlefield. It just sliced through everything it touched: walls, lampposts, the car Sarge was hiding behind, servitors, and tech-priests.

>>39168044
You're probably right, and that's probably why I would not be the one in charge.

>>39165875
holy shit live shoggy thread

>>39168106
>Lascannon really isn't the right world, but damned if we could think of a better one. A lascannon typically fires a large, powerful beam, and brief beam. This thing was barely larger than a multi-laser and walked in a brief arc across the battlefield. It just sliced through everything it touched: walls, lampposts, the car Sarge was hiding behind, servitors, and tech-priests.

Hrm. That doesn't sound like Eldar heavy weapons, or Tau. This is definitely something obscure. The poor bastards may be deep in House-Rules Country.

Just as long as it doesn't kill anybody we like, s'all good.

>>39168106
Sarge...

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>>39168106

Sarge laid there for a second, trying to blink away the purple afterimages and get his bearings. He was lying on the ground and was also apparently inside of a car. He looked out a side window, which was oddly level with his head, and saw some sort of red and chrome spider monster flailing towards him.

Sarge tried to turn his lasgun towards this new threat, but it was wedged against the roof of the car. He futilely pushed at the roof with his hands, then his legs, as the spider thing inched closer on it's metal legs. At the last second a pair of hair-thin beams stabbed into the spider and it fell to the ground. Sarge breathed a sigh of relief which turned into a choked scream when something tightened across his throat.

Twitch hauled Sarge out from under the decapitated car by the collar. It was an impressive feat given their relative sizes and the unhelpful way the big man was flailing around. The servitors were scragged, those last sniper shots seemed to have finished off the cogboy, and there was no telling what the psyker or lascannon would do next. In his professional opinion it was time to live to fight another day.

Twitch hit Sarge with his emergency stimm while Aimy popped her last smoke. Under its cover they half-carried Sarge back to the relative safety of the garage. Once inside, Aimy kept her longlas trained on the smoke-filled entrance while Twitch tried to everyone on the situation. Before he got two words out the lascannon cut through the entire building at shoulder height.

>>39168158
>Before he got two words out the lascannon cut through the entire building at shoulder height.

Don't you hate it when the enemy's weapons are such that heavy Imperial garage walls are not cover?

At least Sarge is alive and apparently not bisected...

On the other hand, are these the guys who were causing the trail of destruction? Or just some others who were following it, got stranded, and they're not going to be polite about commandeering the AGP's shuttle?

>>39168158
>SHOULDER HEIGHT
FUG NOO NO NO NO NO NO

>>39168158
I don't know who you're fighting, but I am grudgingly impressed with how they solve problems with superior firepower.

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>>39168158

The flanking team was having better luck all things considered. Jim's skulls were hounding the sniper Tink had flushed out and Fumbles had a rough bead on the enemy psyker. Tink sent his drone to get the exact position and charged up his plasma-gun while Nubby and Fumbles poured las-fire and psychic shrieks into the clouds concealing the two active snipers. Their accuracy was abysmal, but the angle of their attack and sheer volume of fire was enough to force the hostiles to rebase. None of them realized how bad the situation had gotten until they heard Twitch's warning get cut off by the second lascannon strike.

In an uncharacteristic act of bravery Nubby led the charge back towards the garage, taking Fumbles with him and leaving Tink on overwatch. Jim diverted his medi-skull to follow them, then sent the rest of his minions to find the lascannon before it could fire again. They found the building teetering alarmingly, but still upright and with Sarge standing in the middle, barking at the other two troopers to get back on their feet.

Back in the garage Sarge was dealing with a minor mutiny. He was of the opinion that Magos was still alive and a pickup needed to be made, Twitch and Aimy disagreed. Nubby got to the door just in time to hear the noncom shout that the Magos was still moving and could be saved if they hurried. Aimy countered this argument by hefting her long-las and putting a hot-shot through the head of the twitching tech-priest. Further debate was delayed by the roof caving in.

>>39168158
jesus, that thing might be a stealthed fire prism or something. Its certainly packing the heavy amount of firepower.

>>39168250
...pffft

>>39168250
Well they aren't dead yet at least...

>>39168264
Definitely vehicle-grade fire power.

>>39168220
It is indeed an admirable trait in one's allies.

One's enemies? Not so much.

>>39168250
>Aimy countered this argument by hefting her long-las and putting a hot-shot through the head of the twitching tech-priest. Further debate was delayed by the roof caving in.

Once Sarge is thinking more clearly, he'll come to realize this was the correct decision to make, and he was only in favor of rescuing the magos because he was talking out of his brass.

Obviously, she gave a critically-wounded man the Emperor's Mercy And that's what it had better say on the report.

>>39168250
THEY LIVED

YES THEY ALL LIVED

RIGHT?

>>39168305
Looks like

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>>39168250

There's nothing like a few tons of collapsing stone to motivate a hasty retreat. Nubby, as usual, led our sprint back to Twitch's position with a stimmed up Sarge hard on his heels and the rest of the group trailing behind. None of us even registered Jim's question over the comms.

As we regrouped Tink's drone finally found his target, a large blob of overcharged plasma sailed across the plaza and into a tasteful little restaurant. Instead of just burning through the building it splashed against something in the back with a crackling explosion. Tink cheered, then swore, then yelled something about tackle and burst into laughter. Twitch barely managed to pull him down in time: the sniper's shot cut a neat little notch out of the techie's helmet.

None of us wanted to start this shit again. Fumbles threw up a half-assed cloak, and we all started falling back towards the shuttle in pairs. Now that we knew what to look for we could see three indistinct blurs poking in and out of cover, we did our best to return fire as we ran, but the buggers had nerves of steel. For every ten shots we put down range they returned one incredibly well aimed one. Only the combination of our cover, Fumbles' cloak, and a huge amount of suppressive fire kept us alive.

That's not to say we got out of there unscathed, those hair-thin las-bolts nailed everyone at least once. If you stuck a toe outside of cover they'd shoot it, and if you didn't they'd try and punch a shot right through. The only one of us who managed to score a hit on them was Aimy, and the second time she tried to line up a shot her long-las exploded in her hands as they put a shot down the barrel. Stopping and waiting for Jim's medi-skull, which had gone Emperor-knows-where during the retreat, was out of the question, so Sarge wound up popping another stimm and carrying her for the last sprint to the shuttle.

We all felt tremendous relief when the shuttle's multilasers finally forced the snipers to back off.

>>39168291
I mean, we've got snipers with impressive invisibility (rangers) a psyker (Warlock) and some heavy vehicle based firepower (fire prism). my money is on this group being an eldar investigations team trying to figure out what the hell is going on with all these dead mon'keigh worlds, and picking a fight because the only good mon'keigh is a dead mon'keigh.

>>39168304
I said I respected it, not that I was happy about it.

Happy would be how I feel when I have even heavier ordnance to call in.

Or when I can flank them and repurpose their weaponry.

>>39168389

>stealth

>lance weapons

Shadow Spectres aaaaaaaaaaa

>>39168152
>Hrm. That doesn't sound like Eldar heavy weapons, or Tau. This is definitely something obscure. The poor bastards may be deep in House-Rules Country.
Volkite weapon?

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>>39168389

As we reached the top of the shuttle's loading ramp Twitch asked if anyone knew what had happened to the lascannon. Right on cue a section of bulkhead started glowing then the damned beam punched through with a spray of molten metal. Jim didn't bother waiting for an order, the engines roared to life and our big, ungainly shuttle started to wallow upwards. As the rear ramp began to close the lascannon fired again and neatly burned through its hydraulics. Everyone resisted the urge to go poke their heads out the broken door and see what was shooting those beams at us.

At this point Tink, who'd been rather focused on not getting shot like the rest of us, realized that someone was missing. He yanked the drone controller off his harness and started screaming at Jim to slow down. Jim correctly interpreted this as a terrible idea and ignored it. Everyone who wasn't collapsing from blood loss or stimm aftereffects watched as the techie frantically slammed at the drone's controls and screamed curses. The show was briefly interrupted when the lascannon burned through the floor about a meter in front of Tink's feet, but resumed after a few evasive maneuvers slammed us around like pinballs.

It didn't take a savant to see that Tink was losing his race. Spot the wonder-drone was great at stealth and recon, but it just wasn't built for this sort of speed. Nubby clomped over and put a hand on techie's shoulder. He suggested that maybe Tink should park the drone somewhere, we'd probably be able to come back and get it in a few years.

Tink whirled around and had his drone controller raised like a club when the lascannon fired again. The shuttle pitched forward as the tail of the vessel exploded in a fireball.

>>39168427
Nothing denotes honor and mutual respect like trading fire with equally heavy ordinances with your enemy.

First time I actually go one /tg/, and I catch one of theses things live. I am truly blessed

>>39168483
you know what they say "There is no 'overkill.' There is only 'open fire' and 'I need to reload.'"

>>39165875
I missed you man.

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>>39168480

The difference in attitude between Tink and the rest of us when the lascannon took out our tail engine was profound. While everyone else screamed, clutched at the safety handles, or prayed to the Emperor, he let out a whoop of joy and ran to the jammed ramp. A few sniper beams sailed past him and were ignored in favor of a small tan shape which, now that our speed had been cut in half, was steadily growing larger.

Tink cooed at the damned thing like a puppy, which was admittedly better than a girlfriend, but still. As it closed the last dozen meters he spread his arms wide and tried to catch it, only to get knocked off his feet as a smaller and faster object sailed through. The drone followed a second later and slammed into Twitch, who'd been holding on for dear life in a far corner.

Tink sat up and groped at the object that had knocked him on his ass. He raised two blood-covered hands, registered that he was holding a severed head attached to a medi-skull, and started screaming. Jim appeared in the hatch leading to the cockpit asked if the magos had made it aboard.

The cogboy barely managed to wrench the gory thing away from Tink before it was chucked back out the tail hatch. Jim held the Magos' head up like some sort of trophy and turned to face Sarge with a rather proud expression on his face. Unfortunately our barely conscious leader wasn't able to offer any suitable praise, all he managed was bleary "Who's flying the shuttle?"

Jim swore and ran back into the cockpit, barely managing to dodge the next lascannon beam. Thankfully that was the last shot, everyone breathed a sigh of relief and slumped into their seats. Well more of a gasp of relief, we were all pretty out of breath and our ears were hurting for some reason. Tink eyed all the holes in the cargo-bay and kicked the rest of us to our feet.

We wound up packing seven people and, for some damned reason, the drone into the two-man cockpit. It wasn't comfortable, but at least there was air.

>>39168525
Incorrect trip but nice play, anon.

>>39168474

Shoggy said in the other thread that they were using Shas's books this game. There are multiple weapons in those books that rake across areas.

>>39168474
Nah, that'd make people internally combust.
Throne, I love those things. Turning Daemons to red mist before they can spray Insanity/Corruption everywhere since M30ish?

>>39168575
>SPOT LIVED

All is well.

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>>39168575

Between all the sweating, bleeding people, the Magos' severed head, and Nubby's uniquely indescribable odor that cockpit was getting pretty manky by the time we reached the Occurrence Border. As soon as the bay was pressurized we piled out and collapsed on the first available surface. The ship's air, which always smelled faintly of burnt cabbage, had never tasted so sweet.

The Hospitaller and her minions were waiting for us in the docking bay along with a disconcertingly high number of tech-priests. Thinking fast, if not hard, Tink jammed the techno-heretical drone up the front of his shirt, which made him look pregnant and caused a fair bit of amusement among the orderlies. None of the cogboys seemed to notice, and after they'd taken possession of the Magos' head, for Data Extraction they'd said, all of them left without incident. Sarge tried to follow them, but only got a few meters before the Hospitaller neatly tripped him onto a gurney. The incredibly fluffy pillow defeated any further attempts to refuse treatment.

While the burns Aimy had received when her long-las exploded got the most attention, all of us wound up getting hauled to the medbay by Doc's valkyrian girlfriend. Well, except for Jim, who tagged along with the other tech-priests to keep an eye on his… sample? trophy? rescuee? Whatever you called the head your medi-skull had sawed off the still-warm body of its patient. Seriously, that right there is why no one trusts those things.

>>39168480
BUT WHAT ABOUT SPOT?!
>>39168575
*Angelic choir*
Spot will live.

Neat! Shoggy, a combo of your AGP OW prelude & the GM reading the first Cain omnibus helped resuscitate a DH group, which has grown to 9 players, 1/3 of which are new to the setting &/or RP in general!

Maybe they can download the contents of the magos' brain-bank??

>>39168669
That is a thing that can happen, yes.

The Emperor Protects, Anon.

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>>39168646

Anyway, everyone except Sarge was stuck in the medbay for a while. Despite their size, those sniper beams had been just as nasty as any lasgun's, and it was surprising how many holes we had in us. Sarge was set loose after a basic patch-job and yet another stimulant, thankfully not a combat one this time, to go and talk with the adepts and other Interrogators. Doc made him promise to come back for a complete round of treatment the second the situation was resolved.

Speaking of Doc, he was rather happy to see us all again. Nubby filled him in on the basics of what had happened, with Twitch and Fumbles correcting the occasional exaggeration. Doc was as surprised as the rest of us had been when we got to the part about running into Aimy and the Magos, he wheeled over to where she was being treated by the Hospitaller just to verify we weren't bullshitting him. In his semi-professional medical opinion she was in for a rough few days as they speed-grew the skin on her face and arms, but she should recover without much scarring or needing any augmetics. He claimed his girlfriend had a lot of experience treating burns, something about working with trainee dominions.

While the rest of us chatted with Doc, Tink had pulled the screen around his bed and loudly threatened to shoot anyone who looked inside. Occasionally the nurses would look up at the loud clanging sounds and the Do Not Disturb sign then start giggling. When the humor of the situation wore off and the noise was starting to get really annoying, we steeled our nerves and went to see just what he was doing in there.

>>39168669
>Maybe they can download the contents of the magos' brain-bank??

I have a disturbing suspicion that he's going to wind up attached to some kind of mechanical monstrosity, and not even the servitor kind. More like a dreadnaught.

In other words, I have a feeling that we haven't seen the last of him.

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>>39168646
>Whatever you called the head your medi-skull had sawed off the still-warm body of its patient.


oh god

>>39168700

Tink, Tink, Tink. You're supposed to BUFF out dents, not hammer them out.

Or at the very least, save it 'till you're back in the barracks, mate.

>>39168700

>Tink had pulled the screen around his bed and loudly threatened to shoot anyone who looked inside. Occasionally the nurses would look up at the loud clanging sounds and the Do Not Disturb sign then start giggling

This can't end well. Spot, show us on the robo doll where he touched you.

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>>39168700

We found Tink with the drone between his legs, but thankfully his pants were on. He was trying to pop out an impressive dent in the front of Spot's chassis. When asked how it'd happened he reminded us of the enemy psyker he'd taken out. It'd used some sort of shield to deflect his plasma bolt and looked like it was about to launch its own attack. So he'd had Spot ram the bastard, it's hard to cast spells when fifty kilos of angry drone is bashing your head in.

Turns out the psyker had one hell of a helmet though, hence the dent. Still, it'd convinced the warpy bastard that it was time to fall back, so he was calling it a win. Doc, who'd been eyeing the large lens next to the dent, cut into the story at this point and asked if that meant he had a clear picture of the attackers. Tink shrugged and admitted that he probably did, but so did the adepts who'd been watching the feed. They'd get around to telling us tell us who it was eventually and he was the only one who could fix this dent, so his priorities were clear.

The rest of us were a little more curious so Nubby yanked the spanner out of Tink's hands and refused to give it back until he pulled up the vid of the ramming. After a little fast-forwarding he found it and everyone crowded around the data-slate. We were treated to a view of a small room with a blurry figure standing in the middle of it and gesturing. As we watched the blur was replaced by a large circular shield and the screen went blindingly bright. When the flash faded there was a tall robed figure with a sword and egg-shaped helmet standing there panting. He raised his sword, gathered some sort of lighting around it, and then the drone hit him right in the back of his stupid hat.

>>39168773

ELDAR SCUM

>>39168773
egg shaped helmet and lighting sword? Definite Eldar warlock, but why were they there?

Do they think the Necrons are behind this dead planet bullshittery?

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>>39168773

>>39168773
Serves that space elf right! Nobody messes with the Guard and gets away with it!

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>>39168773

Other Inquisitorial agents might have sat there and carefully examined the psyker's robes or weapon for clues. We just kept having Tink rewind it so we could see the headbutt again. When he got the sound turned on it made this great sort of hollow clang every time the drone hit him. There was much debate over which was the best part, the initial impact or the part where his head went through the drywall and got stuck. Either way it was the best show we'd seen in a long time

We wound up putting the vid on repeat on all the screens in the medbay. It was very therapeutic to see the bastard flailing his fancy sword around in an attempt to fend off the drone and cut his head free at the same time. At Twitch's urging Tink even etched a little egg-helmeted face on the side of Spot's chassis to commemorate the event. Everyone was in remarkably good spirits considering we were stuck in the medbay for the foreseeable future. Well, except for Aimy who was still tranqued up for the worst part of her burn treatment. Fumbles tried to send her a mental image of the whole thing as she slept, but Doc made him stop after a nearby diagnostic cogitator caught fire.

While the rest of us were laughing ourselves sick over the Inquisitions Funniest Home Videos, Sarge was attending a very serious meeting with some very serious people. You could tell they were serious because none of them even smiled when the adepts played the drone-ramming clip for them; they just muttered to each other about which craftworld the Eldar Warlock had come from and what possible hand they could have in everything. Sarge primarily contributed to this discussion by resting his head on the table and agreeing with anything our team's adepts said.

>>39168788
A few people's financial portfolios just improved dramatically, I expect.

>>39168773
I KNEW IT. Only goddamn knife-ears would clean up their messes, the fucking hippies.

>>39168773
Wych
A fucking wych
Fukken eldars

>>39168773
THAT! That right there is how you deny the witch!

>>39168813
>Inquisitions Funniest Home Videos

With favorite moments like:
>My Psyker just turned into a chicken
>The Adept thought the cooking timer going off was a bomb
and
>Dance if you don't want to be conscripted!

>>39168824
they might just have been investigating as well there is no evidence to tie them to the planetary disappearance

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>>39168813

In Sarge's opinion the other two Interrogators were putting way too much effort into trying to understand the Eldar's motives. They'd gone through the vids from Tink's drone and Jim's skulls frame by frame and determined that there'd been a Warlock, three rangers, and some sort of heavy weapon team operating a brightlance. There was a little debate on the last point, since all of Jim's drones had been shot before they could get a good picture. Neither of the other teams had run into any hostiles, and they hadn't spotted anything when they'd done a flyby of the island, so it looked like that was it for their ground assets.

Sword-guy halfheartedly suggested that the Eldar could be behind the disappearances, they were xenos with access to warp powers and archeotech after all. He didn't press the issue when Sarge grumpily asked why they hadn't used their creepy-silhouette-leaving people-disappearer instead of shooting at us with fancy lasguns.

Battleaxe claimed that the small size of their force suggested they were an assassination team. Given their attack pattern, location, and the fact that no one else of importance was nearby, their target must have been the Magos. From his spot at the end of the table Sarge grumbled that he'd told everyone the xenos had been trying to kill the tech-priest an hour ago. Battleaxe ignored him and pointed out that the real question was whether this was connected to the disappearances and if it was because Magos had known something.

Rather annoyed at having been ignored, Sarge sarcastically suggested that they ask the Magos that question. To his considerable surprise everyone took this seriously, with Sword-guy even asking his psyker if he was capable of leading a seance. The debate over whether the ritual was more likely to result in useful information or a daemon manifestation was still raging when the tech-priests arrived.

>>39168390
just gonna quote myself, and revel in calling that quite nicely.

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>>39168842

Wrong type of Eldar. Wyches are DEldar. I'm assuming these aren't DEldar.

>>39168865
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/7526642/

OH AUN THE PAIN

>>39168892
>they just muttered to each other about which craftworld the Eldar Warlock had come from
yeah probably not a dark eldar

>>39168883
Well done, well called. I was quite wrong.

>>39168874
>The debate over whether the ritual was more likely to result in useful information or a daemon manifestation was still raging when the tech-priests arrived.

Please please don't let him be attached to a dreadnought thing. Please, please don't let him be attached to a dreadnought thing...

>>39168924
Come on anon, hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.
You KNOW he's going to be attached to a giant dreadnought thing.

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>>39168874

Just saying they arrived doesn't do it justice. Every single cogboy over the rank of Enginseer on the Occurrence Border walked, rolled, floated, or slithered into the meeting room. The ratio of metal to meat in there hit fifty-fifty in the first few seconds and climbing towards eighty-twenty when Jim brought up the rear of the procession. Sarge took notice of how nervous the younger cogboy looked as, at an order from a senior tech-priest, he sealed the door behind him.

It occurred to the burly noncom that if a bunch of Guardsmen had done something like this, it would've been because some officer was about to become a friendly fire statistic. Sarge edged his chair away from the table and towards the most defensible corner he could find and casually put one hand in his pocket. No one except Jim paid him any attention. The Enginseer leaned out from behind his seniors and awkwardly tried to indicate that this was not the time to pull out a grenade. Or possibly that his neck hurt and he wanted to lie down for a while, Jim was bad at Guard hand signals.

After a bit of unpleasant silence the coggiest of the cogboys finally decided that the tension had built to acceptable levels. In a loud, authoritative, and entirely synthetic voice he proclaimed that a seance would not be necessary, they'd extracted all relevant data from the Magos' eidetic memory chip. He just sort of stopped there with no explanation of what the data actually was, leaving the non-metallic portion of the room awkwardly waiting. The second Battleaxe began to ask, the head tech-priest cut her off with a shout of "That information is sacred. It contains Mechanicus secrets. Sharing it with the those who do not venerate the Omnissiah in his true form would be heretical." The cogboys behind him echoed the words Sacred, Secrets, and Heretical like shitty backup singers.

Sarge let out a weary sigh and rubbed his aching temples. It was going to be a long meeting.

>>39168948
There's a slim chance they turned the bastard into a floating servo-skull holoprojector.

>>39168959

This seems like some fucking shitty meme virus.

Obviously we should purge the techpriests off this ship.

>>39168959
>The Enginseer leaned out from behind his seniors and awkwardly tried to indicate that this was not the time to pull out a grenade. Or possibly that his neck hurt and he wanted to lie down for a while, Jim was bad at Guard hand signals.

They need to adopt this boy and Hannah full time. Find a cargo bay, turn it into a boot camp. Turn the honorary guardsmen into proper guardsmen.

If you can engine, good. If you can engine *and* use a lasgun, so much the better.

>>39168985
That sounds like a good plan, but this is the Occurence Border they're flying. Calling Oak and telling him you're going to have to limp home because you purged the Mechanicus for heresy is the kind of call you don't want to make twice, and they've already made it once.

So, that should be somewhere around Plan Q.

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>>39168959

When Sarge finally staggered back into the medbay he looked bloody exhausted. He pretty much collapsed in the first available bed and at his request we stopped the continuous loop of the Warlock getting his head stuck in the wall. Doc gave him some overdue medical treatment he filled us in on the situation.

To start with, he gave us the official word that we'd been shot full of holes by an Eldar hit-squad. Nubby fistpumped and loudly started calculating what his and Fumbles' share of the pool was. Sarge immediately crushed this happy speculation with the news that the Eldar weren't the cause of the attacks, and had only been there for the Magos unless Aimy could tell us otherwise. No one would be collecting on the pool anytime soon and, unless there was a second group of Eldar, Nubby's odds weren't looking good.

While Nubby whined to himself the discussion shifted to the Magos, his decapitation, and the tech-priests. According to Sarge all of them, even Jim, had a gear up their ass about something they'd gotten out of the Magos' head. It'd been like pulling teeth to get anything out of them, they kept falling back on the whole "We technically only have to answer to the Inquisitor so get an order from him" arguement. In end all they were willing to part with was that the Magos had been chasing a piece of archeotech and had tracked it into the xeno territory. He'd intercepted some reports that confirmed that nature of the archeotech and the heresies the xenos had committed on it. He'd then sent a report to the PROPER AUTHORITIES and was still tracking the archeotech when he was killed by the vile Eldar. Finally, the nature of the tech was not for us to know, but it would not cause the sort of disappearances we'd seen; we should turn our investigations elsewhere.

The priests had refused to say anything more. The PROPER AUTHORITIES had been notified and the matter should be left to them. Further probing into the Mechanicus' holy secrets would be un-wise.

>>39168985
>This seems like some fucking shitty meme virus.

Machine spirits are being both pissy and snarky.

Decide to infect all the high level Tech-Priests with a mime virus.

>>39169020
>>39168959

You dropped your name Shoggy

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>>39169003
>That sounds like a good plan, but this is the Occurence Border they're flying. Calling Oak and telling him you're going to have to limp home because you purged the Mechanicus for heresy is the kind of call you don't want to make twice, and they've already made it once.

>So, that should be somewhere around Plan Q.

>>39169020

They found a flippin' STC, didn't they?

That or a manual for setting the time on a VCR

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>>39169020

It had taken a heroic effort by the other two Interrogators and our old diplomat adept to convince the tech-priests that their warning was understood. The entire army of cogboys had left secure in the knowledge that no one would be poking into their business, and that everyone would be focussing on the completely unconnected matter of the disappearances. The second they were gone one of the psykers had done something that made the room sound all weird and the diplomat had asked for a show of hands.

"Who here," he'd asked, "thinks we're looking for a piece of insanely dangerous archeotech, that's either wiping all intelligent life off worlds or is being pursued by someone who is willing to do so to keep it secret." The Ayes had it by a landslide; Sarge said it was nice to be reminded that not everyone in the Inquisition was stupid or insane.

In the end the working theory was that someone was hauling this thing from Tau space to the Imperium via warpship. Whether it was to sell, study, worship, or use as a weapon on Imperial worlds was up to debate, but it was obvious that the Mechanicus and the Eldar were both chasing it. It was impressive that whoever was carrying it was managing to stay ahead of both of them, the fact that they were evading pursuit probably explained the semi-random course across the the border worlds though.

The question was what to do about it. There was no way we'd back off and let the Admech handle things, Imperial worlds getting wiped out like the one we'd just visited wasn't acceptable. The only options were to try and catch the carrier in a stern chase, try to predict their next destination and set an ambush, or go get some real reinforcements and try to lock down the entire sub-sector. Debates were had, charts were consulted, the Captain was called down, and three possible destinations were laid out.

>>39169034
thx

>>39169020
It's Necrons, and there is an STC involved. Rogue trader probably sold that shit to the Admech immediately.

>>39169063
It is almost definite.

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>>39169063

The Captain was in favor getting reinforcements and wanted us to chart a course to the largest Imperial world along the border. Battleaxe and Sword-guy thought too much damage would be done before a response was mustered. She wanted us to try and jump ahead to a refueling way station that looked like it might be in the right direction; he wanted to head towards a nearby Imperial world with a rather untrusted governor that might be either be a target or buyer. Sarge, who was barely awake enough to follow what was going on, wound up being the tie-breaker.

When all three of his adepts had just shrugged, Sarge had fallen back on his noncom instincts. He'd stood straight, squared his shoulders, and stabbed his finger at the middle option on the chart. Sarge'd loudly declared that it was the only real choice, then retreated back up to the medbay before anyone realized he'd just randomly picked one. None of us saw any problem with this decision making process.

In the morning, or whatever you call it when the ship's lights jump from ten percent to max power and the Captain blares reveille over the comm system, Sarge got around to debriefing Aimy. She told a fairly unpleasant tale of wandering around the ass-end of the sector as the Magos did his thing.

Aimy and her team had been treated like mushrooms, that is to say kept in the dark and fed horseshit. They'd never learned anything about their mission aside from the fact that archotech was involved, and had mostly spent their time getting shot at by over a dozen different groups ranging from gangers to planetary police forces. It wasn't some sort of giant conspiracy though, the Magos just didn't give a shit; If there was something in the way he'd throw bodies at it all day long if it meant getting through quicker. He wasn't too particular about where those bodies came from either, if his team couldn't handle a problem he'd improvise. Aimy claimed she'd never look at servitors the same way again.

>>39169020
Shoggy you lost your name.

>>39169087

I don't think its an STC.

I think its that damn necron ship with the rogue trader, the necrons are chasing them and the eldar are chasing the rogue trader's ass as well due to some god-emperor forsaken prophesy that will save one, maybe two eldar lives.

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>>39169102

The next to last straw for Aimy had been an ambush by what she now recognized as Eldar. That'd killed off the last of her teammates and forced a retreat onto a merchant vessel. The Magos had then proceeded to intimidate and bully the merchants into taking him on a tour of the empty worlds. To no one but the Magos' surprise, that relationship had ended with the merchants ditching them at the first opportunity, hence the island.

She'd been stuck there alone with him, well him and the servitor converted bodies of her teammates, for a month. The real kicker was the bastard had a sort of interstellar communicator the whole time. He'd used put in a call to the nearest Forge World but had refused to contact anyone else after the merchant incident. So yeah, all that went a long ways to explaining the hysterics and head-shooting incident.

The end of story though, was Aimy had no really new intel. Between obvious clues, well obvious to our adepts, and that incredibly unsubtle warning from the cogboys, we knew just as much as she did. Speaking of that warning, it'd been awfully convenient that the tech-priests had decided to give it to us instead of just staying quiet. We all suspected that Jim and Hannah had had some hand in the matter, but neither of them were talking to us currently.

As the least-shot member of the squad Nubby, and by extension Fumbles, had been sent to chat with two junior tech-priests after they didn't visit us in the medbay. When Nubby returned he claimed that every time he'd tracked one of them down they'd gotten these really nervous expressions and ran for it. He'd given up after Jim had locked him and Fumbles in a section of maintenance corridor. Also, if Ol' Bill came by asking why one of his techs had a massive headache and why there were reports of warp-ghosts on deck eight, that had nothing to do with him or Fumbles getting tired of waiting for the doors to open again.

>>39169148
>When Nubby returned he claimed that every time he'd tracked one of them down they'd gotten these really nervous expressions and ran for it. He'd given up after Jim had locked him and Fumbles in a section of maintenance corridor.

Well, this shit will not stand.

The higher-ups are clearly bullying Jim and Hannah into staying silent.

Obviously the solution is to have Fumbles on hand next time they start bullying, and force-feed a dose of their own medicine.

>>39169148
>Also, if Ol' Bill came by asking why one of his techs had a massive headache and why there were reports of warp-ghosts on deck eight, that had nothing to do with him or Fumbles getting tired of waiting for the doors to open again.

Awh, poor guy, give 'im some recaf and amasec, in the same battered tin cup at the same time, and let him go catch a few hour's rack time.

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>>39169148

The destination Sarge had chosen, which turned out to be the way station, was a solid week of warp travel away. After about the second day everyone was tired of sitting around the medbay with Doc and his ladyfriend, so we moved back to our nice Gellar Field Generator adjacent quarters. Doc complained a little that our treatments, especially Aimy's, weren't finished, but we figured that coming down and making a few housecalls would be good for him. He'd been getting soft being in that chair all day, some exercise would do him good.

Sarge spent most of the next week putting together reports and contingency plans with the adepts and Interrogators, but he spared some thought for Jim and Hannah. He'd interpreted the junior tech-priests' behavior as a sign that their bosses were acting crazier than usual over this whole thing, and made a note to keep an eye on them. Intimidating impressionable young tech-priests was OUR shtick. Since sending Nubby, Twitch, or Tink to watch them was likely to do more harm than good, some words were had with Ol' Bill and the Captain. The duty roster was shuffled and several unintrusive armsmen and engineers were assigned to the same shifts as our cogbros. It might have been a bit of a paranoid over-precaution, but that's sort of what being a guardsmen in the Inquisition is all about.

Nubby and his partner in petty-crime wandered around the ship a lot during our transit. Anyone with enough brains to pour water out of a boot could tell they were planning to sabotage the betting pool in some way before their inevitable loss, but it wasn't worth doing anything about. As long as Nubby didn't egg Fumbles into changing someone mind for them again, it was about as harmless a pastime as they were likely to find.

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>>39169216

Aimy, who was doing pretty well despite having bags of medical gel stuff taped to half her face and one hand, had initially moved back into the quarters where her team had stayed. Unfortunately, those rooms brought back some unpleasant memories and she was pretty sure the tech-priests were following her. She said that every time she'd turned there was a servo-skull or servitor working nearby. Twitch sympathised with her and offered a solution. He proudly explained that our little base was 99% servitor free, and that other 1% would be gone when he found a ladder tall enough to reach the chunks that had stuck to the ceiling.

She accepted of course, how could anyone refuse an offer like that? About an hour after Aimy moved in her suspicions about the servitors were proved correct when the door claymore gibbed a cleaning servitor. Twitch immediately replaced the mine and got another kill within ten minutes, though that one might have just been there to clean up the first. Either way, they stopped coming after that and Aimy settled into Doc's section of room. She became about as much of a shut-in as Twitch, splitting her time between sleeping off her medical treatment and playing with the toy Tink gave her.

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>>39169216
>As long as Nubby didn't egg Fumbles into changing someone mind for them again

>again

>AGAIN

Details. Now.

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>>39169255
>toy tink gave her

>>39169260

I think he's referring to the engineer they gave a splitting headache by calling for a rescue from the locked corridor.

>>39169296
This is Tink, mind you. It's probably a Tau portable game console or something.

>>39169255
>He proudly explained that our little base was 99% servitor free, and that other 1% would be gone when he found a ladder tall enough to reach the chunks that had stuck to the ceiling.

> About an hour after Aimy moved in her suspicions about the servitors were proved correct when the door claymore gibbed a cleaning servitor. Twitch immediately replaced the mine and got another kill within ten minutes, though that one might have just been there to clean up the first.
"Paranoid" Guardsmen really are the best Guardsmen.

>>39169296
Lol Booster Gold and Blue Beetle

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>>39169255

Tink and Twitch's lives over the week generally revolved around our new barracks-mate. Tink, who seemed a little lonely now the Jim wasn't there to argue with him, had fixed Spot's chassis and replaced it's servo-grox-skull disguise before the end of the second day. After that he went back to work on the xenos pulse rifle camouflage project and seized on Aimy as a guinea pig. She was in the market for a new weapon after all, and it was so much easier to cram a pulse rifle into a long-las' chassis than a regular lasgun's. They spent quite a while blowing holes in various objects and badmouthing tech-priests.

Twitch was just glad to have an actual reason to distrust the servitors and turned the barracks' defences up from 11 to about 13. Sarge called for a slight de-escalation when he started putting small remote charges on every servitor he encountered, just in case they turned en masse. Apparently Jim and Hannah were the ones who had to find and defuse them.

On the seventh day Sarge and the other Interrogators put everyone on an hour alert and prepped the shuttles for immediate launch. The jury was still out on what we were likely to find when we came out of the warp, but if the target was docked at the way station we wanted to neutralize it before it moved again. Also before it attracted a bunch of angry xenos, daemons, or cogboys.

The Occurrence Border came out of the warp at the coordinates where Way Station Alumentum Octavus was supposed to be and found the station to be missing. In its place there was a pitched space battle being fought between an Imperial vessel and an unidentifiable xenos ship.

>>39169313

Aww. I thought they had tried to use it to influence the betting pool previously.

>>39169334
Well that sounds like fun.

>>39169334
>The Occurrence Border came out of the warp at the coordinates where Way Station Alumentum Octavus was supposed to be and found the station to be missing. In its place there was a pitched space battle being fought between an Imperial vessel and an unidentifiable xenos ship.
Fuuuuuuuuck...

>>39169260
>>39169313

Nubby has used Fumbles for criminal purposes on numerous occasions.

The most significant was funding a large portion of our Tau mission by ripping ATM numbers out of civilian minds under the guise of "psyker practice"

Sarge banned this being done to crew members when Nubby used it to get an extra burrito from the mess hall and Fumbles manifested Spoilage in the middle of a room full of eating people.

>>39169334
>Twitch was just glad to have an actual reason to distrust the servitors and turned the barracks' defences up from 11 to about 13.

After the First Flight of the Occurrence Border, it's an Emperor-sent miracle he doesn't blow them away summarily.

>>39169334
>Sarge called for a slight de-escalation when he started putting small remote charges on every servitor he encountered, just in case they turned en masse. Apparently Jim and Hannah were the ones who had to find and defuse them.

Wow. That's...
Emotional blackmail from the Mechanicus? Making literally the only two cogbros - and hence, the only two cogboys - on the ship that the entire AGP would actually regret seeing deadified do the bomb disposal?

Or more likely they're the lowest ranks on the totem pole, so they get the worst job.

Although, it occurs to me that that would be a good way to smuggle a message to them...

>>39169334
>The Occurrence Border came out of the warp at the coordinates where Way Station Alumentum Octavus was supposed to be and found the station to be missing. In its place there was a pitched space battle being fought between an Imperial vessel and an unidentifiable xenos ship.

Well, shit, that's not good. The Border doesn't have much in the way of weaponry, apparently, and what is there isn't exactly the most accurate.

>>39169385
>Nubby has used Fumbles for criminal purposes on numerous occasions.
>The most significant was funding a large portion of our Tau mission by ripping ATM numbers out of civilian minds under the guise of "psyker practice"

I didn't think that would count as an "again", though, since nobody on the group cared since those civvies weren't exactly going to be coming with them?

>>39169385
>Sarge banned this being done to crew members when Nubby used it to get an extra burrito from the mess hall and Fumbles manifested Spoilage in the middle of a room full of eating people.

Hahahahahahahaaaah! Why did you leave that bit out? That's hilarious!

>>39169385

Well at least we know which Chaos God Fumbles' soul will be eaten by now.

>>39169403
Why did you link it each time?

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>>39169334

A quick inspection of the system turned up the missing station farther back in its orbit of the local star than it should have been. In fact, a quick scan revealed that it wasn't in an orbit at all. It was moving in a nice straight line, right down the gravity well. The captain estimated it had passed the the point of no-return about four hours ago, and would start burning in around thirty. He refused to speculate on what sort of weapon or magic could just cancel an entire station's orbital velocity.

As for the ships, our initial instinct to go help the Imperial vessel was quelled when by the Captain. He reminded everyone that the only way the Occurrence Border would win a naval engagement was if the other ship spontaneously exploded before it fired its first broadside. If it exploded afterwards the fight would probably be a draw.

Furthermore, the ship was looking less and less like it needed our help the longer we looked at it. It was definitely a lot bigger than its opponent and was throwing out a staggering amount of firepower. Sure it seemed to be missing the smaller ship with every shot, but nothing the xenos was throwing out made it past their void shields. Also it was squawking stuff like *1010011010 FOR CHAOS 1010011010* across all vox channels and the Astropath refused to tell anyone what he was hearing. The tech-priest on duty on the bridge had immediately declared them to be Hereteks then had left his post to go talk to the other cogboys. No one bothered to stop him.

It was really looking like our best option was to just jump right back out of the system and head somewhere less creepy, that's certainly what the Captain recommended anyway. Except there was the tempting little matter of the station. It was the only thing in the system those ships could possibly be fighting over, and neither was in a position to stop us from taking a quick look…

It was a stupid, stupid idea and it's a miracle we survived.

>>39169385
>Sarge banned this being done to crew members when Nubby used it to get an extra burrito from the mess hall and Fumbles manifested Spoilage in the middle of a room full of eating people.

Ahahaha. The cooks must have been mad pissed.

>>39165875
I'm a bit behind but I will catch up someday soon. Thanks for sharing, Shoggy!

>>39169422
I don't know.

>>39169438
>Also it was squawking stuff like *1010011010 FOR CHAOS 1010011010* across all vox channels and the Astropath refused to tell anyone what he was hearing.

Well shit, that's not good. That's Bad.

Calling it now: this is related to the Heretek that Cutter died taking down like a boss.

>>39169438
>Except there was the tempting little matter of the station. It was the only thing in the system those ships could possibly be fighting over, and neither was in a position to stop us from taking a quick look…

Evacuate civilians? Evacuate civilians!

>>39169442
Moral of the day: When the horrible little man with the robot legs asks for another burrito, just give it to him. Sarge will make him do more PT to make up for it.

>>39169385
That post went from interesting, to funny, to disgusting in only three sentences.

I am impressed.

>>39169438
Yup. The fucking necron ship-thing.

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>>39169438

The Captain had stubbornly refused to get any closer to either the station or the fighting ships than necessary. The Occurrence Border was positioned at nearly the maximum distance from the station its shuttles could travel and sat there with its engines and warp-drive spun up. In the Captains words, "If anyone even looks at me funny, I'm leaving all you stupid bastards to die."

With those encouraging words ringing in our ears everyone boarded their shuttles and went to see what was so special about the Way Station Alumentum Octavus. It says something about how distracted everyone was that we were cruising for about a quarter of an hour before we realized Jim was the one flying and Hannah was the co-pilot. The reunion was sort of spoiled by the little note taped to the cockpit door saying "The shuttle is monitored, talk and move as little as possible, wait for us to give the word."

After long and awkward wait Jim finally came back and announced that he'd looped something or other and we could talk. Hannah refused to leave the cockpit, even though we promised Tink wouldn't do anything weird. Aimy opened the conversation with a polite "What the hell is going on here you metal bastard?" but relented when Sarge vouched for Jim as the broest of cogbros.

The explanation that followed was quick, obviously well rehearsed, and fairly terrifying. The gist of it was that the ship's tech-priests weren't just ansty, they were on the edge of mutiny.

>>39169541
>they were on the edge of mutiny.
oh god

ENACT PLAN Q

>>39169541
WHAT DID THE CAPTAIN DO?!

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>>39169541

Jim hadn't seen the actual data they'd pulled out of the Magos, but whatever this piece of archeotech was, it had practically driven his seniors to a schism. Some of the cogboys wanted the tech destroyed, others wanted it locked away, and a few wanted to study it. The only thing preventing an immediate free-for-all was the fact that the thing wasn't here, and that the Magos had reported it to someone named Juris. The senior tech-priests had eventually agreed to wait for Juris to decide and abide by his decision. Unless, that is, it looked like the archeotech might fall into someone else's hands. Like say, the Inquisition's.

Less holy men, such as us or Jim, might see the ship's senior tech-priests as arrogant, socially stunted, and quite possibly insane, but they were NOT stupid. They knew we'd keep chasing the archeotech and would allow us to continue, for now, but were monitoring all the teams' shuttles and comms. If any of us found information relating to the archeotech or its location we'd be given a single chance to turn it over. If we refused, Jim and the tech-priests piloting the other shuttles had orders to cut our comms and return to the ship. Leaving all three teams to cook on the falling station. In his words, "The Magos Juris must decide this matter, anything else would result in a schism. When the Mechanicus schisms, titans walk and worlds burn. My superiors will see you all dead before they allow that."

After everyone had digested this speech for a while Nubby put on his weaseliest smile and asked Jim if he'd really do that to his old pals. The flat look he got back from the enginseer was incredibly worrying, especially coupled how Jim turned around and went back into the cockpit without saying anything else.

So anyway that's why, when we finally reached the station, our team decided to stay in the shuttle while the others went on ahead. They could probably handle anything in there without us.

>>39169541
>The explanation that followed was quick, obviously well rehearsed, and fairly terrifying. The gist of it was that the ship's tech-priests weren't just ansty, they were on the edge of mutiny.

"We purged the Mechanicus because of treason" would, at least, be an entirely new report to submit to Oak WRT why the Occurrence Border is limping home.

>>39169559
It's gratifying to see a throwaway joke I made earlier boomerang around from another anon's keyboard.

>>39169575
I bet it has nothing to do with the captain. They just know damn well that whatever the Magos found out, it *is* related to what the Border is chasing, and they're ready to purge the unworthy corpse-worshipping plebs so that only true loyal sons of the Omnissiah can get their hands on it.

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>>39169559
REMOVE KEBAB

>>39169584
Truly, the AGP are the bravest of the brave.

>>39169601
You were right>>39169584

I'm tired and forgot about the heresy.

>>39169608
Well, the others are just risking a burning death. The AGP are risking being trapped on the Occurence Border with hostile cogboys and servitors AGAIN.

That really does take courage. That said, this shit cannot be allowed to stand. This challenge to the authority of the =][= must not go unanswered. Somehow, this problem can be solved with explosives.

>>39169607
do you even know what remove kebab means?

honestly, do you know?

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>>39169584

Sarge loudly announced to the other teams that he intended to do visual inspection of the station, y'know for space... stuff. The other Interrogators agreed it was a good idea, but none of us thought of it as anything more than an excuse not to get marooned on a rapidly falling chunk of metal by crazy cogboys. So it was quite a surprise when we cleared a corner and saw the Heretek shuttle already docked to the station.

We managed to call in the sighting just in time to keep the other teams from blundering into a bunch of heavily armed servitors and a tentically tech-priest. According to Battleaxe and Sword-guy the heretek seemed to be searching for something, stopping and doing creepy stuff to every cogitator or comm terminal he encountered. They decided that following the search party and seeing what it turned up was the best use of their time, and switched their teams to stealth mode. We wished them luck and continued our inspection.

Now this is where some less imaginative people would've blown up the docked shuttle, but we were suspicious bastards. Sure enough a little more searching turned up nearly a dozen more shuttles, all of them heavily armed but dormant for now. In our professional opinions twelve to three wasn't good odds, even without factoring in how much better armed they were than us; so Sarge decided to let sleeping shuttles lie and called in a warning to the ground teams, advising them not to engage. Battleaxe interrupted and asked him to repeat the message, it was hard to hear over all the shooting.

>>39169584
Twitch tell me you brought the melta bomb.

>>39169671
Serbs wanting Arabs out of their country and government back in the late 80's

At least that's what my google-fu gave me when I searched the origin a few years ago

My kebab is the Techpriests in this case

DID I MISS IT?!!?

>>39169677

I thought this was supposed to be a sneaking mission battleaxe, what the fuck

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>>39169677

Luckily Sarge's facepalm turned out to be premature. Neither ground team was actually involved in the battle, they were just watching as some third party shot seven types of hell out of the patrol. The question of who the Hereteks were fighting was answered by the sight of a familiar lascannon beam stabbing out of the station hull a short distance away. Aimy summed up everyone's opinion of this development with an incredible streak of swearing.

Different people are curious about different things. Sword-guy was wondering what sort of convoluted plot the Eldar were running. Battleaxe was curious about what the Heretek was looking for in the cogitators. Our team didn't worry about that sort of complex bullshit; we just wanted to know how the Eldar had gotten onto the station, because we sure as hell didn't see any other shuttles out here.

Thanks to the adepts we all knew the pointy-eared bastards liked to use fancy hidden teleporting web dealies to get around, but that's not the sort of thing you find tucked into the corner of a human way station. Either their teleporters had range from where their ship was duking it out with the hereteks', which Jim claimed was incredibly unlikely, or someone was trying to be sneaky. Guardsmen don't like it when other people are sneaky, it typically ends with us getting shot in the back, so we decided to take a harder look at the station.

Since we didn't want to alert anyone to our presence out here, our moderately untrustworthy pilots did what they called a Passive Scan. We understood this to be the equivalent of looking real hard at something, but not going so far as to throw a rock at it to check for mines. Unfortunately, while it didn't blow our cover, it also didn't turn up anything. Sarge was debating ordering some figurative rock-throwing, when Tink announced that it was time to use some real scanners built by real scientists.

>>39169692

They used Big Bertha back on that clusterfuck world with the trainees, remember?

>>39169726
Remember all the times the AGP gets given sneaking missions and they wind up in firefights? Yeah.


Anyway... did theyyou have a voidsuit or three on that shuttle? I'm willing to bet that between Twitch, Jim and Hanna, with Tink driving, you can rig a baker's dozen heretek shuttles to blow up REAL good.

>>39169735
Do it for science!

>>39169744

Nah, I bet they'll probably get a half dozen or so before they're detected and then have to fight the remaining shuttles themselves. It's the AGP way to fight against ludicrous odds after all.

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>>39169735

Jim hastily leaned out and tapped his "You are being monitored" sign before Tink finished pulling off Spot's skulls. There was an awkward sort of pantomimed argument, in which Jim managed to convey that he couldn't turn the cameras off again and Tink managed to convey that Jim was a colossal metal asshole. In the end Tink wound up putting on his void helmet and stepping out the lock with his drone before pulling off its disguise.

Since no one had anything better to do, we all clustered around the little airlock window and tried to watch over Tink's shoulder. It wasn't very interesting, all we could see was him poking at his xenos dataslate and muttering to himself. The real action was happening down below us, where the drone engaged its stealth field and started taking some very close looks at the station and shuttles. Whether it was due to Tink having a bit of experience looking for Eldar with his drone, or pure dumb luck, or because Tau drone tech was really just that good, he found a shuttle that was not like the others in just under five minutes. This did not please the Jim, who had to endure Tink making faces at him through the cockpit window as he relayed the drone's data.

What appeared to be a fairly standard, if gruesomely decorated, Imperial-style shuttle to our eyes, looked like a bat winged xenos craft to Spot the Wonder Drone. It had sharp, forward swept wings with odd chunks missing and these weird mandible-looking wings under the cockpit, but that wasn’t what really caught our attention. What really caught our attention was the two massive lascannons slung under it, this thing didn’t just have our shuttle’s little wing turrets outclassed, it had us completely out-schooled. Tink very carefully parked his drone above the xenos shuttle, and a quick debate over what to do about it was held.

It says something about how shaken we were by Jim’s little warning that we went with Nubby’s idea.

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>>39169781

So no shit, there we were, hovering over a camouflaged xenos attack shuttle carrying more firepower than any three of our birds, and instead of running away or trying to destroy it before it realized we were there, we were trying to figure out how to steal it. The long warp voyage out to this backwater sector must have rotted our brains.

Quite aside from how stupidly dangerous an idea this was, it had absolutely nothing to do with why we’d come out here in the first place. In the station below us the other two teams had just engaged the Heretek forces in an effort to take a captive and figure out why they were here. In space above us two incredibly dangerous ships were locked in a brutal dog-fight while our own, completely combat-incapable, ship nervously watched from the sidelines. Somewhere across the immaterium an unknown archeotech device was cutting a swathe of destruction towards Imperial space. And yet, our primary concern was nicking this fancy looking xenos shuttle. Possibly while its owners were busy shooting up our companions. Truly we were the pinnacle of Inquisitorial professionalism.

It really wasn’t our fault though; the tech-priests were obviously to blame. If they hadn’t been plotting to maroon us in space, we wouldn’t have felt nearly so motivated to acquire an alternate means of transportation. When you combine that sort of threat with the opportunity offered by an incredibly valuable unattended vehicle, heretical xenotech though it may be, it’s entirely unreasonable to expect a poor guardsman to resist temptation.

Secure in the knowledge that our behavior was completely and totally justifiable, we prepped for our breaching tools and formed up in our shuttle’s airlock.

>>39169677
>Now this is where some less imaginative people would've blown up the docked shuttle
Guilty as charged.

>Sure enough a little more searching turned up nearly a dozen more shuttles
Oooh dear.

>>39169744
>They used Big Bertha back on that clusterfuck world with the trainees, remember?
I do, and would expect him to have picked up a replacement after how useful it proved to be.

>>39169781
They went with Nubby's idea first...

Someone hold me.

>>39169781
>It says something about how shaken we were by Jim’s little warning that we went with Nubby’s idea.

When Nubby's ideas are being taken, you're deep in Preperation H territory, and probably close to "trust only the Captain and crew."


When TWITCH'S ideas start being taken, you're in Plan Q territory and you're at "kill them all and fly back to Oak yourselves" territory.

OH MAN I ALMOST MISSED IT THANK GOD I'M HERE

>>39169808
And pin the blame on orks.

>>39169805
>>>39169744 (You)
>>They used Big Bertha back on that clusterfuck world with the trainees, remember?
>I do, and would expect him to have picked up a replacement after how useful it proved to be.

I expect that Astartes anti-Titan ordnance is hard to come by, even for Nubby.

>>39169823
Obviously. I mean, everybody seems to be after this thing. The fact that you've seen no sign whatsoever of Orks indicates that you're practically asscrack-deep in Kommandos.

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>>39169804

Twitch provided some cutting charges, which were carefully placed using the drone’s little servo arm. When everything was in place Jim, who’d eventually stopped trying to convince us to do something saner, flew us as close as he could without alarming any hostile shuttles. A trio of his little skulls were deployed and leashed like sled dogs, then he departed and us drifting in space above the holographically disguised shuttle. All things considered, it was a very good thing that Twitch was up to date on his meds and Fumbles wasn’t feeling particularly nervous.

The skulls hauled us across the gap as, just outside of our line of sight, the charges went off and the shuttle’s bay depressurized. As the last breath of air leaked out our five man, one woman team zipped in. We crossed into the grav field and landed inside the shuttle with weapons ready, just like the trained professionals we supposedly were. Well, at least five of us did. Whether it was due to her injured hand or because she wasn’t used to performing these sorts of shenanigans, Aimy missed her mark and wound of caroming off the hull. Everyone turned to watch as she spun off into space, swearing a blue streak as the skulls raced out to catch her. All of us were so distracted that we were nearly pushed out after her when a gust of wind suddenly hit us in the back.

Our squad turned around expecting to see, then shoot, some effeminate xenos. Instead, a pair of big scarecrow-lookin things with fish-shaped heads were standing there staring at us. At least we thought they were staring at us, the damned things didn’t have eyes. Their weapons were certainly pointed our way though, which was what really mattered.

>>39169706
No. Allow me to better educate you.

http://dayolawson.com/?p=657

People looked for the kebab sellers normally filling the plaza, but there were none to be found. The spectators left. The chanters became dispirited. By 8PM, everyone was gone.

>>39169862
Oh shit, wraithguard?

>>39169862
Fucking wraith guard?

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>>39169862

Fighting in a vacuum is odd: nothing sounds right. You can feel and sort of hear your weapons firing through your arms, but the shots don’t make a sound. It’s amazing how much you rely on little audio cues in a battle, it was hard as hell to tell how many shots we were firing and even harder to tell if they were hitting. Oddly, it was almost as if we’d lost exactly ten percent of our ballistics skills due to the unfamiliar terrain. We coped though, and poured a torrent of las and plasma fire into the two hostiles.

Surprisingly, the fish-headed xenos didn’t seem too bothered by our barrage. They just soaked our fire and slowly tracked their weapons onto us, then everything went funny. Not ha-ha funny, rather “Whoa I can taste the color purple with my ears” funny. As the feeling washed over us we scattered, and a pair of large orbs appeared.

One orb formed right between Twitch and Sarge, while the other appeared above the now-prone form of Nubby. For a split second we could see something beyond understanding, but not horror, in the spheres. Then, with a pop that we could somehow hear through the vacuum, the orbs disappeared and took two perfectly circular chunks of bulkhead with them. We all just stood there and stared for a second, then Fumbles started screaming.

None of us had liked what we'd seen when the xenos had fired their weapons, whatever those things did looked a lot worse than just getting shot, but Fumbles had a stronger reaction than the rest of us. The little psyker's screaming ratcheted up to a shriek then kept going until it started bouncing around inside our heads.

Now there are several relatively normal things that are a bad idea to do in a void suit. Vomiting traditionally heads this list, followed by crying, sneezing, and a few other things depending on whether your model has waste disposal systems. Anyway, if someone ever revises the list, using a psychic shriek should probably be added somewhere near the top.

>>39169805
> Not planting charges, and then waiting for the shuttles to be re-boarded before blowing them.

Why kill a metal box, when instead you can kill a metal box full of assholes?

>>39169901
D-Cannons!

Fuuuuiuu

>>39169935
Explain as this is new to me

>>39169923
Anyone you strand here is dead anyway, and if they get back to their shuttles, they might have the common sense required to perform a bomb check before lifting off.

>>39169976
It opens up a whole to the warp for pieces of things to get sucked into.

You die.

>>39169976
Approximately 5 seconds of Googling yields this:
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/D-Cannon

>>39169976
Basically black hole guns

>>39169935
The solution is grenades.

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>>39169901

Now, not being a psyker, I can't properly say whether it was a matter of the shout building up inside his helmet until something gave, or if it just punched through his faceplate on the way out towards its target. Either way though, we all felt a wave of panic roll over us as the shriek was cut off by what sounded like a burst of wind. A helmet's worth of air and a hail of plastic slammed into the two xenos monstrosities along with the psychic attack, where their combined force did exactly jack shit.

Fumbles landed on his ass, frantically clawing at his ruined helmet and radiating pants-wetting terror to the entire squad. Unlike our past experienced with the psyker's aura, this wasn't distracting, annoying, or disturbing: this was incapacitating. By all rights we should have died there, stumbling around in an attempt to escape a source-less fear, but two things saved us.

The first thing was Twitch, who shrugged off the aura of fear like it was nothing. He sprinted across the room to Fumbles, pulling off his explosives-filled pack on the way. He jammed the bag over the psyker's head and pulled its drawstrings, causing the bag to inflate like an incredibly dangerous balloon. The aura of terror reduced in intensity as Fumbles' inability to draw a breath was replaced by claustrophobic darkness and the fact that someone was partially strangling him.

The second thing was that the fish-headed xenos were some sort of retarded. One of them fired a shot at Twitch as the trooper sprinted across the bay and missed by a scarily small margin. The other casually walked up the open hole in the bay and just sort of vacantly stared out of it. It didn't stop to shoot anyone on the way, or even try to step on Nubby who was lying half a meter from where it stopped. It was definitely one of the more bizarre thing we'd seen on a battlefield, or it would've been if we'd been in any condition to see anything.

>>39169999

or this more likely http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Wraithcannon

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>>39170000
Checked
Also dayuum das some tech heresy right there

>>39170057

Same weapons principle, different platform. That page even literally says that it's just a D-Cannon portable by Wraithguards.

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>>39170044

As the aura faded and we acclimated to the unusual feeling of someone else's terror raging through our minds, everyone got to their feet. We were greeted by the sight of one xenos reading his insanity-orb cannon for another shot, and the other spacing out at the edge of the hole we'd entered through. This is where your normal group of heroic badasses would've opened fire in an effort to kill the xenos before they could fire again. We didn't even try that.

See, our attacks, plasma and hot-shot lasgun alike, hadn't so much as phased these assholes; it was time to try something new. Sarge shouted his orders and threw himself at the xenos' cannon, grabbing onto it like a big, disgruntled monkey hanging from a branch. To Sarge's dismay, the fish-head turned out to be more than strong enough to hold up both him and the weapon. Luckily, the way Sarge was flailing around completely spoiled the xenos aim, and the next hell orb appeared in the middle of the bay's floor.

While Sarge kept his target off our backs, the rest of us turned to the one near the hole. Tink and Twitch stepped backwards, lowered their heads, and charged straight at the xenos' back. Down on the floor Nubby hastily crawled towards the hostile, then flipped onto his back. At this point the fish-head seemed to remember that it was in the middle of a battle and started to turn to face us, he wasn't fast enough though. Two charging guardsmen hit the xenos in the side at the same moment as a pair of augmetic legs launched upwards.

As body-checks went, they weren't the best: both soldiers were on the wiry side and the best word to describe the xenos' size and weight is Hulking. Combined with the lifting force of Nubby's legs though, it was just enough. In a sort of slow-motion ballet the fish-head tumbled forwards, right out of the hole we'd blasted into the bay's wall.

>>39170044

Damn Twitch. That is hard core.

Speaking of which: check your email Shoggy.

>>39167246
>r slap-fight over the joystick knocked over Sarge's recaff.
kek

>>39170114
Twitch lives in constant fear of the Orks crawling through the walls, in and out of the septic systems. He long ago learned that the only way to fight his fear is to act.

He fights the fear of orks (and after the First Flight of the Occurence Border, Servitors,) by mining the approaches. He fights someone else's (entirely justifiable) fear of decompression by providing some compression.

It is obviously time for the AGP to look into getting a meltagun.

Which book has stats for wraithguard anyways?

>>39170190
The "Jurgen" Special, friend of all guardsmen and guardswomen. For when you need problems to go away.

>>39170102
One down.
Hmm. Are Tink's tech-heresy skills enough to pilot an Eldar ship? Took him a while to figure out the Tau drone properly, iirc.

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>>39170102

Aimy was being hauled back towards the shuttle by Jim's skulls and Spot, who she was riding like some sort of demented horse. As she neared the hole something big and rather confused looking launched out of it, causing her to swear and nearly fall off her mount. After she regained her composure she watched as the... thing tumbled into the void, slowly spinning at it drifted away. When it didn't do anything she dismissed it as "not her problem" and raised her new rifle as the shuttle's interior finally came into view

Back inside the bay, the xenos had gotten tired of Sarge dangling off its weapon. It grabbed one of the struggling noncom's arms in a dinner-plate sized hand, and inexorably pried him of its weapon. Sarge found himself suspended in the air, or vacuum as it were, facing away from the angry xenos. He flailed as hard as he could in an attempt to break its grip and failed miserably. Sarge then grabbed his slung lasgun and tried to fire it over his shoulder, it was wrenched from his hand before he got more than a single burst off. Finally in desperation, he reached for his grenades, which were pretty high on the list of stupid weapons to use in a vacuum. Perhaps luckily, he wasn't able to grab one before his free arm was grabbed by the xenos' other hand. It raised him in the air then slowly, inexorably began to spread its arms, and by extension Sarge's, apart.

The first thing Aimy saw as she rose over the edge of the hole was Fumbles, sitting there and clawing at the backpack full of high-explosives tied over his head. This was odd, but not an immediate problem. The second thing, or things, were three of her squadmates running around like idiots and screaming about not being able to get a clear shot. The third thing was her new boss being pulled apart like a wishbone by a three meter tall xenos. Aimy sighted her rifle, waited a beat for Sarge's legs to swing out of the way, then put a burst of plasma right through the monstrosity's shoulder.

>>39170102
>the best word to describe the xenos' size and weight is Hulking

oh you

>>39170220

>shot between his legs

Great balls of fire

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>>39170220

In a perfect universe the fish-head's arm would've fallen off, then Sarge would've beat it around the head and neck with its own severed limb. Unfortunately in our reality the arm just went limp while the hand still retained its vice-like grip on Sarge. Also both of Sarge's shoulders were dislocated and he was too busy screaming to beat anyone around the anything. We tried not to let our disappointment show as Sarge merely flopped to the side and left us a clear shot at the xenos.

Three hot-shot lasguns, a plasma gun, and a pulse rifle poured precision fire into the xenos' thin middle-section. The combined weight of fire did what our earlier barrages couldn't, and with a soundless snap, the bastard collapsed in two separate pieces. Sarge swore loudly as he landed and informed everyone that the xenos' grip was not getting any looser.

Since the fish-head seemed rather hard to kill, most things lose their spunk after being cut in half y'know, everyone stepped forward and concentrated their fire on its shoulders. That finally did the trick and we pulled Sarge free, it took a while to pry the severed arms off of his wrists though, talk about a death-grip

We all stood there, contemplating our success and wondering what to do about Sarge's shoulders, when Fumbles finally caught our attention. His comm wasn't functional and we couldn't hear him, but he managed to send a rough psychic image out. He was wondering if the fight was over and we could go somewhere with air now. The bag was nice and all, but he was pretty sure at least one of the mines in there was armed.

Twitch winced then he and Tink got to work on the door that the two fish-heads had come through. They had to push the xenos' severed torso out of the way to get access; it didn't do anything when Tink kicked it, but it somehow managed to glare reproachfully despite not having eyes, or any real face for that matter.

>>39170220
>The third thing was her new boss being pulled apart like a wishbone by a three meter tall xenos
quick someone post
>make a wish!.jpg
from damnation crusade. I can't post it from here.

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>>39170273
I got you covered.

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>>39170259

While the more technical side of the team got the door open Jim's medi-skull floated in and took a look at Sarge. It sort of poked around in a confused manner, probably trying to figure out how to get at Sarge's shoulders. After a while its little machine-spirit must have reached a decision, because it deployed a syringe and tried to jab Sarge with it. The puncture-proof voidsuit turned out to be stronger than the skull expected: after a bit of straining it broke the needle and whacked into Sarge's shoulder, triggering an impressive amount of cursing. The medi-skull got even more agitated at this failure and deployed its little circular saw, the one we'd last seen it use to decapitate the Magos.

None of us really knew if it had decided to harvest Sarge's head, or just wanted to cut through his void suit,while he was in a vacuum so it could deliver its painkiller shot. Either way, Nubby and Aimy fended the skull off with the butts of their weapons until the door was finally opened. Jim was very apologetic about the whole thing, but we still didn't let the skull follow us into the pressurized section of the shuttle.

Once the door was closed and Twitch had carefully removed the bag full of explosives from Fumbles head, we looked around our new shuttle. The room where we'd fought the fish-heads had just been a moderately roomy troop compartment, nothing interesting in there; this room was definitely some sort of command center. It wasn't filled with vox units, cogitators, and random uninsulated wires like an Imperial command center, but the holo-thingy displaying a map of the station in the middle of the room was a dead giveaway.

>>39170273
>>39170296

I spent far too long trying to figure out what I was looking for and you guys both got it in one... I'll have to change that in the html version.

>>39170331
Gonna use my Ad-Mech flavored "Repent and Die", perhaps?

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>>39170318

Despite its tasteful decor and abundant supply of air, the command room made us uneasy. It had a short hallway leading to the shuttle's cockpit, but none of us saw any hatches connected to the station. In fact the only exit we'd seen was the one on the rear, and it hadn't been connected to anything. The question of how the xenos had gotten aboard the station, and which direction they'd be coming from if they tried to take their shuttle back, hung in the air like a wet fart in a tank: hard to ignore and holding the potential to become a serious problem.

From the elegant, but rather uncomfortable, chair he'd found near the map, Sarge reminded everyone about how the xenos were supposed to use teleporting webs to get around. A brief search of the shuttle didn't turn up anything that looked like a teleportarium or was particularly web-shaped, the closest we got was a xenos rune that looked sort of like a spider. Twitch put a mine on it, just to be safe, then put a mine on everything else, just to be safer. None of us stopped him, it was really the only defensive option we could think of.

While Twitch saw to the perimeter, Tink got to work on figuring out how to fly our new piece of loot, Aimy checked in with the other teams, and Nubby called Doc for some medical advice. Sarge later complained bitterly about how many tries it'd taken to relocated his shoulders, but neither Nubby nor Fumbles had any medical training and there was a lot of distortion on the comm channel. Anyway the way he kept yelling was very distracting and the second one only took two tries, so all his whining wasn't really justified.

>>39170338
Of course.

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>>39170378

After the little medical procedure was finished a quick council of war was held. Aimy reported that the other teams were just killing a lot of servitors, not making any real progress towards finding useful intel. Jim followed that up with a report that the tech-priests hadn't given any new orders, but claimed they were very interested in our shuttle.

Based on all that, Sarge's vague plan was for us to call off the station part of the mission before anyone did something crazy and fly the Eldar shuttle back to the Occurrence Border. From there the adepts, and possibly the cogboys, could search it for clues or whatever. The only real problem with this plan was that compared to Imperial, or Tau systems for that matter, Eldar tech was almost impossible to understand. Tink was working hard, and kept claiming that he'd nearly figured it out, but so far he'd only managed to turn the lights on and off.

While Tink tinkered and occasionally asked for advice from Jim and Ol' Bill, the rest of us kept busy. Aimy watched the perimeter with Twitch, Sarge poked at the holo-map, and Nubby and Fumbles were assigned prisoner duty, prisoner in this case meaning the severed xenos toso. They taped the thing to the wall and, at Twitches request, drew a face on its blank head so it didn't look so creepy. At Nubby's urging, Fumbles was adding some embellishments to their artwork, when a section of wall slid outwards and a tall, lithe, and familiar-looking xenos appeared out of thin air.

The Eldar Warlock scanned the room then began to say something. He was immediately interrupted by Twitch shouting that a hostile had breached the perimeter and raising his lasgun. The xenos tried to resume speaking, only to be interrupted again as Twitch asked for permission to fire. Sarge, who'd nodded off, jerked awake just in time to hear the frustrated Eldar snap:

>Foolish mon-keigh, you can't shoot me I'm a h-

Then Twitch got tired of waiting and opened up on full auto.

>>39170411
Twwweweitccccch

>>39170411
Heretic?
Hero?
Heavenly being?
Horrible person?

:P

>>39170411
Probably "human".
#Sighs# Idiot Eldar.

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>>39170411
Okay that's a good stopping point for the night.

I'll throw this in the archive and stick around for a slight bit of time.

The second half of the story will start at 6pm MST tomorrow, and go much faster due to actually having the images picked out ahead of time.

>>39170448
Holo projection?

>>39170411
>>39170448
....Human?

>>39170464
Shoooooooggggggy you blue balling bastarrrrrd aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

>>39170411
Hallucination?

>>39170472
this>>39170468

He calls him Mon'keigh. It's an Eldar, but a holographic one.

>>39170468
thatsthejoke.gif

>>39170464
Nooooooooooooo! I'm not tired!

Whatever shall I do with the rest of the night?

>>39170464
Okey doke. See you tomorrow Shoggy

>>39170486
Yep, my vote's on Hologram. See you all tomorrow night.

>>39170464
Awesome, is time for sleeps now.
Thanks for the story, Shoggy. Until tomorrow.