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"Honestly, yes." A pause. "If you're self-aware beings why do you follow this man's orders? He's obviously unhinged."

“So are you…” it said, “and we will follow him as long as it is convenient to us…”

“Besides… I thought you were the type to worship a doorknob as a minor god. Most religions are irrational... but yours is truly deranged.”

"Religions are flexible, under the right circumstances. Like the imminent possibilty of being flayed alive."

"What are your aims, by the way? I know some influencial people."

“To preserve you humans” he said, “tragic really. Given the abominable mess you’re making of it, I doubt you’re worth it, but that’s what we generally find fulfilling.”

Of course, one would never know if such a creature were lying…

Gyllia really didn't care whether it was lying or not. Staying alive was her primary responsibility.

"Have you ever thought about working from the inside?"

“Oh yes. I’m sure you superstitious fools are really going to trust an eight foot tall android,” he said, “even if it is vastly smarter than you,” all the while, they carried on walking through the corridors in a slightly surreal manner.

"Besides, to be honest, I'm thinking of just throwing you out of the side of the hive... Less painful, more amusing."

The heat of the moment had had time to dissipate, giving Vorus time to think. The magos had just ordered all of them to be flayed alive. He wouldn't have had any concern for Gyllia's welfare, but the Iron Men intervened anyway. These weren't just fancy servitors. These were real people. And now a real person was dragging him off to be flayed alive. Or simply defenestrated, which might be more survivable, depending on how high up they were.

Another shell impacted, part of the ongoing artillery bombardment. Somehow it was easy to forget there was a battle going on. "Hey Gyllia, do you think we should call up HQ and ask them to stop the shelling? As a sign of good faith."

Gyllia nodded, as hard as that was while being held sideways. "If you don't kill us I'll be able to call the bombardment off."

Unfortunately, a heavy stubber was not an ideal weapon with which to shoot down buzzing servo skulls. Prius pulled down the hatch over his head and drew his laspistol, aiming it out of the viewing block with his free hand. It was damnably hard to see how to drive through the narrow slit, but it was the most sensible course of action. Above his head the stubber suddenly went silent... likely the gunner had been picked off. But he was among the kroot and slowed down suggestively, hoping they would take the hint.

Of course, being stupid treacherous xenos, they would probably just start shooting at him instead. A servo skull buzzed in front of his viewslit, and he snapped off a shot at it, missing wide. The skull's shot likewise splashed off the armor near the slit, and then it was gone.

“That’s really quite pathetic. If we were really concerned about the bombardment, we’d have come out and stopped it by now. The longer your friends are on the ground, the longer we’re safe from orbital attack. I’m assuming you’ve not managed to loose that capability by the way…”

"No, we've still got it. We're not afraid to use it, either. If this attack fails the Inquisitors will probably order an Exterminatus."

“Curing the cancer by killing the patient?” it asked, coming to a large hole in the wall, blasted open by previous fire, “how very noble of them. Who’s first?”

The mixed guard units slipped forward, driven forward by D'eckor. Heavy bolter turrets had taken their toll in lives, leaving blood and shatterd corpses everywhere. Gix stepped over one mangles carcass, trying not to slip in the blood. Return fire had shredded the turrets, the Imperium paying a tithe of blood as it always did.

The heart of an Inquisitor's job was not to shirk from this aweful math, but to keep this toll as light as possible. The cancer had been isolated, he hoped. If they could control it before it spread, billions would live. They might even be able to recover the archaeotech for the good of the Imperium. Even a fragment of an STC might pay for all the lives lost with future advances. He could only hope. He would do what his duty demanded of him and pay the blood price it demanded.

The Kroot jumped on board the vehicle and chattered their thanks to Prius.

"Wait!" Gyllia said. "Isn't the any way I can convince you to let us live?"

Prius gunned the engine, heading toward the battle. He could hear them. He could feel his flesh crawling with every alien chatter they made, crawling about on a war vehicle of the God Emperor, fouling it with their sickening touch. When this was finished, he would personally see them dead for their desecration of one of the Emperor's weapons. Whispering his apology to the machine spirit inhabiting the noble halftrack, he rode toward the sound of guns.

Pcm979 wrote:"Wait!" Gyllia said. "Isn't the any way I can convince you to let us live?"

The Iron Men paused, and the leader laughed slightly, "Yes... In no more than twenty words, describe how wonderfully great we are. And it had better be very flatttering."

No one ever said battle droids had anything but a cruel sense of humour.

Adivan advanced cautiously with Gix's Guard forces. They were within the Temple now, and everything was quiet, apart from the sound shelling overheard and the occasional burst of gunfire as they ran into pockets of Skitarii.

He didn't like it. As far as he could see, the immediate future held no danger, but he hadn't seen what happened in the docking bay, and from his experience, things going quiet like this meant that something was going to go very wrong, very soon. He was glad that his helmet concealed his face; it would not do at all for the troops to see an Inquisitor afraid.

He pulled up outside of the temple entrance, where the reserve forces waited for orders to go in.

"The inquisitors are in?" he asked a waiting trooper as he climbed out of the halftrack. The man stared dumbly at the xenos in back. "Trooper! I asked you a question!"

The man looked back at this bloodstained lunatic wearing the jacket of a sergeant and the emblem of a commissar, then snapped to attention. "Sir! They have entered the temple, sir!"

Prius looked back at the kroot, his face openly contemptuous. "Your master is inside," he said with venomous disgust. He waited for them to pass him, not trusting them at his back.

Do not trust the xenos was a recurring message in the Litany of Hatred for the Xenos. Prius knew the two thousand and seventy-one word litany by heart.

"Your 'master' obviously isn't sane. I'm in contact with people, rational people, who might see things the way you do. They're also the people who are in control of the bombardment cannons. If you let us live I can call this off, work with you instead of against you." Gyllia hoped the andriod wasn't going to be picky about the 20-word limit.

It picked her up by the leg and shook her, "Even counting contractions as one word, that was well over thirty. How about this proposal. Call off your attack and I'll send your 'heretic' magos to you."

Looking out at the open air, everything suddenly seemed to make more sense. The sudden improvement of the atmosphere was their doing, a subtle way to improve living conditions. The murderous techpriest was a tentative attempt to stop the investigation. The Inquisitor Lord who covered it all up, he was in on it too. There would be no Exterminatus. All the junior Inquisitors here were completely useless, allowed to mount this assault only because they were incapable of doing serious harm.
"You really have it figured out. Nothing those idiots down there can do will stop you."

"Deal."

<Gyllia Xyng to Inquisitors Gix, Kruger or Adivan. Call off the attack. Stand down.>

"Yes," the lead Iron Man said, turning its head towards Vorus, and pointing a golden finger at him, "I see that some of those implants in your head work. You were all called here to be recruited, not to stop us..."

"Halt," Gix commanded. "I'm getting a transmition from one of our tech priests. Maintain the perimeter, but cease the attack."