[IC] Warhammer 40K: Beyond the Law - A Mercenary Adventure [MATURE] (Open for business, apply within.)

[TyrannosaursRex]

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[Quinntessential]

Nakera was barely aware of their location as they moved. Only when the wind of the outsides caught up on her wounds did she realize she was being carried to the landing dock. Good... she thought, ...they're not abandoning me. That's mighty nice of them. She tried to help along as best she could. Partly because of her scrambled circuitry and partly because of the electric shock she was given from being plugged into the machine she found walking difficult. As they moved, bits of metal followed them as if they had a mind of their own. Spent casings, pieces of armor, bolts and such - all in a small collection as she was dragged.

Once on the Gun Cutter, she was handed over to a medicae staff member, who quickly went to work wiping up the blood from her face. Bits of glass had dug in deep with one cut on her throat looking particularly serious. He gave her shots of medicine, painkillers, and who knows what else, to help calm her as he dug the bits of the console out of her face and neck. When he finished, he wrapped her face up, leaving one eye able to see. She could still access one of her dataports, eventually reaching up for it to withdraw it and check that there wasn't any damage. To test it's function, she took a vox communicator from the Medicae. With a prayer, she clipped into it's data port and closed her eyes, begging the tiny machine spirit to cooperate. It did, and the sensations she received from the little machine were more than comforting. Nothing was seriously damaged.

When the massive spider like man chittered in, Nakera looked over at him with her good eye. Holding out the Vox Caster, she adjusted the volume so she could speak.

"Sir." Her voice was monotone - a side effect of the Dataport. It couldn't handle fine detail of vocal subtlety like biological vocal chords could. Not considering it's simplicity. "I am Nakera Kaas, Lexmechanic to the Colony."

"Approximately four weeks ago, we detected a vessel approaching the colony. It gave signal as a supply vessel, from your organization, bringing food and materials for the colonists. The Arbites staff were stood down, and clearance was given to land, considering that all authentication was valid. When the vessel landed, the cargo hold was instead full of dozens upon dozens of pirates. From my location in Communications, I attempted to rally the Arbites to action. They arrived piecemeal and were cut down. A number of other pirates, from a location unknown to me, arrived at Command and Control and began forcing their way into Operations. The four other Lexmechanics I was working with, plus the Head Magos of the facility, attempted to repel them, without success.

"I was wounded and assumed dead as the pirates secured the facility. When it was discovered that I was alive, none of the other Adeptus Mechanicus assigned to the Colony had survived. Care was taken to stabilize me, so I could maintain and operate essential functions, like Interfacing with Life Support or the Reactor Systems. I..." She hesitated, pausing a moment. With no emotion in her voice, it was practically impossible to tell how this was effecting her, and with her face wrapped, there were no clues there. Her one eye was expressive enough, showing pain and a small tear sliding over her exposed cheek to the bandage. "...I was put in charge of categorizing their bounty. I discovered they were referring to the many people captured alive within the facility. Of the six hundred people present, two hundred had been taken alive. Mostly women and children. Their leader, a large man in powered armor, insisted I document the sales and keep records of his customers. A number of traders came to collect new slaves. Anyone not sold was given to the crew for their own desires.

"I considered destroying the life support systems, but I knew rescue was possible, and to my knowledge, there were still prisoners aboard. When your team arrived, no one was left but me. From what I saw while connected to the colony's main computer, the Pirate Leader had manipulated the Reactor's containment protocols, enraging the Machine Spirit and flooding various chambers of the reactor with too much plasma. Safeties had been overriden manually, which prevented me from shutting down the sequence. I found myself lucky again, as the console overloaded and the angry Spirit of the reactor consumed most of the computer systems within the Colony. The terminal I was on exploded, injuring me as you see."

She looked around, at her rescuers. She hoped that would help, all things considered. No one here was responsible for the colony's destruction. At least, not in any direct sense. Maybe it could have been stopped if they were more organized, but truth be told, that was a rare moment, she figured.

[BCTheEntity]

Having watched the Xeno's brutal decapitation of that one mercenary for the power sword, Harvin decided it'd probably be best to simply remain silent until after he had escaped the destruction of the facility - which, apparently, was inevitable at this stage. Essentially, he spent the time needed to get to safety nodding to whoever addressed him until he and as many other mercenaries as possible were in the gun-cutter, the ship flying away as the place they'd attempted to liberate finally blew up (Harvin squeaking at both the sight and the noise). That'd be a loss of funds... but hey, at least he was still alive.

Assuming the guy who owned the facility didn't kill them all. And with the volume that blared through what seemed to make up his mouth as he spoke (again drawing a squeal of shock out of the mercenary), it almost seemed like he might actually give it a try. Really, he was pretty awful to look at overall - clearly a Tech-priest, or at least affiliated with the relevant cult, if the red hood indicated anything - and probably the sort of person who would slug a person as soon as he'd... slug... them. Really, he just seemed very much like a slugging sort of man. That being said, the other Tech-priest, Nakera Kaas, was a bit nicer to look at, and probably more friendly too. She'd been in that place as a prisoner or something, but now she was out! And injured, apparently from an exploding monitor, which come to think of it may have been related to Harvin's own fight with the pirate captain. Speaking of which, he ought to back up what she'd just said.

'Uh, I can vouch for the stuff she all went and said,' Harvin started quickly, stumbling over his words slightly in his bid to get them out. 'I actually saw the head guy doing all that, and making all the reactors go mental and that. I had to fight him, see, and he had a, uh, he had sodding power armour, and a plasma gun, no idea how he got those gubbins. And a power sword, the Eldar has that now, she killed one of the other mercs to get it off him after he looted it from the guy. Anyway, he shot up the room at me with the plasma gun a bit-' he quietly decided to keep his own involvement in that unmentioned- 'and went to whack me with it, I think he was being kind of a rinsey little prick and not thinking about it or anything. But yeah, that made the plasma gun go mental itself, so he lobbed it back into the room, like HEEUUP-' he made a lobbing gesture behind him with his empty hand, the one that wasn't a giant mechanised death arm- 'and it slagged everything in it. Sorry about that exploding on you by the way, Nakera. He was bloody mad. I mean who runs with a power sword active? Oh he also chased me with his power sword, I'm pretty sure the, er, the Kroot killed him, so that was how it happened. Bang out of order, that smeg-pot.'

That was, he felt, somewhat garbled. A lot of Slome's slang and grammatical eccentricities had found their way into his rambling speech at various points, and he was half-sure the spider robot man would barely understand his explanation. Even so, he'd said his bit, and the Kroot could confirm that the guy did have a power sword, and was chasing him with it. So that'd confirm he wasn't lying, anyway.

@Jbcool@Quinntessential@DrunkasaurusRex@Hank@TemplarKnight07

[TemplarKnight07]

Malkath had spent most of the ride up trying to get the blood off of his beak and make himself somewhat presentable, to the disgust of some of his fellow Mercs. He would still need a good wash up to clean himself fully of all the dried blood on him, and he still needed to clean and preserve his new trophy, the head of the Pirate Kroot which still hung from his belt.

Stepping off the cutter and being confronted by their boss, the Merchant-Captain Nico, Malkath had the luxury of keeping his expression mostly passive, being a Kroot. But then again, HE wasn't the one who made the plasma reactors to explode, he just slaughtered his share of guys and killed the Captain.

Thus, he simply shrugged his shoulders slightly at the question and looked over at some of his surviving fellows. He spat out a few words in Low Gothic:

"Wasn't anywhere near any generators, mayhaps one of them knows. Sent any other pirates a clear message though."

With this, he tapped the head of the dead Kroot on his belt softly with his taloned right claw.

[Hank]

It took all of Kaicero's restraint to keep a straight face during Harvin's eclectic and utterly plebeian rant. Nakera had been far more composed and intelligible. The aristocrat could see that Harvin, while he had spoken the truth, wasn't entirely helping calm Merchant-Captain Nico's mood. Whatever his birth, Kaicero guessed the captain saw himself as nobility of some sort and judged that the half-man, half-machine needed a softer, patrician touch.

"My dear lord," Kaicero said smoothly in honeyed tones after Malkath's guttural boast, stepped forward and took an exaggerated bow. "It is an honor to meet your commendableness. We are most regrettably sorry about the severely unfortunate destruction of your property. My name is Apollyon Kaicero, from Aphrodus IV. My most noble family is in the trading business also and I understand how you must be feeling right now. It would be the most satisfying thing in the world to take out those emotions on us, wouldn't it? I must plead with you, however, not to do so. The... words... of my associates are true. The detonation was already in sequence when the Pirate Captain was accosted and sublimely dealt with by this brave xenos here," Kaicero explained and articulated a subtle gesture in Malkath's direction, "with the aid of the others. Myself and this fellow with the ghastly mask only had time to carry poor, wounded Nakera out and into the gun-cutter."

He took another step closer to the Merchant-Captain and continued. "Speaking of who -- she is right. We do have a list of the buyers of your beloved colonists. Would it not be a much better use of our utterly lethal talents to hunt them down and show them that buying the property of the Ordos Thran will be punished most severely? It would send a powerful message, I assure you." Finished, Kaicero mustered his most affable smile and waited.

[Jb]

@Quinntessential@DrunkasaurusRex@BCTheEntity@Hank@TemplarKnight07

Sudden jerking spasms from the limbs of the towering figure before them caused the Krieger, who until this moment had made no move to explain himself or to even speak, to instinctively take a step back and reach for his las-gun. Although he did take the step back, he managed to stop himself from bringing a weapon to bear on their 'host', even as the robed Captain of the vessel began to gargle from behind the grille that had replaced his mouth - a horrible choking sound that sounded as if he were about to be sick; it took Phant more than a minute to realise that the movements and sounds wracking the spider-legged being was not some sudden fit, but the way he expressed extreme amusement...he was laughing at them?!

"Apollyon Kaicero," Nico managed to hack up the name as he tried to stop laughing, "yes, I have heard of you."

With a little reluctance, a lot of effort, and a series of clicks from the mouthpiece implanted into his face, the Merchant-Captain gave each of them a long and thorough stare. They all appeared to be telling the truth, perfectly honest in their responses - even the barbaric Kroot and the unhinged mutant - and he was undoubtedly a good judge of people and their truths or lies.

Perhaps they did have such a list, and perhaps they could be useful...

"You will hand the list to Servitor 835 here," came the words at a volume that could only have been unnaturally amplified, a servitor moving with uncharacteristic stealth to where the group stood and extending the clacking hook-like appendages where its hands had once been. Waiting just long enough for any exchange to be made, he turned his back on them with a clicking of metal legs against a metal floor, moving away at a brisk walking pace and gesturing them further into the vessel, "follow me and keep up, this is a large ship and one can find themselves easily lost."

---

The Pride was certainly not a luxury liner, it was large, cold and those that crewed it were either brain dead servitors or equally cold members of the crew, the Captain however was leading them deeper into the ship and to a series of chambers usually reserved for dignitaries, fellow traders, or those that were not part of the ships delicate internal workings.

There were a number of chambers, each identical in their sparsity - containing a simple bed, a storage unit for clothing and a footlocker for weapons, a wash basin and toilet, and a small cogitator unit for access to the outside world. Upon the door of each chamber was hastily scratched the names of one of the mercenary survivors, that of the Lexmechanic seemingly added to one room as an afterthought. All rooms were located around a central square 'rec-room', a Regicide board neatly set up, more comfortable seating than that found inside the rooms (these primarily made for storage and sleeping), as well as food, drink and a larger cog-unit for more detailed information if one should wish it...detailed enough to access the black net, if one had the thought to.

"Feel free to make use of these rooms, but do not go wandering the ship; I shall return after I have looked into your recovered data and contacted the Conglomerate."

A hiss and wheeze was all that accompanied the Captain out, the door shutting with a clang behind him.

[TyrannosaursRex]

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