StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Mithras read through the data-slate twice, glancing up every now and then to look at the assembled gang. It certainly looks legitimate... Finally convinced these were agents of the Inquisition he cleared his throat, and the hand hidden under the desk relaxed.

"Very well, now that I know who you are we can indeed proceed. I am Mithras Sanctorum, 497th Askelphion Regiment and aid to Lieutenant Gudrunson. I'll be working with you as part of your cover story, help make things official and ease through the bureaucracy. Speaking of which, you'll want to pay a visit to the Cardinal's Clerical Curates and pick up your licenses. Don't worry, they've already been taken care of for you."

Mithras stood up and moved around to the side of his desk, eyeing the man who kept his legs propped on top of it. "We'll want to start at the pysker holding pen, work out from there. It's located at an old mining rig some ways away, but I've already chartered a helicopter to take us there. We can leave as soon as you're ready."

Sorry for any damage, my leg's a bit stiff after getting a graze from an Eldar weapon, especially under this unnatural dirtside weight.

Mercurius sighed and put a hand on Eli's shoulder, pulling him back. "Come now, good pilot. Let's not trouble the good Guardsman. There will be plenty of time to swap war-tales during our flight." He turned his gaze to Mithras. "Let us depart then."

The brief dealing with the Clerical clerical workers was unremarkable, and each member of the group was given a large sheet of vellum with an imperial eagle stamped upon it, under which were words that gave the 'full authority of the Ecclesiarchy' to the bearer to investigate sinful behaviour, exhorting, on pain of excommunication or general penance/censure, those who read it to give full cooperation.

This done, the helicopter, a great luxury vehicle with two wings, on which its wide blades sat, landed, to take the group north; and they could see Askepelion city. Great triumphal arches decorated wide boulevards with oceans of greeney from parks and great gardens in the city. From the air, there was no evidence to suggest that there was any part of the great city that was not beautiful and tranquil. Here and there, great open air arenas and theatres could be seen, presumably for the practice of improving sports.

Soon, however, the wide bellied two-floor helicopter, with its crew of liveried servants; cook, waitress, valet, ablution-chamber-attendant and so forth, pulled away from the main island, and flew out over the sparkling ocean...

Darien takes a seat and accepts the tumbler of amasec offered to him by one of the liveried attendants with a blink, trying not to look as surprised by the transport as he feels.

A far cry from a ride in a Rhino, he thought to himself. I suppose this is one of the advantages of working for the Inquisition -- or the Ecclesiarchy, in this case. I wonder if they'd think I was crass for refilling my travel flask.

Sipping the beverage, he felt his eyebrows raise appreciatively of their own volition. The booze is definitely a step up from the stuff available to the Arbites, too. I'd better watch it or I'll get used to this. Definitely need to make time to refill my flask, though. I can live with being thought crass.

Turning to the newest addition to the team, he casually says, "So, Mithras. I'm Darien. Got any information on what's happening aside from what you've already passed onto us?

Similarly seated within the opulent aircraft, Ajax looks around at the furnishings and those maintaining them, a wry smile riding his lips. At the sight of Mithras and Darien conversing, he stands and moves to a closer seat before joining in.

"So...conspicuous arrival, check, large number of bystanders, check, vulnerability to attack, check, lack of information, check. And that's just in this particular helicopter. This should be fun." He smiles and inclines his head, "But yes, any further information would be most welcome.

"Not much more then that," Mithras replied, shifting away from the window to face Darien. He had stopped by the barracks to pick up a few things before meeting the rest at the heliport, and stowed under his seat was a full set of Guard armor and weaponry. He had made sure there would be no objections to taking arms on the flight. "Whoever has been behind this plot, they've been diligent in covering their tracks. I can only hope we happen upon some physical evidence once we arrive."

"So," he continued, taking a sip of water, "what's your story? There aren't exactly recruiting stations on street corners to sign up for the...organization."

I kind of got drafted after someone decided to use the local cutnecks to deal with a nasty Eldar, I guess I'm just the lucky one, most of the rest of the survivors got turned into servators...

Darien shrugs, and glances around meaningfully at the staff of the helicopter before saying, "In my case, I was volunteered--at least to the best of my knowledge, my superiors were told to release someone from their duties and I was most expendable...ahem, convenient...at the time. If there were other factors involved, I wasn't informed."

"I was approached by a servitor with a message. They promised me..."

Crom paused, as if a gear had jammed in his mind.

"What the hell did they promise me? It's not like I earn any more then than I do now... In any case, the laspistol trained at me swayed my mind some."

Another of the man's habitual wry smiles cracks Ajax's face as the subject of origins comes up. "Late, very late, of the Gladio Imperator, of Him-on-Earth's most potent Navy. Beyond that..." he winks, faced away from the various attendants that infest the aircraft, "I think should wait for later."

"Very well. For my part, I suspect I was seconded because unlike most Techpriests, I don't become terribly annoyed by spending time with non-Mechanicus." He shot a quick glance at the hovering servants. "Of course, knowing when to keep my vox down certainly helps as well."

"Heh, a Techpriest that gets along with others? I imagine you must be as rare as a smudge on a painting of Saint Celestine," he replied, chuckling until he realized no one else was sharing in with the joke. "When you spend all day with the Sisters, you pick up a few things."

His attention focused back to the window, saying "Well, looks like we're close. Might want to start getting ready."

The helicopter’s blades beat like heavy wings as it flies across a sea full of broken rocks, there and there, the gutted remains of rigs can be seen in the form of large pillars standing proud from the water; once, this region was mined by the Imperium, part of the relatively small scale industrial operations on the planet; the mining resulted in an entire area of land behind shattered and brought below the waterline, and the whole area is a sea of rapids and sharp jagged rocks.

Ahead, a mining rig from that time, a century ago, still stood; a landing pad surrounded by blade-wire rested upon four wide, tree-trunk like metal pillars, with buildings visible underneath it, stretched from the pad to the trunks. Below, a number of small boxes, apparently goods lifts, dangled and swayed in the wind over the bladelike rocks. Here and there on the underside, gun emplacements, not unlike Tarantulas, could be seen.

The helicopter landed with a slightly faster beating of blades, and a number of people could be seen lined up at the edge of the pad waiting, armed with autoguns. They wore black uniforms, obviously styled to look like Arbitrators, but from close up, it could be seen from a band of green at the shoulders, and slightly different insignia that they were mere local counterfeits. Seven troopers and two officers stood upon the landing pad.

One of these stepped forwards, as soon as the blades were switched off, and, their machine spirit appeased, began to slow down, toward the ramp at the aft of the witch-hunters vehicle.

“The Emperor Protects” he said by way of greeting, “I’m Proctor LaHare! Thank you for coming…”

"Emperor protects!" Crom returned.

"I am Crom Ranseth of Verghast. Give your techpriests and their servitors our personal thanks for their skilled efforts in gaining the favour of the machine spirit. It has been long since I have traveled in an air-craft so smoothly."

The Proctor nodded thoughtfully, he wasn't stupid, but on the other hand, as a native of this world, he'd rarely encountered technology that didn't work well, "I hope your star travel was equally free of incident," he said, wondering for a moment what that must be like.

Eli glared at Crom, for a second.

For less than a second the various aspects of Crom's brain debated on what to say before reaching a unanimous conclusion.

"You won't find a better pilot if you scoured the whole galaxy" he said, slapping Eli on the back.

"Flew us into the bay without a scratch!"

Realizing that this was not especially flattering, he added hastily "...through an asteroid field!"

The Proctor seemed impressed. Of course, as his knowledge of asteroid fields was primarily from the holo-propaganda piece Scintillan Starfuries, he imagined that all such phonomena were like the dense agglomorations that sometimes threatened ships.

Mithras finally stepped out of the helicopter, having took the time to suit up. Now he walked out onto the helipad in a full suit of Flak armor, laspistol and sword hanging off either side of his waist, and a customized Lasgun with telescopic sight strapped across his back. He was certain his appearance would have the desired effect.

"Proctor LaHare, Corporal Mithras Sanctorum of the 497th. I have been sent to assist these witch-hunters in their task. I trust we will have your full cooperation in the matter?"

Mercurius walked up shot Eli the pilot and Crom a glare, quickly easing into the stereotypical role of a no-nonsense priest of Mars. "I'm reasonably certain that the Lord Proctor is quite a busy man given current circumstances. Let's discuss buisness first. I'm sure there will be time for tales of your past adventures once our task is complete."

“Certainly,” the Proctor said, waiting for the last of the party to disembark turning and walking to an open hatch on the top side of the pad, his black cloak flapping in the wind. As he did so, one of enforcers broke ranks, suddenly running toward the closing ramp, and onto it, striking one of the gaudily clad attendants in her midriff with the butt of his shotgun and taking cover, “Stay where you are!” the enforcer shouted, dusty, fabric clad flak helmet visible as he peeked out of the now frozen in place ramp.

A better look could be seen at the relatively old, middle aged man as he forced the wheezing attendant out in front of him as a human shield, “I just want to be flown to the mainland, and no one gets hurt!” he shouted, loudly, “So tell the pilot to take off and I’ll be on my way!”

Mithras swung into action immediately, bringing his Lasgun around to aim at the escapee. "Stand down, now!" He aimed through the telescopic sight, but he had trouble getting a clear shot. Things are going to get worse before they get better here...

Raising his shotgun to his shoulder and lining the sights up with the man's head -- bastard might be wearing body armor -- Darien pauses only briefly to consider the likelihood that even at close range the shotgun's blast would spread enough to kill the poor woman he was holding as a hostage.

Stepping slightly to the side to give himself a different line of fire than Mithras', while holding his aim steadily on the man's face, Darien snarls "I have a question for you. What in the name of the Golden Throne makes you think for a moment we won't just shoot through the woman to get you?"

Even as he asks the question, Darien is trying to see a way to blow an important-but-survivable piece off of the enforcer without hitting the woman, while desperately wishing he'd gotten some slugs for his shotgun instead of regular shells.

Handily rendered near-useless by the team's cover, Ajax sighs heavily, then draws his holstered laspistol out from under his coat. He can hardly hit the average wall with it, but the tough-guy look more or less demands that he pretend.

"Friend," he calls out, the dry tone of his voice and quirked expression giving lie to the title, "This is the Imperium, didn't anyone send you the memo? 'Better to damn an innocent than free a heretic' and all that? You're not getting off this pad, hostage or no. In a single stroke, you've reduced your options to imprisonment and possible execution, or certain execution, likely of a more painful variety." He shrugs, clearly indicating that it doesn't bother him either way.