@Quinntessential@DrunkasaurusRex@BCTheEntity@Hank@TemplarKnight07

Proximity klaxons blared from speakers implanted into the upper spherical walls of the Cristata-designation drop-pods, small and simple pods launched from a seemingly commercial vessel of the Ordos Thran Conglomerate, four of them launched only moments before and capable of holding a dozen fully armed killers as they now did. There designation would become more obvious once they impacted with the desired target, the foremost section opening up in a star-shaped which would allow those securely harnessed within to simply slide free and fall two feet or so to the terra firma below.

Glaring interior lights had now been replaced by a duller red, bathing those within Pod Tertius in an identical light to those encapsulated in the other pods nearby them. One such figure of the twelve continued to focus his thoughts inward, the skull-faced respirator-mask and sturdy Mark IX helmet giving him an anonymity and solace reserved for those hired-guns who did not deign to show their faces all that often, and for one such as he, who had spent near his entire life behind the mask, it was a God-Emperor sent blessing; through the reflective goggles of his mask he glanced temporarily as the others both opposite and to either side of him, each strapped in with their feet dangling above empty air in the same manner as he, a somewhat flamboyant looking individual caught his eye...as did one with an arm the size of his leg. Then again so did the Feral worlder, swirling markings covering his limbs and face, and a rather large - gigantic may have been a better choice of word - 'man' who may or may not have been a former member of the Astartes.

Along with the other thirty-six mercenaries, humans and xenos from all walks of life and backgrounds, he had been hired via the so-called 'black net' - a somewhat official but mostly illegal network used to organise and establish mercenary bands, the ones doing the hiring sometimes not even known, easily accessed from most Imperial comm devices if one knew how to delve into it - by the Ordos Thran and their commercial partners to put an end to a problem of piratical activity taking place in the Thran System of the Canamare Sub-sector out on the Eastern Fringe of Imperial space.

XT-0009345:132 it was called, a colony of some three-hundred souls, intended originally to expand across the entire planet and form a new buffer planet against further Tau expansion and xenos aggression, and a settlement with which contact had been lost some months past. The Ordos Thran had been the closest and primary suppliers of materials, goods and foodstuffs to the colony in its embryonic stages, and it must be said that when their freighters and trade-vessels began to come under attack from a recently discovered pirate clan selling their very own customers as slaves...well...it could hot, would not stand.

So there it was!

Forty-eight against the Emperor knew how many though. How could they be expected to triumph? Well, you did not grease palms with so many glittering Thrones only to hire low-life muscle. Oh no. The Ordos had done their research well, each of their hires an expert in the ways of bringing death to an adversary, each identified as working for the Conglomerate by their crest displayed somewhere on their clothing - an eight-limbed Arachnosaur native to Thran Primus, gripping coins within it's two manipulator limbs.

How many pirates would they face? Unknown. Layout of the colony? Relatively unknown, although basic schematics had been provided to each of them. Makeup of the enemy was a little clearer, comprising mostly of humans of varying breed, intellect and so forth, while a small number of xenos - Kroot and other mercenary species for the most part - made up the strong backbone of these weaker members. Their armament, it was said, ranged from high-powered las weaponry to stubbers and auto-guns firing solid projectiles, weapons such as bolter tech were non-existant...as far as the intel knew.

Objectives were simple and straightforward; to clear out the pirates as one would the nest of an infestation, to collect and safeguard any prisoners or remaining colonists, and to recover any data collected by the colonists before they were overrun.

Simple.

Watchmaster #1511, commonly called by his nom de guerre of 'Phantasm', thought these to be admirably simple objectives when compared to some of his former jobs, and after once more checking that the mag of his lasgun - a Lucius Pattern No. 98 issue with a razor sharp bayonet affixed about the barrel - he counted down the minutes until the pod hit home.

The klaxons groaned and the lights began to blink as they came in impace, the entire pod rattling, and a final heave of metal-on-metal proceeding a screeching drilling sound and, with one final sound of tearing metal, the bottom of the pod sprang open; in an instant the harnesses of the pods inhabitants were released, their seats simply sliding back into the walls of the pod, and almost in perfect unison the twelve mercenaries hit the metal grating of the colonies primary corridor.

---

Should I fuck her?

This had been the foremost thought running through the mind of Quartermaster Ernst Finch ever since he had entered the prisoners quarters that day, bringing with him the usual slop - a nutrigruel meant to keep their prisoners strong and able to work...but not too strong. Placing it down on the floor as usual, he had looked at the back of the apparently sleeping Lexmechanic with the same degree of wonder, fury and lust that he always did. It excited him deeply.

Ever since Captain Ahab Flesch had taken their band of merry men - known in this system as The Scarred Maiden Clan, on account if what they commonly did to women in particular - and hit home at the colony that would become their forward and largest stronghold, he had been fascinated by this augmented prisoner. Did she have a robotic pussy? He sometimes wondered absent-mindedly, as he pleasured himself in his own quarters. Sure, there were other slaves to choose from, but none of them had the allure that she seemed to possess.

Finch himself was a tall man, broad of shoulder and well-built, a life of spacefaring seeing multiple scars lacerating his once handsome features as well as his box-like torso. Usually he would dress in the tawdry rags and flak-armour that he called his 'uniform', a mockery of the Imperial Navy clothing that it had once been, 'Quartermaster' being a rank retained from his former days fighting with Battlefleet Thran against those same someones he now considered his comrades and brothers-in-arms.

For a moment more he watched her, feeling himself slowly losing control, before he managed to turn his disfigured face and blue eyes away and retreat back into the corridor from whence he had come; it was fine, he knew she would be there for as long as she was needed and h-

"Finch, you lazy dog!" Screamed a voice into his ear-comm, the voice of his the Dread Pirate Ahab, "get yourself to the armoury and secure the prisoners. It appears we may be under attack."

Always the master of understatement! Sighed the ex-Naval officer, even as warning sirens alerted the hundred or so pirates to intruders now inside the colony itself. Ach, if it hadn't been for the Captain sending his ships off an raiding missions then they'd have caught their enemy in the stars. No matter, they would fight them and tear them apart here all the same.

With one last glance back at the door, making sure it was firmly locked and sealed, he scurried off toward armoury with some difficulty.

Nakera laid absolutely still while her food was delivered. She'd picked up on the cell keep's interest quickly within the last month. Every time he came by, she pretended to be asleep. She learned her lesson the first week that interacting with him was a bad idea. He stood in the doorway and watched her eat with a slack jawed, glassy eyed expression that honestly made her want to vomit. When she figured out that he'd sooner or later turn and leave if nothing interesting happened, she started pretending to be asleep until she heard the heavy steel door seal her shut inside her cell once more. Even with that little bit of comfort, she knew that it wasn't a matter of 'if', but 'when' in the case of her safety under his care.

As he stepped into her cell after his long moments of contemplation, she knew today was going to be the day. She had no plans of making it easy for him, but bound as she was, she could only hope he'd put something where she could bite. He stopped and stared some more. She did her best to be ready. Luckily today was not going to be the day. He turned and stepped out of the hold. He was outside for a moment before the attack alarms went off. The klaxons almost made her jump when they went off, and she could hear the earpiece in his head screaming through it's electromagnetic field. Her skin tingled as she colony came to life within it's walls. Power was rerouted to various systems all around her and every electron was a ghost visible to her unique senses.

Unfortunately, it didn't help her all that much. She was still locked here, sealed behind the steel bolt.

She sat upright immediately. Had being imprisoned for the last few months really dulled her senses that much? She blinked, looking at the door, sending out tendrils of magnetic sense. As her personal EM field crossed the door, she could practically feel it vibrating in it's slide. With an amount of focus, she tried to sense it's mass. The thing was massive, for sure, meant to keep prisoners secure, but she knew the Colony didn't have money for spare Mag Locks. Simple was usually better, and heavy bolts and locking bars were cheap and easy to maintain. She looked at her chains and felt through them. They rattled in her fluxing magnetic field. She only needed one part of them to be magnetic...the pin. Now was going to be her chance. If there was some kind of attack, regardless of who it was, she planned on helping them take over. At least then she'd be a bit more than a piece of meat with knowledge of a Vox System.

After a dozen attempts, sweat was already beading on her dirt covered brow. The device was complex enough where she couldn't feel it's individual parts, but she had to hope. One of these angles has to--

CLICK

Her wrists were free.

She gave a prayer to the Omnissiah for his teachings and thanked the simple spirits within the shackles for obeying her commands. Quickly she brought over her mechadendrite It was similarly locked. Normal keys required to unlock the metal sleeve her tools had been stored in. It took much less time now, given her familiarity with this particular spirit. With another prayer of thanks, she stood up finally unfettered.

Okay, Adept. Now you just need to be useful. she thought, moving to the door. This one took more effort than finesse. The bolt was almost too heavy. With a grunt and a metallic slip, she was able to push the door open. ...useful. Right. How are you going to help a pirate takeover?

She looked one way and then the other, hoping that the cell keep was gone. He'd likely be called to defend the station, not watch the obviously secure and helpless prisoners. Her true escape was opposite her. There was a maintenance access. Unlike her cell, this required a complex mechanism to open, driven by a unique key handed out to very select members of the colony.

Just like the one stored within her Mechadendrite. She was in the hallway for a heartbeat's moment before she crossed and inserted her key into the lock. A quick request of entry was prayed and power applied from her Luminen Capacitor. A moment later, the door unsealed and she vanished into the maintenance access, closing the sealing door behind her.

Inside the red lit tunnels, she had a sense of bearing. These conduits carried vital information from one side of the colony to the other. Every pipe was sealed with sacred runes and unguents. Breaking one open would be a horrific crime, so she climbed upwards. They had a dataport, a way of properly addressing the sprites being sent to and fro within the system. She would pay her due respects there, and then attempt to see who exactly was attacking.

Malkath was not a big fan of drop pods, even though they got one right into the action pretty quickly and were much cheaper to maintain than drop ships, he found them claustrophobic. To this end, he usually kept himself busy in his seat psyching himself out for the thrill of the hunt to come.

The Kroot looked down at the patch they'd given him, the sign of the Human Trade Conglomerate which had hired him and the rest of the band of cutthroats, murderers, and hunters for this mission. He focused intently on the image, letting it sear into his mind. Dead meat be whoever's trying to kill us and isn't wearing this patch

He closed his eyes, letting the patch stitched to his leathers dropp to his side, and he began to slowly increase his breathing, his heart rate rising, the blood pounding, his heart beating in his ears, and his muscles flexing as he then filled his head with memories of past hunts. Mighty and weaker warriors alike, of dozens of different species, all felled by his hand. Some of them were within him now, he having given them the honour of making what made them great warriors a part of him, and others were back in his room as trophies. Why was he keeping trophies now? They served no functional purpose and only took up room when consuming them actually served a purpose and gave him a real benefit.

The benefit is not in DNA but in the renown, the fame, the pride to show to others exactly the kinds of foes that have fallen beneath your talons, beak, and gun.

Malkath shook his head sharply, these divergences in his thoughts were becoming more apparent lately, it felt at times like he had multiple aspects in his head all taking on characteristics of some of the individuals he had killed.

Idiot Mon-Keigh, what did you expect to happen from consuming so many different species? Just be lucky that you've become a more powerful killer and are not turning into a Krootox.

Malkath opened his eyes at this one and gasped, his meditative stance broken. The trials and tribulations of not having the guidance of a Shaper or clan to help deal with one's own evolution certainly had its drawbacks, but he loved the freedom to go where he wished and making his own fortune too much to be bound strictly by the ideals of his people.

He closed his eyes again and resumed his techniques. He could hear the sounds indicating that impact was imminent, and he wanted to be ready when they hit the ground running. His breathing intensified, becoming more bestial, some of his quills straightened up into points on his arms, and as he opened his now dilated and predatory eyes, he knew he was ready to kill these pirates with extreme prejudice.

The pod hit the ground and doors opened and Malkath was leaping out the door and running with a looping charge on all fours, his Kroot Rifle swinging with practiced elegance into his arms with a single motion as he was running, while his more accurate hunting rifle stayed slung across his back. His huffing breathing was all he heard as he charged headlong into his surroundings, not even caring particularly for his fellow mercs that landed with him as he raced into the nearest hall, and more concerned with finding fresh prey.

@Quinntessential @DrunkasaurusRex @BCTheEntity

Surrounded by skull-masked, armored mercenaries, Astartes-sized giants, tall, slender-limbed Eldar and tribal Ferals, the handsome, golden-haired Apollyon Kaicero looked remarkably out of place in the dim drop-pod flooded with feeble red light. He was of middling height and slim stature and dressed like an affluent aristocrat, his high-collared, black longcoat disguising the ballistic fiber woven into the rich fabric and the form-fitting flak cuirass he wore underneath. The yellow sash around Kaicero's waist, about a hand's breadth wide, seemed an odd sort of detail in the apparel of a dangerous mercenary and yet, that is what he was. And many things besides.

Kaicero unabashedly met the meandering stares of the other warriors with bright, sky-blue eyes that quietly whirred and hummed every time they refocused. Kaicero returned the deep-set, heavy-browed gaze of the giant opposite him with a smile and a wink. The ex-Astartes grunted and shook his head; Kaicero quietly laughed to himself. He was excited. According to the intel this would be a simple job that required a great excess of the thing that gave him the greatest enjoyment in life – killing. There would be many opportunities for artistry to please his nameless death-god, Kaicero was sure of it. The only gripe Kaicero had with the current situation was the crest of the eight-limbed Arachnosaur of Thran Primus pinned on the lapels of his coat. It was an eyesore and completely unnecessary. Who was going to mistake him for a pirate?

The drop-pod crashed into the colony with spectacular force and Kaicero relished the rush of the combat drugs he was glanding into his system to prepare him for the upcoming fight. It was something similar to slaught or psycho but more refined, obviously, as it wouldn't do to turn into a mindless berserker. He felt strong, fast, edgy, dangerous.The bottom dropped out of their pod and the twelve mercenaries fell into the colony boots-first. Kaicero landed softly, bending his knees to disperse the kinetic energy, raised his Xenarch death-arc and looked around.

The aristocrat's bionic eyes were already adjusted to dim lighting conditions and Kaicero could immediately make out all the necessary details due to the enhanced brightness and contrast. The low, wide corridor was obviously in dire need of a makeover; rust covered every metal surface, including the grating beneath their feet, and grime was smeared all over the drab, plastek walls. The lumo-strips drilled into the ceiling flickered and crackled and sirens blared, whiningly, somewhere in the colony. Their Kroot companion, Malkath, immediately sprinted away and disappeared. Kaicero looked over his shoulder at the twitched-out maniac with the enormous, weaponized bionic arm and the lanky, colorless Eldar. “So it begins,” he said and smiled at Gisimae and Harvin.

Without waiting for a reply, Kaicero set off down the corridor at a brisk pace. He fiddled with his death-arc as he walked, turning a small dial this way and that. The electrical glow of the capacitor fitted inside the metal body of the exotic weapon dimmed slightly. There was no need to use full charge in such confined spaces. Kaicero didn't want to blow the walls out every time he fired his weapon and it was unlikely the pirates would be heavily armored. The corridor branched out at several points along his path and it was at one of these junctions that the aristocrat casually stepped through a malfunctioning sliding door, whistling a pleasant tune and not bothering to check if anyone had followed him. The room in front of him was probably the mess hall, judging by the furniture – long tables littered with plates, mugs and cutlery and horrendously stained by what could only be colony grog. It was initially empty but two blustering pirates ran headfirst into the room, their weapons at the ready, through a door on the opposing end, hollering something incoherently. They stopped in their tracks.

“Hello,” Kaicero said, aimed the death-arc and pulled the trigger. One of the pirates, a scantily-dressed, grimy fellow with a stubber, was immediately struck by a blast of lightning and thrown against the far wall with a sharp crack – he'd shattered the screen of a terminal embedded in the wall. The pirate's chest was blackened, plasmic discharge sprang up around the wound and his limbs twitched with coursing elecricity. The other pirate screamed something obscene and opened fire with an old Guard-issued lasrifle. Kaicero dove for cover behind one of the long tables, executed an elegant combat roll and sprang to his feet a full ten yards further down the hall. He pulled the trigger again, but the death-arc's thin, electrical feeler-tendrils, crawling across the surfaces of the floor and the tables like glowing spiders, didn't manage to connect with the pirate this time. Annoyed, Kaicero sighed and dropped to the floor again. It was a beautiful weapon and wonderful when it connected, but rather innacurate. The Xenarch obviously favored brute force over precision. The pirate hosed the table down with lasrifle and unloaded the full clip of his weapon. Kaicero, crouched low, checked the power meter of the death-arc's capacitor – enough charge left for two shots. It was a convenient weapon in that the capacitor, far beyond the Mechanicum's abilities, recharged on its own over time, but it also meant he could run out of juice in the middle of a firefight without a way of manually reloading. Kaicero decided it would be best to save those shots for now. There were other ways of taking down the pirate.

He slung the death-arc around his torso and pulled a combat knife out of his coat. While the pirate was busy reloading with clumsy fingers, cursing as he did, Kaicero lept up and over the table with feline grace and speed, his coat flapping behind him in the slipstream. The aristocrat charged the pirate and plunged the combat knife into the pudgy flesh of his enemy's chest where it neatly slid between his ribs. Kaicero smiled at the gurgling pirate, curled his other gloved hand into a fist with a crisp creak of leather, and punched him in the face. The impact broke the pirate's nose and he dropped his lasrifle to the floor. Kaicero pulled the combat knife out of the Scarred Maiden's chest and stepped back, watching dismissively as the pirate slumped against the wall, blood spurting from his chest with the frantic beating of his heart. Kaicero briefly considered cutting the man apart and arranging his body into a shape that would please the death god, but decided against it. There were many more enemies to kill.

Kaicero slipped the combat knife back into his coat after wiping it clean on the pirate's clothes and unslung his death-arc. He resumed whistling, picking up the tune where he left off, and headed down the door the pirates had come through. That took Kaicero into another corridor, a much smaller one, with a few windows to the outside. They were so filthy the aristocrat could barely see through them. “Degenerates,” he mumbled and rolled his eyes.

Meandering through the colony eventually brought him to the cell block. He'd encountered another pirate on the way there, a skinny fellow lifting a surprisingly big auto-rifle, who came face to face with Kaicero when he rounded a corner. He'd opened his mouth to scream something and Kaicero had jammed the barrel of his death-arc between the Scarred Maiden's teeth and pulled the trigger. The result had been spectacular. The doors of the cell block were all closed – and presumably locked– except one, a heavy steel door with the bolt undone. Kaicero stopped to look at it, cocked his head and chuckled. It seemed one of the prisoners had escaped. “Where are you?” he called out in a sing-song voice, looking around. “The cavalry is here, dear.”

Deleted

This was the first time Harvin had ever found himself on a drop pod, and he had found that the sensation of moving at high speed in such a cramped object was thoroughly unpleasant. Even more so, the sensation of slamming into whatever building they'd hit. He'd heard about something called... what was it? The exact term escaped him, but the sensation of suddenly becoming several times heavier for a brief moment was distressing. Still better than Warp travel, though.

In any case, Harvin landed on the ground at the same moment as every other mercenary in his pod, in his case assisted by landing artificial arm first, mostly to look cool, but also because he'd probably overbalance otherwise. His frenzied appearance was no better than usual as he rose, and he jumped a little when addressed directly by one of the other mercenaries; he responded with a quick, if strangled grin and a mumbled 'Er, yeah, it does,' just before the guy took off. A lot of the mercenaries ran in wildly in one direction; deciding he should try to cover as much ground as possible, Harvin decided to head in the opposite direction, accompanied by three other mercenaries lacking in particularly noteworthy characteristics, other than their shared annoyance with his short but loud screech when the alarm sirens went off not seconds later.

One mercenary split off from Harvin's group as they moved, leaving two with him as they traversed the facility. Frankly, the corridors they passed through weren't much to look at, as you might expect of a small-though-budding colony of Mankind. Grey plasteel walls, mostly, with only a few short bulkheads along the length of each one that Harvin noted would make for good- or at least any- cover in a firefight. Seconds after this thought, it turned out they also made very good hiding spots: a pirate, unseen before then, turn out from behind one of them just as Harvin's group were about to pass it, firing from the hip with a pair of laspistols. The fire was not particularly accurate, but it was shockingly rapid for an abrupt burst, and sudden enough to make the other mercenaries fling themselves behind the extrusions on the opposite side of the pirate's prior position. Harvin, on the other hand, reacted with a scream and a mechanised punch, crushing the man's head and shoulders against the wall even as lasfire refracted off his arm and down the corridor. Very unprofessional, but it got the job done, albeit not in the way the others would have liked.

'You idiot, stop yelling!' one of them shouted at him, anger evident on his features. 'You're going to get us all killed!'

'Er, YOU are,' Harvin retorted, 'I'm just trying to- GACK!' Several more pirates had appeared, and he ducked behind the bulkhead himself as a barrage of bullets and lasers flooded the corridor briefly, only for the pirates to begin moving up on the orders of the small group's leader (or who Harvin presumed was the leader, anyway). Both other mercenaries began to fire back at the pirates with their own weaponry round the corner of their bulkheads, on Harvin's side moving round him in order to get a good angle. Taking the opportunity to help out, Harvin set his arm down hand-first against the floor, essentially extending the bulkhead for his ally to take cover behind (and, since it kept Harvin himself mostly behind the actual bulkhead, gave him an excuse to remain out of harm's way for a moment). With nothing much to do, Harvin essentially waited as his companions returned fire against the pirates.

And waited. Aaaaand waited. And...

'Are you done yet?'

'Does it LOOK LIKE we're done?!' the one behind his arm yelled at him, still firing. 'We've killed maybe two of six, the bastards are-'

And then his head exploded out the back as a good or lucky shot passed through it. Seeing an opportunity as the mercenary fell, the leader ordered another push forward, which would necessitate that the pirates break cover at least momentarily. Apparently, they had forgotten that Harvin himself was mobile, and as he moved into view, his arm opening up to let out two lasweapons and two SP weapons, all four were caught off-guard. The only one who got back into cover before Harvin opened fire with a noise somewhere between a screech and a scream was the leader himself; the rest were mowed down like chaff, the majority of shots simply striking the far end of the corridor, but far more than enough finding a target to kill those three who failed to protect themselves in time. Once they were dead, the four weapons retracted back into Harvin's arm, and he charged forward robotic arm first, screaming as he ran a fair distance toward the last opponent. The threat obviously recognised, the leader tried to shoot at the howling maniac as he rapidly approached, but with no weapon stronger than a lasrifle on him and Harvin's head moving too erratically to hit, they all either missed or bounced off the armoured arm, and by the time he pulled out what appeared to be a chainsword, Harvin was upon him, the upper two of his own chainswords extended and revved up. Harvin plunged his weapons into the man's gut, still screaming, and pulled his arm upward, spraying himself and a large amount of the corridor with the unfortunate man's gore. It was a messy death.

'God-Emperor!' Harvin exclaimed, wiping what blood he could from his face with his biological arm. 'That was, uhhh, a lot, of... smeg.'

'Smeg? SMEG?' his remaining companion exclaimed as he walked up beside him. 'THAT'S what you call this? Mikal is dead now, probably because you distracted him with your screeching and bird noises.'

'Well, I mean, erm... I'm not.'

'Yeah obviously, 'cause you hid behind the damn bulkhead for most of the fight!' the man screamed, gesticulating wildly. 'And then you apparently went completely insane and just starting shooting everywhere, and then that berserk charge... and what in the Warp does smeg mean?!'

'Uh...' Harvin didn't really have an answer to that. It was just a slang term on Slome, meaning nothing in particular, and so potentially referring to anything the user wanted. He gestured somewhat lamely to the blood surrounding him, and the other mercenary simply slapped his palm against his face in frustration.

'Alright, look,' the guy said with a frown, 'I work way better on my own than with others, especially morons like you, so I'm going to head off on my own. I hope you get killed, idiot.'

'Wuh- wait, wait, that's not fair,' Harvin exclaimed, 'what about, uh... y'know, covering for... things? And I got the most kills.'

'You- shut up, I'm leaving.' The mercenary stalked off in the direction they were headed and rounded one corner of the T-junction at the end, leaving Harvin to his own devices. After a moment of disbelief, he too headed to that end of the corridor, turning in the opposite direction to his former companion, and so headed deeper into the bowels of the facility alone.

@Quinntessential@DrunkasaurusRex@Hank

Nakera shimmied up the ladder to where the Security Conduit access was. She reached up to the metal plate on the side of her head and disengaged a number of skull shunts before connecting them with the ports on the wall. The runes marking them would make no sense to anyone, but with her knowledge of the Divine Lexicon, she could easily find the A/V ports, as well as the Neural Control data socket. Connecting to them, she felt her eyes roll into her head as images were sent directly to her occipital lobe.

Grainy pictures showed dozens of soldiers breaching via drop capsules. They sliced through the skin of the Colony and very easily vented their troops into the chaos created by the impacts. It was painful - watching the hundred some security monitors at once. She tried to follow as much as she could. Xenos, raiders, pirates - this group was a mixed bag. She watched a quilled Xenos roughly the size of a man barrel down a hallway into whatever opposition waited for him. Another with a massive cybernetic arm dropped into the fray. Even an Eldar - something she never imagined she'd see - dropped down from a hatch as if it were merely a step.

She clicked between images of death and carnage at the speed of thought. These soldiers were far better trained than the pirates who captured her. They were practically professionals.

Another click showed her the galley - full of the refuse of months of unattended parties and drunken revelries. She remembered hearing screams - likely of women violated in that very room - in the first week or so of her capture. She feared joining them and couldn't have been happier to have been left alone. Not too long ago, she thought herself absolutely gorgeous. A princess suitable for a grand husband. Once she figured out how boring that life would be, she did all she could to get away from it. What better way to deter marriage than a massive cybernetic overhaul?

She watched the yellow haired man butcher the pirates. Whatever weapon he was using interested her enough to rewind and rewatch the footage. She didn't have any datachits, or else she'd save a copy. She also realized that he was heading her direction. She switched over control of the feeds and simply let one eye keep watching his movements as he entered the detention cells. Scooting up a bit, and stretching the length of cable attached to her head, she found the port for the intra-station communications system. It took a quick plug and a few dozen guesses before she figured out the pattern of the Mercenary's Vox Caster.

By then, he was already looking for her.

Her voice popped out of his Vox unit, metallic and grainy with the thought-to-impulse conversion. "Oh good. I was just getting lonely in that cell. Figured I'd go for a walk."

As he looked around, she had no doubt that the large, red paneled access hatch would stand out to him. He had no way through it unless he blasted it open or had a maintenance key.

"Feel like being a gem and share why you're here? Maybe then I'll let you know where I am." Her heart beat hard in her chest. She was only glad she could sound flippant over the Vox. Mainly because it didn't let her nerves fuck up the words with her vocal chords.

Kaicero was surprised when his micro-bead sprang to life and relayed the synthetic voice of the escaped prisoner. He whirled around, looking for her, when his eyes fell on the red hatch. He looked back at the open steel door. If she'd escaped from there, the hatch would have been the first thing she'd see. Kaicero strode over to the maintenance access and looked for a latch or a handle but saw no such thing, only a lock of some kind that was far beyond his understanding.

"Very well, clever girl," Kaicero said and took a few steps back. If the prisoner was in control of a vox system somewhere he wouldn't be surprised if she was also making use of the colony's cameras. Unsure of where the camera might be, Kaicero slowly turned on the spot while he tapped the Arachnosaur crest of the Ordos Thran pinned to his coat with two fingers. "Assuming that you can see me, this is the sigil of one of your colony's benefactors, the Ordos Thran. We have been hired to liberate you and your kin from the pirate scourge. If you come out now, I will personally see to your safety," he finished with a smile and a theatrical bow, oblivious to his Eldar compatriot hiding in the shadows.

Nakera gave his proposal some thought. If they were sent by the Colonial Exchange, then maybe her luck wasn't so poor anymore. On the other hand...she had seen him take very specific pleasure in killing. How could she know she could trust him. She needed to make herself valuable.

"If you're here for the colonists, you're too late. Most were sold...the others were...used up. I'm all that's left here...apparently I was more useful alive and...unspoiled." She contemplated for a moment. She still had access to the Colony's personnel database...assuming she could get to it. One thing they'd had her do was update the Personnel roster with who the colonists were sold to. It could be valuable information if he was telling the truth. It was still good if he was lying, because she could extract the buyers data from the records. That would lead to some hefty bounties...if saving people wasn't this man's primary motivation. "That said...if you can get me to Operations Control...I can fish out some nifty details on where the colonists went and what scum bought them..."

"Oh my dear, how horrible," Kaicero said in the same lilting tone of voice as before, without a single trace of genuine empathy. "I know for a fact that the trader-generals of the Ordos Thran will be absolutely heartbroken by this news. Perhaps your idea is a good one, my dear, and we should soften the blow by sending them a list of the cruel degenerates that have ruined their colonial efforts so that vengeance may be quickly exacted. If you would be so kind as to guide me to the operations control room, we shall get that business sorted immediately," he finished. Another mercenary would never consider giving up such information for free, but Kaicero wasn't in it for the money. Perhaps the Ordos Thran would send them on a merry goose chase throughout the local systems to hunt down all the names on that list. How much fun that would be!

Nakera hesitated. He seemed...trusting. That said, if he was sent out to help the colony, then why should she fear him. "Wait there...I'll be down in a minute..."

She unhooked her cranial shunts and let them spool back into their compartment. Once they were stowed, she performed the Rites of Thanks to the series of ports. Hopefully the other machine spirits would be as willing to help. She couldn't imagine that the pirates kept up with the duties and blessings while they occupied the place.

Climbing down, she opened the access hatch and very carefully stepped out and up to Kaicero. She was filthy - covered in a month's worth of unwashed humanity and wearing a threadbare 'robe' that was little more than a sack with a thin belt that barely came down to her knees. She had cut a hole in the back of it, allowing her cybernetics to hang out of the robe from her lower back. Even the mechadendrite looked worn and neglected. She couldn't see herself, obviously, but her lack of regular, full meals had an effect on her already thin frame. Around her wrists and ankles there were ugly, red sores where the iron shackles had sat against her skin for so long.

She stepped out with her hands up and open. "D..don't shoot..." she said, her voice nervous and worn. "I'm...Nakera...Nakera Kaas."

The contrast in the appearance of the two humans standing opposite each other couldn't possibly have been greater. Kaicero looked flawless and unblemished with his graft-sculpted face, radiant blue eyes, neatly trimmed golden hair and pearly white smile. His outfit seemed to have resisted all the grime, dust and blood that covered every surface of the colony, from the shiny leather of his gloves to the steel toes of his combat boots.

He kept his death-arc lowered and tutted at the sight of Nakera. "My, my, look what these animals have done to you, Nakera. My name is Apollyon Kaicero. The pleasure is entirely mine. Lead the way."

The young woman gave a little nod, not noticing the Eldar nearby. She turned in the cellblock and oriented herself with where they were in the colony.

"Uuuum...th..this way..." she said, taking a few cautious steps before ushering the man with the gun forward. She gave brief, simple instructions on where to go, and mentioned that there may be some doors, but she should be able to operate the manual override sequences.

As he advanced, she stayed a number of steps behind him, giving short verbal cues as to where he was heading. Unarmed, unarmored, and exhausted from captivity, Nakera knew she wasn't going to be any good in a fight.

Malkath kept running through the halls, he heard the sounds of fighting around him in the facility, and desperately wished to find a quarry of his own to kill.

He did not have to wait long, just three more bends in the alarm-blaring halls led him to an antechamber of sorts, with multiple stair ways and paths leading to different parts of the facility or different rooms. Several pirates had gathered there in the panic of the initial strike and were planning their next move forward, until Malkath came upon them.

The Kroot charged them, firing two quick shots with his Kroot Rifle, the shots taking one of the humans in the torso, with the pulse rounds burning neat holes through him. The other two panicked and fired about with their respective las and stub guns. Malkath lept into the air, easily hitting the roof, and using it to increase his momentum, lept down straight at them with a roar. He landed into the pair, knocking both of them down with his frame. Making quick work of the one to his left, he sliced the man's throat open in one swipe with his taloned claws on his left hand, the human dropped his gun and clutched at his throat, croaking hoarsely as blood pumped out of his throat and onto himself and the ground.

Quickly turning to remaining pirate in front of him, Malkath crawled on top of him and using the butt of his Kroot rifle, beat the pirate's face in. Within 3 strikes, the man's face was a mess of crushed bone and blood. Pathetic . . . none of these three had been prey worthy of note. They were . . . what was the human expression? "Lambs to the slaughter."

A fresh growl from behind him immediately caught his attention. A Kroot, evidently one of the pirates, had evidently come to the same meeting place, though arrived too late to help his friends. The fellow Xeno snarled predatorily at Malkath, and Malkath returned the snarl. This Kroot had evidently feasted mostly on humans lately, his body type were exhibiting even more features of humans than Malkath, though he still possessed the characteristic beak and some of the quills of his species, most were in his hair and none were on his body. His talons had mostly become nails, and his frame was bulkier.

The Kroot Pirate put down his own Kroot rifle carefully, and crouched down in a fighting stance before issuing a sharp taunt in the Kroot language (albeit now highly convoluted in its accent), an obvious challenge. Malkath pulled off the Kroot equivalent of grinning, his hair quills stood up straighter and pointed out the back of his head like spikes, and he carefully laid down his own rifles before getting into his own stance and issuing his own challenge.

Within moments the two charged at eachother and were engaged in a brawl. The two of them trying to scratch the other with their claws, or to tear at each other with their beaks, and each possessing fairly considerable speed. Malkath took several slices across the exposed areas of his chest, and narrowly missed having his ear bitten off during a brief clinch. And although both were strong, Malkath was the stronger, likely on account of some of his greenskin DNA. Seizing a break in his opponents defence, he did a swift double kick with his taloned feet that threw him forward and his opponent backward into the steps. Pulling off a quick roll that turned into a lunge at the fellow Kroot, Malkath managed to land on to of him and get him pinned. He quickly plunged his beak into his opponent's neck, tear through muscle, a thin layer of fat, and tearing our arteries as blood spilled out onto him and face and filled his mouth. He let go and leaned back as his opponent cried out in pain, using own hand to try and staunch the flow, the other he swung about wildly desperately trying to get Malkath off of him, to which the Kroot Mercenary simply grabbed the hand and neatly sliced all five of his fingers off in a swift motion.

He then plunged his talons into the chest of the heavily wounded and bleeding Kroot, seeking to penetrate its vital organs and finish this. He stabbed his claws in like knives and worked himself into a frenzy as he slashed, tore, and maimed his opponent until finally he stopped moving. By that point, the stairs were a mess, and his victim's torso was a gore-filled work of art. Calming down, he looked down upon his now dead opponent. Now he was a capable adversary. Do him his honors and make him part of your collection!

Licking his already blood-soaked beak and relishing the more human but still mixed xeno-blood taste, he delved into his opponents torso, eating out his heart, the precious eagle cactus fruit as some ancient humans who had a similarly understanding of such things as Kroot did had apparently once called it, and setting to work consuming his prize like a predator would over its latest catch . . .

Within mere moments of hitting the metal-grated floor the twelve mercenaries had gone their separate ways, old club-arm half limping and half jogging away, the Kroot loping off in search of fresh DNA, and one-by-one they disappeared off on their separate errands until Phant was left all by himself. Above was only the gaping maw of the pod, the red lights continuing to blink even after the internal klaxon had been killed; how then was the klaxon still- Ah! Realisation filtered into his mind, the pirates had finally become aware of their presence, and someone - probably a little more clever than the others - had now put the place on the highest of alerts. Soon every section of the depopulated colony would be stiffened by a slowly more determined resistance, and it was up to he and his fellow killers to make sure that it was not merely broken, but annihilated utterly.

Soft but quick steps carried him further into the complex and, if his usually accurate memory served him faithfully, in the very direction of the colonies comm-section; once there he could silence the alarm, destroy any chance that his enemy may have of contacting their absent fleet, and hopefully find some records or transmissions that may be of interest to his employers.

It was some half-an-hour later that he came upon the first body, clearly what had once been a pirate but was now no more than a corpse separated from its head. As he pressed on, sounds of battle reaching him from far and near, the tally of bodies began to pile up - all of them pirates, not a mercenary among them.

Upon reaching a junction, his lasgun strafing from left to right in practiced swings, the Krieger came upon one of the most glorious and at the same time one of the most piteous sights he had ever seen in all his years of constant war.

---

Propped with his back against one of the cold metal walls was the behemoth of a man from his pod, before him a veritable sea of broken and decimated bodies - man, xenos and some he could not identify alike - every one slain by the 'man' before him, a man who had emerged from the pod wearing nothing but plain grey combat fatigues and wielding only a combat knife that would have been a sword to any other being; all manner of wounds, from las-burns to stubbers shells to gashes caused by melee weapons, were visibly upon the frame of the once proud and powerful transhuman warrior.

"Some...foul xenos poison," sputtered the ashen-faced giant, his voice like two rocks grating against one another, blood seeping from his wounds and from between his lips, "they have killed me this day." His head lolled back against the metal, his eyes focusing and then becoming unfocused in turn, even the super-human organs unable to stop the insipid progress of the foreign poison that was slowly shutting them down.

Phant stepped over the closest bodies and came to kneel beside the Astartes, one gloved hand holding his lasgun at the ready, while his other cautiously reached out...in one swift motion a huge hand, still more than capable of snapping the Guardsmans own limb with ease, came to grasp the outstretched limb in an almost gentle embrace.

"Have I done enough, brother?" Queried the dying angel, his face a sudden mask of pain and his eyes staring off into some memory only he could see, "have I atoned? Will the Emperor have me back?" Whoever he was looking at, it was not Phant and the Krieger gave a small nod of his head.

In life, war. In death, peace. In life, shame. In death, atonement.

The words echoed in his head, and Watchmaster 1511 felt not for the last time the sudden pang of guilt which was part of him from the moment he was born.

"You have done what I have thus far failed to do," he assured the Astartes in a muffled voice that sounded as if he were sucking soup through his masks filter, "you have given your life for the Emperor and atoned for your past transgressions, be at peace and know that he will welcome you. You are his son, and now you go to be with your father."

There was something almost childlike about the Marine as he died, a smile spreading across his previously pained features, everything relaxing and his last breath rattling through his lips and out into the blood-tinged air. It was mostly sobering, seeing such a being laid low, yet not all in the Imperium or beyond were wielders of mighty weapons or cybernetically augmented fights, some were just men. Had Phant had the knowhow to withdraw the progenoid gland of the dead warrior he would have, and that saddened the soldier more than the death itself.

Many believed that a Krieger could not be sad, that he could feel about as much empathy as a piece of rock, or one of the lifeless Necrons, and for the most part this may have been true - Phant could still recall the feeling of the shrapnel hitting his head, carving through his helmet and into his brain, causing him to feel. Oh he had had emotions before, but as with every soldier of his planet he had been raised only to fight, to fight only to die, and he had been the worst at that even before the injury that caused him to desert his post.

---

Returning to the present, both hands going once more to the lasgun and its forty-five centimetres of sharpened metal, he rose once more to his feet and moved forward with a little more urgency. Eventually his steps carried him to his target, apparently the Astartes having killed every pirate between him and the comm-section in his death throes, a blessing that he would make sure to take full advantage of.

The comm-section was actually made up of several rooms, including a clerks office where a record of each transmission and important business documents had been kept - as well as those assertaining to security, supplies and so forth - while the comm-relay itself sat in another room. Inside the rooms were around a dozen or so of the Scarred Maiden thugs in total, including a large and scaly Tarellian Dog-soldier and a xenos unknown to him - this latter figure looked for all intents and purposes like a bipedal ant, its eyes two globes of pure black and its mandibles clacking together in some crude form of communication.

Phantasm felt a familiar rage building inside him, a burning hatred for both the renegades and killers of the innocent and the abominable things with which they consorted. There was a certain hypocrisy to his feelings, but he did not pause to dwell on it, instead favouring the traditional Kreigan doctrine of blanking out all thoughts of fear, retreat or surrender and hurling oneself into the jaws of his enemy. It was a tactic that had always served him well in the past.

Twenty-five supercharged shots were all that each of his four or five charge-packs contained, capable of searing through flesh and most forms of armour with relative ease, the Lucius-pattern often referred to as a 'hotshot' lasgun on account of this particular aspect of the weapon; it was not with this that he drew first blood however, a quick yank of a pin and a heave sending the standard-issue no. 38 frag grenade spinning away through the air to land with a clunk in the middle of the comm-chamber.

"What the frak i-"

Fragments of lethal shrapnel burst apart from the central charge, five of the pirates immediately injured or killed - effectively taking them out of the coming engagement - blood spraying across the various consoles and instruments as limbs were slashed and flesh flayed. The response from the rest of the dozen was admirably fast, weapons appearing in hands and yells erupting from enraged throats, most looking up just in time to see the skull-shaped respirator appear at the doorway with his lasgun raised.

Using the door as a chokepoint he fired into the seething mass of adversaries with parade ground precision, a burning shot practically evaporating the face of one scruffy man as he scrabbled for his stubber pistol, a second shot gutting a gangly woman as she screeched her hatred at the veteran blocking her escape, one fluid sweep bringing the ant-thing into his sights and a brief seconds squeeze of the trigger sent the thing tumbling back into one of the blood-slicked consoles with a screech of its own.

"Get him! He can't kill us all!"

Return fire forced Phant to duck back into the corridor as sparks and melted metal followed him, the four remaining degenerates close on his heels.

Twenty-two shots left.

Two more pirates were shorn apart by superheated laser as they tried to close on him, a lucky shot from an autogun winging him and sending him to the deck by the force of the shot alone.

Soon enough the remaining two reavers were on him, the first being the recipient of two blasts of laser and inches of steel jutting from his back, the Tarellian giving a feral hiss as it saw it's last comrade lifted from his feet and blown from the nozzle of the Kriegers lasgun. Now it was he and the human, alone of twelve pirates, and he did not intend to lose.

A hiss proceeded the attack of the shorter but broader creature, its tale swinging like a club as it attacked, strong hands grasping for the Krieger only to recoil somewhat as Phant did the last thing it had expected - instead of withdrawing or pausing to shoot it dead from a distance, the Death Korpsman simply yelled a warcry and hurled himself headlong at the beast, professional thrusts from his bayonet drawing blood from a dozen wounds as the Tarellian swung this way and that at the black-clad annoyance.

It was no good - raw strength and brutal attacks were nothing when compared to a Watchmaster forged first on Krieg, then on a hundred other worlds, through campaigns that saw thousands of his comrades fall and his promotion assured by such suicidal charges as this - Phant weaving away from the final attack and leaping forward, aiming down and then thrusting with all force behind the blow, driving his blade straight through the brain of his adversary from above.

Just like that it was over.

---

All across the colony the klaxons fell silent, only the sounds of battle able to be heard now, those that survived of the forty-eight slowly but surely driving the Scarred Maidens back to their ultimate fates; with the comm-section secured, as well as the only apparent prisoner in the complex, all that was left to do was to mop up the last vestiges of resistance, storm the command chambers and execute the Captain, and report back to the Ordos Thran on a job well done.

@Quinntessential@DrunkasaurusRex@BCTheEntity@Hank@TemplarKnight07

Nakera followed the blonde man at a safe distance. Something about his mannerisms felt dangerous and barely contained. If she hadn't seen him gut a man with his knife and grin while blasting another to bits with his strange gun, she would have been fooled by his charms. That said, he wasn't trying to kill, rape, or eat her, so that was a step up from some of the people she'd been kidnapped by. As she walked, she found the remnants of a battle. Among the dead was the Jailer.

He wasn't quite gone yet - pale from blood loss and riddled with stubber holes. One of his legs looked like shredded beef. He grabbed her leg as they walked past, choking out a bit of breath.

"H...Help me..." he choked. His lips coated themselves with blood as he struggled to breathe. His grip was weak and she broke away from it quickly.

Her skin absolutely crawled at the idea of him touching her. She spit on him and very nearly gave him a kick before she realized that Kaicero was beginning to outpace her if she dawdled anymore. She could hear him whimpering his last as she walked away.

They heard the explosion coming from the control center and very eagerly increased their pace. The locked door was between them and the room full of gunfire. Quickly, Nakera ran to the manual override panel - a small box covered in scrolls with the crest of the Omnissiah on it's surface. The thick steel was impossible to pry open without power tools but the box itself was a complex lock. With a prayer, she awoke the Machine Spirit within and begged it's cooperation. She struck the appropriate runes, sating the spirit's curiosity. In return, the Machine whirred and clicked, opening itself and revealing the lever that would release the massive pressures sealing the door shut. With a prayer, and a pull, Nakera yanked the valve open.

The door to the Comms Room opened with a hiss and the smell of death, explosives, and ionized air filled the hallway. She stepped in to see the Krieger standing over the massive xenos. She raised her hands in panic, not wanting him to shoot her. Why she thought it wold be a good idea to go in first was beyond her.

Kaicero had shown her the strange symbol he wore and sure enough this soldier bore it as well.

"Wait wait! Don't shoot! I'm a prisoner!" she said, stepping past and across the room. She knew Kaicero was on her heels - he'd be able to clear things up. Right now she was more occupied with the console of blinking red lights across the room. Nothing should make that console light up like that. She had no real training on the maintenance and repair of the Colony's main reactor, but she knew when it's primary safety panel was screaming for aid.

She nearly slipped and fell on the pile of gore that was the two pirates thrown into the console by the grenade Phant had thrown. She stopped short for only a moment, barely able to contain the wretch trying to force her to her knees. She hadn't eaten today, so at least she couldn't throw up. Once she controlled her stomach, she pulled a wire and plugged into the console, greeting the Machine Spirit with a few uttered prayers. Her eyes rolled into her head as she merged her mind with the computer. The panicked alarms it was sounding made her heart race and sweat bead on her forehead. She could feel it's fear, the Machine Spirit, and could see that she why.

Of the eight main plasma reactors that powered the facility, four had their safeties removed and were spinning up for a melt down. "Oh Throne..." she muttered, half in and half out of reality. She couldn't do anything from here. Hell, she probably couldn't do anything from THERE. Someone would need to stop him. Emergency procedures allowed her to purge four of the reactors. If a fifth started overloading, she risked blowing up the facility by purging them - not to mention destroying any hope of this place running ever again. If nothing was done...well...

Maybe being free floating ions wasn't such a bad life...

After that initial encounter, it had become oddly quiet as far as pirate slaying went. Some showed up, maybe one or two at a time, and were summarily killed, but none presented as much of a threat to Harvin as that initial blockade had. Frankly, he was unnerved, and those few pirates that did reveal themselves after the other mercenary's split tended to be greeted with yet another screech of fear, and a generally terrible death by crushing force. That said, it ultimately transpired that Harvin was heading in the right direction as far as completing the mission went: he found himself before a pair of fairly large doors, maybe twice his height and apparently sealed closed. They seemed... well, tough. Plasteel, definitely, maybe even adamantium if he was unlucky... but if he was lucky, maybe he could... extending one pair of chainswords from his arm again, he turned the weapons on, and after some hesitation, rammed them into the metal as hard as he could, the noise of grinding metal and revving motors echoing loudly through the facility. Inexplicably, the weapons didn't break, and with something almost like a smile on his face, he dragged the blades through the doors until what sounded like a loud lock breaking apart resonated from them. Then, withdrawing and retracting the chain weapons, he forced the fingers of his robotic arm into the newly-formed gap in the doorway, and pushed with all his might, forcing the right-hand door open.

Almost immediately, a burst of white-hot energy flew out of the newly-formed opening, barely missing Harvin's limb; with a squawk, he withdrew his arm from the opening, then with another charged through the doorway, flinging himself to the ground as another blast of heat passed over his head. Scrambling to his feet, he found himself almost face to face with a human of clearly significant age, grizzled and scarred, with a (bemused) scowl on his face, an odd-looking gun in his hands, a sword of some sort on one hip, and a body covered in...

'Wha- WAI- WHAT?!' Harvin yelled in a shrill, cracking voice, slowly figuring out just how much power this opponent actually had, in particular what had just narrowly missed turning him into superheated vapour. 'Izzat power armour?! Why do you 'ave a... that's a PLASMA GUN! WHAT?'

'Call it loot, call it captain's personal gear,' the man responded, now smirking at the mercenary's distress, 'it don't matter none why or how I have it. What matters is how much of a headstart it gives you on bein' vaporised before the reactors blow.'

'The- what?' Harvin glanced over the guy's shoulders, and his eyes widened at the bank of red-flashing screens, and what looked like... temperature gauges? 'Wait, what did you do?!' he asked in a panic, though the only answer he received was the captain levelling the gun at him again. Shrieking again, he somehow managed to bowl himself out of the way of yet another plasma shot's trajectory the moment before it was fired, before unleashing and unloading at the captain with just about every laser and SP weapon in his arm, screaming the entire time. Once again, the vast majority of shots missed, these ones destroying a lot of the hardware keeping track of whatever destruction the man had been planning on unleashing; this time, though, even the clean hits were absorbed or repelled by the man's armour, and he continued to laugh as he fired a fourth shot from the gun, this one fortunately aimed to lead Harvin by too much, and instead melting yet another monitor down to slag. It was mere seconds, though, before Harvin himself ran dry on ammunition; the SP casings were ejected, and the majority of the weapons retracted automatically, as a number of automated systems in the arm worked to reload every gun as quickly as possible.

Not fast enough, of course, and Harvin knew they would be all but worthless against this guy's defenses anyway. Forced to make a snap decision as the captain re-aimed in preparation for another shot, he decided it was worth the cost to finally unveil his trump card. From the palm of his hand, the barrel of his prized Angelus Bolt Carbine showed itself, and with a thought fired a single, Marine-caliber bolt round a fraction of a second before the fifth plasma burst could vaporise his flesh.

As it happens, firing what amounts to a high-yield fragmentation grenade in a rather confined space is not usually a good idea. Harvin missed hitting the man directly, but the explosion nevertheless threw him several meters to the floor, and the few intact reactor monitors were summarily destroyed by the blast. Harvin himself, being relatively far from the shockwave and partially shielded by his arm, survived relatively intact, though he still stumbled and yelled wildly at the heat and force rolling over him. With that said and done, Harvin took a moment to figure out how trashed the place now was... the answer was "very". It'd be a miracle if the reactors weren't still going to blow up, as Harvin suspected, but at least the guy would blow up... fewer of them? Large explosions tended to be catastrophic either way. For now, Harvin barely thought about it; glancing at the captain to see that he was still alive and moving- 'HOW?! DHK-!' -Harvin charged the pirate, attempting to strike with his arm again, only for a foot to plant itself right in his groin, winding him and knocking him down. Positions were promptly reversed, and the pirate straddled the cyborg mercenary, trying to beat him with the plasma gun, an assault only fended off by Harvin's own artificial arm.

'Are you STUPID?!' Harvin yelled over the attack as metal sparked off metal. 'You're gonna blow US BOTH UP!'

'I'll crush your dumb face before that, jackass!' the pirate responded, continuing to strike a few more times before getting the picture and kicking Harvin's protection away. Another fatal shot to the face was avoided only because Harvin repeated the pirate's own tactic, kicking out with both feet and sending him flailing down as he fired wildly into the walls, the gun now making a threatening whine that only increased in pitch and volume over the next few seconds. The mercenary panicked once more, screaming loudly as the need to get out of there before he got exploded flooded his mind, and he praised the Emperor as he passed through the doorway.

Less so as the pirate followed him, aiming the still-complaining plasma gun for a seventh and final shot, then suffering an attack of rationality at the last moment and flinging the malfunctioning weapon back into the room, taking cover behind the single intact door as the gun returned to the Omnissiah's welcoming grasp in a solar flare of impossibly high heat. This was felt by Harvin even several meters from the door, and surely only survived by the captain because of his own protection behind the thickly-armoured door and personal energy field; if anything was intact in that room before then, it sure as the Warp wasn't anymore.

For a brief moment, both Harvin and the pirate captain allowed themselves to relax, Harvin in particular making the sign of the Aquila and muttering 'Bugger me!' under his breath. Then, the moment passed, and Harvin stood again, revealing all four chainswords and revving them threateningly. It was only fair, after all, since the captain now had no ranged weapons, and all of Harvin's save one were ineffective... and he didn't trust his accuracy with that one, in his state.

The captain laughed at that display. He drew his own sword, hefted it, then pressed a button on the handle, coating the otherwise-standard edge in a field of searing, blue-glowing energy that made even Harvin's weapons seem somewhat pathetic by comparison.

'...er... that's a power sword,' Harvin stated, his chainswords revving down to zero.

'Sure is.' The captain smiled viciously.

A moment passed before Harvin retracted his chainswords fully, turned on his heel, and ran from the captain squealing like a madman, up to and including shrieked cries for help. The captain took pursuit just a few meters behind, screaming obscenities about how he was going to kill the mercenary with the weapon. And so it went.

@Jbcool@Quinntessential@DrunkasaurusRex@Hank@TemplarKnight07

After several minutes of feeding, Malkath's bloodlust finally started to fade away slightly, he'd consumed most of his opponent's internal organs that were edible, leaving the stomach and intestines and the white ribs of the carcass, bloody leftovers splattered all over the edge of the steps and the body. He'd purposely neglected his victim's head, but now directed his attention to it in his more sober sate.

His hands still bloody, Malkath retrieved his Kroot Rifle from the floor where he'd left it and used the serrated blade along its outside edge to cut through the neck and spine, separating the former Kroot's head from his body. He lifted the head up and expected it absently for a moment before taking a short length of rope from his belt, and tying it carefully around the head, which he then tied closely to his belt, he stood up to test to make sure that the knots were sturdy. The head still dripped blood and would probably bounce around a bit, but it shouldn't move that much. He'd clean it and have it added to his collection whenever he made it back to his room aboard the ship they came upon.

He had just finished doing this when he heard screams of help coming from further into the facility, echoing down the halls, to which he turned his head in their direction. Was it their targets, or one of his fellows? Whether it was one or the other, it meant there was still work to do, and if it was one of their guys who was screaming, it meant the Pirates had more than a few tricks up their sleeve yet.

Thus, the Kroot Mercenary readied his Kroot rifle, still bloodied at the stock from smashing in the face of one of the last pirates in both hands and crouching down, he set off in a run at all fours, bloody claw prints left behind him for several metres. He passed by other scattered members of the mercenary company he recognized briefly by their crests, they likewise were moving or looking in the direction of the screaming, or were rooting through the various rooms or bodies of the deceased if they didn't care. Some looked over at him as he passed and a few were disgusted, Malkath wasn't too surprised, he probably looked like death with the head hanging from his belt, as well as the blood all over his chest, arms, claws, and beak, almost all of it not his own.

His racing pace took him to the source of the screams for help, near the facility's generators. As he bounded a corner, jumping off the wall in front to land on two feet and bring his Rifle to bear, he saw two men running up the hall towards him. The one was one of the cyborgs they had in their crew, he was the one screaming and running, the other was one of the pirates with a . . . energy sword and power armour? Well, at least the cyborg wasn't a coward, he just wasn't foolish.

Well, there was a challenge Malkath thought, but no sense in being bold here, time to play things smart. Aiming his Kroot rifle down the hall at the two running combatants, Malkath shouted at the cyborg in his gravelly voice.

"Get clear!"

@Quinntessential@DrunkasaurusRex@BCTheEntity@Hank@TemplarKnight07

No one is really sure of the origins of the Dread Pirate Ahab, some say that he was born from the very womb of a daemon-possessed vessel, while others put forward that he was a Rogue Trader driven made in search of a huge white Tyranid bio-form, and those are but two of the multitude of theories put fourth. Like his earlier life, his motives and goals were just as mysterious and shrouded in secret, only his closest (and now deceased) advisors had even known why they were landing on and taking control of a newly minted Imperial colony and its systems.

Now he may have been driven truly insane, more than willing to blow the entire colony and all within it to Imperium come and into the lap of the God-Emperor...or whatever deity the other mercenaries or pirates believed. He was set on his collision course of self-destruction now, he would destroy them all in an inferno of plasma and flame, and these irritating fools - such as the clumsy mutant shambling away from him - were only getting in his way!

Phant on the other hand had been standing over the fallen Dog-Soldier when an odd looking woman, or was she more mechanical than human, and the foppish dandy with the xenos weapons had entered the comm-section and made themselves well and truly known to him.

He watched with grim fascination as she literally plugged herself into the console and began to sweat, and he was certain he heard her mutter "Oh Throne..." beneath her breath. It did not fill him with confidence, and he was not even certain that she could hear him or was even aware of any existence outside of that artifical one she was currently inhabiting inside the machine. The Mechanicus in general had always been something he had stayed away from; some may have believed that the inhuman and emotionless cogs of the Imperium's Mars-based allies would have gotten on as kith and kin with the vat-born warriors of Krieg, but they could not be more wrong, they even made his skin crawl. This one did not seem to have anywhere near the implants he may have expected, and so he did not overly mind her.

"What is the matter?" Came his half-muffled voice, his boots making their way to her side, his masked visage hovering next to her own sweating face as he squatted down on his haunches, "if there is something wrong, can you fix it?" He did not need to know what was wrong, but she would never have muttered a curse to the Throne had it not been important.

Meanwhile, in the corridor without, Ahab swung his power sword this way and that in great arcs and patterns, the servos of his power armour propelling him toward the quilled alien that now took aim at him. Without realising that it has croaked something in an approximation of Low Gothic, he was somewhat surprised when the twisted half-man flung himself aside and was bought face-to-face with the barrel of some bladed rifle pointing straight in his direction. Pah, it mattered not! He would rend them both limb-from-limb and take pleasure in every second of it.

"Surrender or die, alien!" He half-screamed, quickening his pace toward the Kroot in an attempt to bull-rush the thinner and lighter adversary, his glittering weapon bought up into a guard position above his head as he prepared to strike down once he got within close-quarter distance. This he would do within no more than a few more strides, the large-armed thing not even worth his time anymore, his attention fixed on that rifle and the xenos holding it.

---

Somewhere far above XT-0009345:132, in orbit of the planet upon which it had been founded in the Emperor's name, a signature might reach whatever technical systems and personnel remained. It was faint, but growing ever stronger, at first a shimmering in the reality of space...then a slight tear...and then a channel from within the Immaterium through which the prow of a number of vessels began to emerge.

The question was, were they ships of the Ordo come to see how progress was coming, or had the corsair fleet of the Scarred Maidens come back at their Captains call?

Once the cyborg was clear and the Pirate Captain shouted, Malkath fired off a shot from his rifle. The blue pulse-shot cut through the Ceramite of the power armour as if it had been paper, punching a neat hole through the torso of the Pirate Captain. The Captain staggered but didn't slow in his charge as his power sword flared with intensity as it drew near, and hearing his gun still whirring up for the next shot, Malkath knew he couldn't just stand and wait for a second one, he'd likely be minus a head.

He knew he couldn't compete with this guy for strength, and his sword was likely to cut his rifles in half. So, using his more nimble frame, Malkath jumped back against the wall behind him on his back legs and pushed himself off and at the gap between the hallway wall and the captain's left side. The wounded pirate swung his sword to try and cut the Kroot in two, but only managed to slice off the tips of some of his quills as he flew past with terrific speed.

"Stand still and fight me, alien scum!"

Honour was for those who were fighting on equal footing, Malkath thought, this was simply wise hunting when facing a predator who is naturally more powerful than yourself. Rolling into a crouched position, and his rifle cooled down again, Malkath took aim and fired a second shot at the angered and frustrated captain, this time punching a hole through his right knee, and consequently cutting the servos to the lower part of that leg entirely.

The Captain growled in pain and frustation as his right leg now refused to move and started to bleed out along with the wound in his chest, the adrenaline flowing through him from the previous fighting had so far numbed his pain and hadn't sent him into shock, but now his mobility was hampered. Still defiant, he tried to drag the now heavy leg as his left hand clutched at his chest wound and his right stayed on his sword, his foe still keeping his distance. In desperation, and with blood starting to leak from the corners of his mouth, the Captain flung his sword at Malkath who promptly dodged the flying power weapon with relative ease.

"You cowardly mercenaries! The lot of you! Too scared for your own lives to fight man to man, running for help and launching sneak attacks on my men before they can even get their guns. What kind of warriors are you!?"

Malkath stood himself up and waited for his Kroot rifle to recharge before aiming and intoning in his gravelly voice a few more choice phrases he'd picked up while learning Low Gothic:

"The ones who aren't dead, fuck-face."

The third shot he placed through the Captain's forehead, blowing out a fairly sizeable whole through the back of his skull as the massive and heavy frame of the former Pirate crashed to the ground, his blood pooling from the various wounds.

Malkath then busied himself with checking over his sliced quills and slinging his rifle before looking over at the cyborg who dove initially.

Much as Harvin wanted to contribute to the Kroot's fight against the insane captain, he was pretty sure he'd be rent apart if he tried to get up close with the chainswords, and having established that every gun on him except the explosive bolt carbine was too weak to reasonably damage the man's power armour, he simply did his best to remain relatively quiet and avoid notice after having flung himself out of the psychopath's path, rolling to minimise any potential harm. Fortunately, the xeno creature's weapon seemed to be far more than strong enough to seriously wound the man, and it didn't take long before he resorted to actually throwing the power sword, the blade embedding hilt-deep into the floor some distance away as the Kroot dodged it, and then to insults, before finally being put out of his misery. The last significant threat to the mercenaries dealt with- manageable, rather, Harvin knowing what he did- the Kroot took that time to check its injuries and resling its rifle, whilst Harvin took a moment to calm himself. As calm as he could get, anyway.

When he opened his eyes, the xeno was looking at him. What, did it want to eat him now or something? Was that why it was looking at him?! Probably not, but he knew they did that sometimes. Still, it was another mercenary, so he figured he should at least give it fair warning of the impending doom that was soon to be upon them. And this other guy... oh, hey, it was the guy from before, with the turned-off power sword in hand, coming up toward the Kroot.

'Alright, so here's me,' the man began in a somewhat annoyed tone, 'just walking round the facility, trying to find more pirates, and then somebody flings an Emperor-damned power sword about two feet in front of me. I grab it, turn it off, walk over here, and who do I see but fucking robo-arm and an alien with a pulse rifle. What the hell is going on?'

'Okay, look,' Harvin started, rising to his feet and trotting over to the two, 'that guy you-' he pointed to the alien- 'just shot did something, right? And, er, he's gone and guffed up the power reactors or something. They're gonna blow up, and we need to leave, uh, probably now, really.' "Guff", again, was another bit of Slomian slang along the lines of smeg, albeit with greater meaning, implying something being ruined; he wondered briefly after the fact whether the xeno, or even the jackass, would actually recognise the comparison with more contemporary Low Gothic words, but shortly stopped caring so as to make sure it didn't abruptly turn on him. That'd suck butts.

'Wait, it's gonna blow up?! Then we need to get out of-' the other human began, only to gasp long and loud and fall to his knees at the sight of the dead man's clothing. 'Holy shit, that's fucking power armour! That's so good- and I can't loot it because the place is going to explode! That's not ff- HHRRRRRMMMM... yeah, good job on that, asshat,' he concluded, directing his frustration at Harvin as he knelt down and fiddled with whatever kept the sword's sheath attached to the captain's body, some sort of looped belt.

'Oi, what did I do?!' Harvin retorted angrily. 'He already set them off before I got there, what am I going to do-'

'Turn them off, maybe?'

'HOW?!' By now, the belt had come free, and the looter reattached it around his own waist before sliding the sword into the sheath. 'Whatever, I'm getting out of here, you can stay and die if you want,' the mercenary concluded, rising into a run back toward where the drop pods had landed (or so Harvin presumed) with a passing farewell of 'So long, idiots!' Much as Harvin wanted to chase after him, he figured it wouldn't be particularly fruitful. It wasn't like he needed a power sword anyway, since he couldn't really work it into his arm safely, though anyone who did would probably have just a few seconds to either start chasing after the guy or shoot him down from a distance before he vanished into the corridors of the facility with his prize.

Deleted

Nakera was chanting now, speaking in strange tongues known only to the Machine Cult. Her fingers were striking runes across the various effigies and control surfaces, communicating as best as she could to the colony's main systems without angering the Spirits within. She gave up the manual entry and found the data port. Pulling the line from her skull, she interfaced with the Machine Spirit directly. Her reward for not using the proper rites to do so was a sharp, blinding pain as the Spirit lashed at her directly. She whimpered in the control room, a few sparks popping from the side of her cybernetic skull. Inside the Machine Spirit's realm, she focused on appeasing it.

The station was overloading with power. Lights were growing brighter, various Spirits throughout the system were being overcome by the buzz of the Plasma Reactor's output. She fought the pain burning in her head and went to calm the Reactor's raging spirit. Every attempt she made to connect to it, however, was blocked. Something had separated the reactor from these consoles. She tried hard to find another route, but the buzzing pain in her skull was getting worse and worse. She realized it was going to be impossible to fix the reactor from here.

Unplugging, she turned and looked at Phant and Kaicero with wide, scared eyes. "I...I can't stop it. The Spirit is too agitated. Th...this place is gonna be free floating vapor here in a few minutes. We need to go now!!"

She looked panicked, terrified even. Her skull was still smoking a bit, a few redundant circuits tripped to prevent the power from loading directly into her head. Her hand was trembling with, a mix of adrenaline and pain from the computer. While looking at them, she saw a blip on the Void Echo. Running over to that console, she plugged in to check the Machine Spirit's plea. While normally, she wouldn't understand the Void Echo Screen being plugged into it directly fed the information into her Cybernetics.

"Uuuh...in other news, there's a number of ships coming from the edge of the system. W...were you expecting compan---AAAAAAAAAAGH!!"

The console she was connected to burst into arching sparks. The screen blew out and gave Nakera a good dose of broken glass and sparks. Her shaking hand only BARELY managed to unplug her dataport before falling to the ground in pain. She felt blood running over her face, chest, and arms. Glass had blown through her rough fabric, and etched a few gouges into her face. Luckily, her eyes were spared.

"....Aaah...we gotta go NOW!" she yelled, through her fingers as she cradled her face.

@Quinntessential@DrunkasaurusRex@BCTheEntity@TemplarKnight07@Hank

Phant turned just in time to see the machinery, and indeed to see Nakera, begin to short circuit; he felt the heat and shards of metal and glass hit him at various points, his thick clothing and armour protecting him from the worst of it, a large shard hammering off of his helmet in a mirror of his previous head injury all those years ago.

"....Aaah...we gotta go NOW!"

The Krieger gave a nod to Kaicero as he dusted himself down with one gloved hand, slinging his las-gun over one shoulder and advancing on one side of the tech-adept; as gently as they could, the two mercenaries - the veteran and the adrenaline seeking fop - lifted the bleeding form to her feet and guided her out into the corridor.

Standing there were three of the other guns-for-hire, one clutching the pirate captain's de-activated power sword as she made the argument for returning to the drop pods.

"That won't work," breathed the Guardsman as she finished, "the pods are designed for swift insertion, there is no way to back them or us out of here."

It was then that a small crackle hissed in the ear-pieces of every surviving member of the mercenary band, each given an ear-comm before the mission had began, and now each being contacted on the same channel.

"This is Ordos Thran gun-cutter seven-two-five," came the deep voice of one of the conglomerates pilot, "we are making our descent now, please make your way to the roof and prepare for departure."

Kaicero couldn't help but smile, something Phant would have done if he had been emotionally able, and after looking to each of the group he spoke again - "well, shall we go."

---

Outside of the colony the weather was terrible, the wind roaring and howling about them, the gun-cutter a mass of metal and flaring engines as it came to land on the square rooftop of the comm-hub building. Figures in yellow carapace and duller yellow fatigues emerged from the belly of the ship, weapons held at the ready, their masked face betraying nothing but their agitated hand gestures beckoning the group over to the growling machine and up the ramp.

Within the hold there was enough room for all the mercenaries that had been sent down, and more even, but it appeared that only a fraction of their number would leave the colony - some having reappeared as the ship landed to join up with their small group.

Phant only let go of the injured Nakera when he was asked by a stern-looking medicae, giving her up grudgingly and taking a seat from where he could see the death throes of the settlement; it went up like a ball of plasma, which it essentially what it was at that point, the reactors finally giving in and vaporising everything that the Ordos Thran had worked so hard to achieve, as the cutter swung up into the atmosphere and back toward the void of space.

Kaicero watched with idle interest as Nakera initially hooked herself up to the colony's systems until he got bored and started sauntering around the room, kneeling down to inspect Phant's various kills wordlessly. It was obvious the Taskmaster was a highly experienced warrior and a crack shot. The blond aristocrat tucked a rebellious lock of hair behind his ear and tutted quietly, suppressing a pang of jealousy. At least Phant's outfit was infinitely inferior.

The sudden urgent appeal for a hasty departure made Kaicero stand up and turn around, one eyebrow raised at Nakera. The terrified look on her face and the smoke rising from her head bespoke of the urgency of the situation but the message wasn't getting through to him. How, exactly, were they in danger again? Bemused, he kept his eyes on her as she ran to another screen and the subsequent shower of sparks and shrapnel of glass raised his other eyebrow as well. He met Phant's gaze and returned the nod, quickly stooping down to help carry Nakera out of there. Truth be told, he was disappointed -- he had hoped for hours of fun hunting down the pirate scum within the walls of this colony and now all that fun was cut short by some kind of malfunction.

Once on the roof of the colony, however, the gravity of the situation suddenly settled in and Kaicero was glad to hear the news of the shuttle coming to pick them up. Living to kill another day was infinitely preferably to being blown up on some backwater world.

Nakera was taken care of by a medicae and Phant sat down, looking all grim and unapproachable, so Kaicero slumped down in a seat opposite him and pouted. "Shame," he said, looking at the ball of plasma disappearing in the distance as the gun-cutter picked up speed. He sighed and averted his gaze, letting it drift over the other mercenaries that made it out with him. He saw an Eldar, a Kroot, the other human with the enormous arm, and a few others. "New toy, Eldar?" Kaicero asked, raising his voice to be heard over the din of the engines, and pointed at Gisimae's power sword.

@Quinntessential@DrunkasaurusRex@BCTheEntity@Hank@TemplarKnight07

Merchant-Captain Niklaus Leopold Nico watched the flashing images of his command console as the gun-cutter continued its trajectory into one of the many large holds within his converted Endeavour-class Cruiser, a vessel of over sixty-seven thousand crew and twenty-two megatonnes, named The Pride of Thran.

Along with a handful of escorts, he had been commanded by his superiors to follow in the wake of the automated assault-craft which had first ejected the mercenary contingent into the very bowels of the colony, and to swoop into action if anything seemed to be going wrong – and something had most definitely gone wrong! He had watched with his own eyes the plasma explosion, which could be seen from orbit with the naked eye, as it devoured what had once been a promising asset to the Ordos Thran Conglomerate and was now nothing but vapour.

“Those fools,” he hissed and wheezed through the grille that had long ago replaced his mouth, raising himself up on eight spindly legs of metal and clacking toward the door, “who do they think they are?!”

Making his way through the corridors of the mighty vessel, sweating ratings and officers in their pristine uniforms moving aside at his approach, the Captain burst into the allocated hangar with a terrible fury – the vast holding cell for space-faring vessels decked out in the sickly yellow of the Conglomerate, banners fluttering from the almost cathedral high ceiling, servitors milling about and other craft sitting like silent giants all in a row.

Once the gun-cutter landed with a slight bump Niklaus was there, his hands tapping impatiently against the metal where his hips would have been, his bulk robed in garments of yellows and greens and a hood of red obscuring his pallid face for the moment.

As the ramp lowered and the mercenaries disembarked, the Naval troopers flanking the ramp on either side, his piercing blue eyes went from one face to the next before he finally spoke up, his augmented voice sounding as if it were coming from a megaphone rather than a person.

“Who can tell me what the Emperor happened?! Which one of you destroyed my precious colony...why?!”