@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Glaring interior lights had now been replaced by a duller red, bathing those within Pod Tertius in an identical light to those encapsulated in the other pods nearby them.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.
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.
1x Laugh
