[IC] WARHAMMER 40K: THE TARSON INCURSION

[rivaan]

" ... " Vala sighed silently as she was given orders to snipe the warboss. As far as plans went, this was surprisingly, decent one for this forsaken Imperium they had. Truth be told, Vala expected the crazy leader to tell them to charge head first into the wall of greenskins and throw their lives away in glorious combat, lucky it didn't seem that perculiar brand of zealot insanity was at play right now, no one knows for the next time though." On it." Vala replied as she broke from the group and headed for a good spot she needed to take down that warboss.

Quickly and pretty quietly she moved around, picking a good vantage point with direct view of the warboss and quickly laid down, activating her sniper las cannon and taking aim. It came to life as she took aim at the warboss's head. Vala growled lowly at the psycher's commented.

"In position... prepare for showdown. 3..2..1.." She informed over the comms and then pulled the grigger, unleashing the burning fury upon the warboss's head, the beam had barely finished when she ejected a heatsink powercells and took aim again. She had to wait a few seconds for it to cooldown and she can safely fire again.

[Rithy]

The sharp whip and hiss of the tech-heretic's overpowered weapon caused a silence to fall upon the entire building, as the blundering greenskin in the other room slowly became aware that one of their warbosses's had just become one head smaller.

... and was currently very dead.

"DA BOZZ IS DEAD!"
"I'Z DA BOSS!"
"'UMIEZ!"
"SMASH 'DEM!"
"WAAAGH!"

The Ork's response was nothing short of predictable, as a the entire Horde within the main chamber turned around and surged towards the narrow entrance leading to the party.

"I will slow them down." Adrianne said before she stepped out, pointing her staff towards the ground at the entrance that the green tide was falling through!

With mystic words that seemed to echo unnaturally across the chamber, the ground where the greenskin passed through became distorted; the physical laws becoming confused as gravity began to push and tug in random, constantly shifting directions; as if the xenos had suddenly became caught up in a set of invisible waves pounding and disorienting them from every direction!
Green brutes would slam onto the ground, into each other or fall ten feet up into the air before slamming down! To greenskin resilience, it was hardly major damage beyond a rough ride; except for the occasional Ork who slammed into the spiky bits of another, but the resulting invisible waves caused the Orcs to become bogged down and clumped together in the narrow exit, creating a bottle neck.

"That was eas,-"

"FWHOOM"
"WHAAAAAAAAA!"

Adrianne was about to comment with a smirk behind her skeletal mask as she stepped aside and back behind cover, just as the roaring sound of a rocket could be heard as an Ork stormboy just flew over the mess and into their room; the suicidal greenskin strapped to a live rocket!

"Oh, uhhh... incoming from above!"

[Eisenhorn]

Ansgar remained silent while waiting for the time to act, and he was not terribly fond of waiting. The tech heretic had dropped the Ork Warboss, only to have another Ork promptly take over and start barking more orders that boiled down to attack the team. The psyker decided to step in and began rallying her powers and sent the ground bound Orks stumbling and staggering about, disorganizing them and forcing them to funnel into a narrow throughway. Perfect, the Krieger smirked under his rebreather, as he ignited the nozzle of the flamer, moving within range of the Orks starting to pick themselves up and resumed pushing forward. "Engaging ground bound Orks, stand clear."

With that warning, Ansgar sent a gout of chem laced flames pouring into the front ranks of the Orks, much to an extremely immediate effect. Anyone too close to the fumes, and lacking protection, would be subjected to a burning sensation in their eyes, throat, and general skin irritation, with amplified results as exposure lasted longer. The Orks coated in the green tinged flames wouldn't stop burning, the flamer fuel self oxidizing when burning through living organic material. Originally he'd used the mixture against Tyranids, but it worked against Orks just fine as well, due to their exposed hide. For that reason, alongside setting a rocket on fire as it plummeted towards their ranks being a bad idea, meant he focused his efforts on the Orks not with rocket packs.

"Will suppress until Rocket Orks dealt with." Ansgar didn't know if the rocket Orks had a specific name or not, so he just referred to them as what they were, Orks with Rockets bolted to their backs. Any Orks bold enough to approach within range of the Krieger's flamer was quickly doused in fire, which would likely send them to the ground since their flesh was literally burning away and nothing they did would smother it.

[POOHEAD189]

The ordeal fleeing on the Valkyrie, and the subsequent landing seemed like it took about a month for this Arbites' sensibilities. They had been running around without much in the way of provisions or rest for longer than most guardsmen would be used to. Thankfully Herold was made of stern stuff. The steel of the Imperium and the emperor's strength gave power to his limbs and fed his indomitable reserve, and without a complaint he headed into the Titan complex with the rest of the party. Though he did marvel at the sheer scope and size of the architecture.

The fact there were no bodies at first was odd indeed, but he felt there would be living or dead guardsmen sooner or later, and he was right. Mostly dead, but the woman they found provided some valuable information. Herold restocked on all of his ammo, preferring to keep the weapons he was familiar with. They had served him well enough so far, the flamer and shotgun would do intense damage in the close quarter's corridors of the facility.

He kept his weapons loaded but unused as long as the newly chaotic Orks began to rip each other to shreds. Unfortunately and miraculously, they seemed to form some sort of cohesion after a few brutal moments. A stormboy even attempted to attack them, and soon they were having to deal with a green tide. The Arbites stepped forward and hefted his flamer, igniting the air with super-heated liquid, the brilliant flare reflecting off of his visor, showcasing his perpetually grim frown.

He made sure to scorch and melt whatever Greenskin was not ignited by Angsar. The green and red fire of the two Imperial sent the horde's screaming. Skin melted off the Ork's hides, and their weakened bones snapped under the weight of their Xeno bulk. Herold even fancied he heard pitiful begging screams, something almost unknown to these insane beasts. He allowed himself one of his rare grins, and halted his stream of death once the entire corridor was aflame.

He switched weapons then, his combat shotgun at the ready to shatter any enemy that had survived.

[WardenCelestine]

After issuing her orders to her squad, Aviza climbed on top of a stack of large metallic containers that had the words ARMAMENTS painted in large bold letters onto the side of each of them. She had noticed this but was not worried about them going off in a serious firefight, they were reinforced to the point of being able to take a number of hits from heavy rockets before anyone had to worry about a detonation. Re-positioning herself slightly, Aviza focused her cross-hairs of her newly acquired bolter upon the the massive hole in the wall that the Orks had created, waiting for her chance to open fire upon the Xenos.

At first, everything went according to plan, as soon as Vala had finished counting down, she fired her over-powered weapon and the Ork leaders head exploded in an impressive shower of emerald green blood that showered down upon the rest of his soldiers. Panic ensued and Ork turned upon Ork in a blood thirsty rampage. This did not last long however, for one of the Orks quickly spoke up and said he was the new leader, and that they would follow his command now, not run around like idiots. It was pointed out to the rest of the Orks that there were still living humans nearby and the mob quickly turned to charge at Aviza and her squad with reckless abandonment.

As soon as the Stormboy launched himself into the room they were all inside of and started to open fire upon them, Aviza had her cross hair trained on the target and managed to shoot him in the middle of his jump. The result was amusing to say the least, the Ork had not died yet but had lost complete control of where he was going and was now flying around the room screaming in panic before the rocket slammed into the ceiling of the the room and then exploded in a satisfying bang. "Stormboy is taken care of, not seeing anymore of them." said Aviza as she watched the Orks at the entrance into the room flail about while they struggled to retain their footing and sense of direction from Adrianne's warp power. It was going to be like shooting fish in a barrel, not that any of them had ever done such a thing.

Holding down the trigger of her bolter, the rounds flew towards their targets and tore them to pieces, leaving not much left over that could be identified as an xeno. When the smoke and fire had cleared, there laid an impressive pile of dead Orks, mostly destroyed past the point of any recognition. Some of the bodies were still on fire, and would have to be carefully stepped over to avoid slipping or falling into the gore that was now spread out before them in all directions. "To damn easy, great job everyone, lets move out and take the lift to the forges control center." Aviza would be the first to step out from the room they had prepared the ambush and made sure that their surroundings were clear before proceeding. "All is clear for the moment, follow me." said Aviza, still keeping her weapon at the ready.

While they walked to the lift that would take them to the forges control center, they would pass directly in front of the massive titan that loomed many stories above them. Aviza glanced up at it as they walked, wondering how many people it took to fully control such a magnificent machine, and if she would ever be able to see one upon the field of battle. Once they arrived at the lift, Aviza would double check to ensure it was functioning correctly before motioning for the rest of her squad to join her. "Alright, everyone get on and keep your eyes open for anything out of the ordinary." said Aviza. Once everyone had stepped onto the lift, she would pull a large lever and the lift would begin its ascent to the forges control center.

While the lift made its way up towards to the forges control center, there was an awkward silence from the squad. Aviza let her eyes wonder around the lift as they waited, unsure of what to say at the time, and decided to remain quiet. After a few moments, the lift would stop at its designated floor with a loud horn that sounded around them as the doors opened and showed the forges control center to be empty, but fully powered up and untouched as if everyone had vanished. They had seen this before, their had to be bodies somewhere, but this time there were no signs of a battle or struggle. Motioning with her left hand, she ordered her squad to move out and watch their corners with their weapons raised and ready for any trouble that may show itself.

Aviza was the first one into the room once more, she made her way over to the rooms largest control panel that had a monitor above it, showing all of the Titans internal systems. All of it's systems were green and ready to be launched at a moments notice, what concerned her though was the fact that its systems said that their were living beings inside of it and they were moving around, doing what was still unknown. Grabbing the com next to her, she tossed it to Adrianne and then gave the orders. "Adrianne, see if you can get into contact with whoever is inside of the Titan. Vala, move to this control panel and keep an eye on the Titans systems. Tell me if you see any changes while Adrianne is contacting them, do not open the blast doors to the forge for any reason." She would pause for a moment then continue speaking. "Herold and Angsar, keep an eye on all ways in and out of the forge with the security systems, let us know if you see any movement or anything out of the ordinary." She would then turn to face Nergüi, "You and I are going to go see who is inside of the Titan, let's move out."

[Rithy]

"Adrianne, see if you can get into contact with whoever is inside of the Titan.

"On it!"

Adrianne called back as she caught the flying coms unit with her sharp glove.

Strutting over to rest her staff and hips against the ancient and arcane machinery, she held the coms unit up to her and began to activate the gothic runes adorning the device before holding it up to the side of her skeletal helmet; her mechanical voice speaking through her mask as she tried to get into contact with whoever might be on the other side.

"This is Inquisitorial Agent and Sanctioned Psyker Adrianne Valenthin. Is there anyone aboard the Titan? Over."

...

Adrianne waited for a few seconds, hearing nothing but a weak static. She stared down at the Titan below, before attempting again.

"I Repeat: This is Inquisitorial Agent and Sanctioned Psyker Adrianne Valenthin. Is there anyone aboard the Titan? Over."

...

No answer came.

Focusing her gaze through the shaded lenses of her mask, Adrianne stared more deeply at the titan. Deciding to try a more esoteric way of scrying the titan, she reached a hand forward towards the titan; closing her eyes as she opened her mind, letting her consciousness flow over the titan like a waterfall.

She experienced the titan like a red hot metal casket. Its thick skin did a good job at hiding whatever was inside, yet there was an unnatural heat radiating out from it. And there it was; muffled, almost unnoticeable; a quiet, arrhythmic heartbeat. The whole thing was silent as a mountain, yet had the aura of a sick farmbeast somehow. And deeper within its impenetrable skin, Adrianne could sense the barest semblances of human minds; yet that was about the only accurate thing she could say about them, for they were tarnished, severed and splintered, and Adrianne could sense a maddening train of frenzied thought emanating even through the titan's thick coffin-like skin.

"BBZZ! CRR,- *Crackle* 2.82842712475! 2.82842712475! 2.82842712475! 2.82842712475 is the squared-root of the true code! 2.82842712475 is the squared-root of the true code! BZRR! ASCENSION PROTOCOL: ENGAGE! ASCENSION PROTOCOL: ENGAGE!"

Without warning, the comms unit by the side of Adrianne's head would scream out in a frenzied, mechanical voice; sharp and loud enough to shoot like daggers through Vala, Herold and Adrianne! Even through her helmet's inbuilt sound-dampener it was enough to make Adrianne instinctively jerk back as she felt a pang of pain in her other ear, and she dropped the coms unit onto the console!

"Owwwhh! What the,-"

"01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100001 01100011 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100111 01101111 01100100 00100001!!!"

The coms unit continued to scream out ceaseless binary babble and mad code as it lay on the console! Adrianne raised a finger to the side of her helmet to activate her own coms, yet as she did so, all she heard was a constant stream of statics, as if her signal was being completely jammed!

"Do either of your coms units work?" Adrianne asked, turning her gaze towards Ansgier and Vala.
"Mine's out. Something is seriously wrong with that Titan!"

[Eisenhorn]

Ansgar was silent as he assisted in the mop up operations against the surviving Orks, the rocket ork careening about the room before crashing in a rather spectacular manner. Beyond monitoring to ensure that it wasn't going to impact and collide with any of the friendly forces present, he dismissed it from his mind and focused on keeping the Orks at bay as they got torn to shreds by the Warp powers and firepower brought to bear. After a rather brief slaughter, all of the Orks were dead and some still burning, which attested to the fact the compound he was using was highly effective. Rising from his kneeling position, the Krieger fell in line as the group started moving out for the lift as the Celestian spoke on the matters at hand.

The lift ran for quite some time, but it was not too long all things considered. Returning below surface on Krieg after training exercises had far longer lifts only to go through necessary scrubs to prevent bringing anything dangerous from the surface into the hives. Going up always meant more training, which was always a welcome thing, even if shipping out to a warzone would have been a far more welcome thing. However, idle thoughts had no place right now, and Ansgar checked over his flamer while riding up the lift, considering the potential corrosion factor was far higher than usual. As expected, the flamer was still fine and undamaged, so he returned to his idle position, waiting for the lift ride to end.

Once the doors swung open, Ansgar swept in along the left, scanning the room looking for trouble. No bodies, no sign of struggle, another anomaly. As if the entire staff had simply gotten up and walked out without a single word spoken. However, orders were given out, and Ansgar moved over to the security console, glancing at the systems, and a fair number of errors were already glaring at anyone trying to get information from the system. Mostly input errors, and after a testing thump on the side of the console failed to fix anything, a muffled sigh could be heard as Ansgar set the flamer down beside him and broke out his shovel. "Beginning field repairs as feasibly possible."

Using his entrenching tool, he removed the side panel of the console, and a small amount of oily smoke flowed out of the exposed internals of the console. He was no enginseer, but he knew an overloaded system when he saw it. Something had shorted parts out, and it was visibly obvious what was shorted, and what wasn't. Thankfully, being a former Engineer, he still recognized enough of the internals from working on vehicles assigned to his Engineering section to see what was broken and what could be repurposed. After rerouting some power cables, and nearly shocking himself several times, most of the errors on the console cleared and the Krieger hammered the plate back in place with his shovel's handle. At this point, Staudinger caught wind of the trouble Adrianne was having with the vox. He heard the jumble of numbers spouted out of the vox, as well as her jammed vox spewing static, and Ansgar spoke plainly. "That is a Mechanicus personal language, enginseers used it when blessing our Breaching Drills. My vox is still operational, I have an idea."

Turning back to the security console, the Krieger began shifting through vox channels, starting with the ones he knew and then working through ones that, as an Engineer, he had been instructed to use when contacting the Enginseers for assistance as needed with the Breaching Drills. The Emperor saw fit to smile down upon his efforts, it seemed, because he came across a line with different binary code being exchanged between multiple sources, which was roughly interrupted when the Krieger butted in, speaking plainly into the vox. "This is Inquisitorial Agent Staudinger. Ranking Mechanicus Official in charge, report location and status." After a brief pause, a mechanical voice, though still human enough to retain it's feminine qualities, responded.

"We were processing when to expect competent investigative forces to arrive, clearly Alpha was blessed with correct cogitation. Techpriestess Malig, and remaining Skitarii. Currently located in tertiary power plant, awaiting the Magos to return from the Titan." Ansgar glanced at the Titan which their psyker had already mentioned was clearly afflicted and suffering from unknown problems. Acting accordingly, he gestured for the Psyker to take his place assisting the Arbitrator as he walked over to the malfunctioning vox, still spitting out binary and garbage code. "Techpriestess, I am about to broadcast unknown code and tech language, translate, report, and proceed to the control center. Consider the Magos overruled." Without waiting for a response, Ansgar transmitted a potion of the looping code and binary being spouted out of the ruined vox on the console. After a few moments, a rather clipped response was present from the Techpriestess. "Besides trash code and blasphemy, the only intelligible code comes out in Low Gothic as 'The Machine is God'. The rest cannot be trusted to vox, expect us soon."

The vox switched off on the Techpriestess' end made the end of the conversation clear, and Ansgar returned to the security console, shifting a vid pict feed, spotting a small group of Mechanicus forces exiting the room marked as a the tertiary power plant. Quickly notable was the likely Techpriestess Malig and there were a handful of Skitarii following her out as well. Of note were several Tech Guard that stood out from the typical Skitarii forces. Ansgar spoke out plainly instead of over the Vox, informing the rest of those present of what was occurring. "Contact has been made with a surviving Techpriestess and her Skitarii forces. Expect them to arrive momentarily, I will monitor their progress while the Arbites maintains general sweeps."

[POOHEAD189]

The lights of the lift filtered over them, end over end, shadow over shadow as they ascended toward's the forge's control room. To most PDF troops, surviving an encounter with Xenos was enough to have them balking at their own chances of living through such an ordeal again. Despite his misgivings on some of his companions, it was less annoying to be around those used to danger and the deafening silence that followed. Then again, he had to admit it seemed somewhat awkward.

Stepping into the control room, Herold swept the wider room for any signs of allies or enemies, dead or alive. After a few moments of looking, it seemed the area had actually merely been abandoned. He knew they hadn't seen the last of the green tide however, and gave a grunting nod to Aviza's orders, making sure to remain extra vigilant once the Krieger troop's attentions were drawn elsewhere.

He made his way past the Psyker performing her witchery and unveiled the security cams, giving a small prayer of thanks to the Emperor that they still worked. Instantly the screen was sectioned with many different images. Most showed empty halls and a silent outer perimeter, save a few gretchin fighting over a bit of meat he didn't quite recognize. In other areas, he saw grotesque scenes. Bodies hacked apart and ripped open. Orkoid and human.

Nothing he hadn't seen before.

Unfortunately, there seemed to be a few smaller mobs sprinting about after he got a good look at the feed. A nob with a power klaw had seen fit to gather up whatever wayward Ork and Grot he found. It wasn't a warband, but it could definitely cause problems if it found its way to the lift.

"Possible Orkoid marauders incoming. Close to the lift, but they could pass by it."

[Jb]

Nergüi had simply done what was ingrained into his very genetics to do - that was to kill and kill again - standing a head or two taller than pretty much every member of the Inquisitorial party he had simply aimed his bolter into the mass of frothing green foes and pulled the trigger, nice short and controlled bursts, accurately blowing off limbs and exploding heads even without the efficient targetting provided by his helmets HUD.

The screaming Stormboy provided no distraction to him as he casually slapped another magazine into the oversized weapon (or undersized rocket launcher), allowing the spent one to drop to the floor with a clang; once more he squinted, squeezed the trigger, and Orks continued to die...such was the life of a Space Marine.

Once all seemed clear, or quiet for the moment at least, he held the weapon at the ready in his hands and followed Aviza as the rest of the squad did – all had done their part and it had been an impressive display, although he did not think it had been 'too damn easy', considering their had been fewer Orks than anticipated, and he hadn't even gotten to draw his tulwar.

"Adrianne, see if you can get into contact with whoever is inside of the Titan. Vala, move to this control panel and keep an eye on the Titans systems. Tell me if you see any changes while Adrianne is contacting them, do not open the blast doors to the forge for any reason."

"Herold and Angsar, keep an eye on all ways in and out of the forge with the security systems, let us know if you see any movement or anything out of the ordinary."

"You and I are going to go see who is inside of the Titan, let's move out."

They were going to enter one of the Emperor's gods of war? It should have been a blessed moment, one that sent a thrill through him, but for some unmentionable reason the skin of his input-port dotted spine crawled; there was someone or something already in there, and he did not feel well about it.

“As you wish, Sister. Please, lead on.”

[rivaan]

“Alright, will do so.” Vala quickly stated as she hopped to the control panel of the facility they were currently placed at. There was the distinct Imperial design in just about everything in here right down to the controls and panels. She frankly disliked this overly artistic view just about everything was designed with. Hell why couldn't they just keep things normal and easy to use. Why did everything have to have skulls or gold or glitter or any combination of those.

“Controls... controls... let's see what we have here.” Vala whistled to herself, getting around to studying the things that were already going on with the systems. There was a big need to know what you were doing and what was going on.

When the psycker's comms started screaming weird machine code, made her believe that whatever was going on in that huge hunk of metal of mass destruction, it wasn't really a good thing for any of them. Her machine code was a little rusty, but she got the repeating message alright. She had to deal with such messages a lot and learned binary as a requirement to deal with Imperial tech.

'Yeah... it's screaming I think 'The machine is God'.' Vala though with a concerned mood, observing for the slightest changes in the parameters on her control panel.” My machine code might be a lil bit rusty, but this one I remember. Seen it quite a few times... I think it translates to...” She was about to say when someone else got the fast one of them and translated it.” That... well.”

Her own comms appeared to be intact for the most part, then again she had them operate on non standard Imperium systems, so her own security measures appeared ot be holding it.

“Take extreme care in entering the Titan.” Vala called through her still functioning comms. Hopeing their glorious leader in this endevor would hear them in case there's static on her end.” Hey, we might need to work on emergency plans in case this thing goes out of control... Let's see if it's been armed and completely loaded and if it isn't we need to block all loading protocols. Dammit... this is why I do not like typical tech... It lacks kill switches. Why is there never a good old switch to shut it all down...”

[Rithy]

"Why is there never a good old switch to shut it all down... "

"Probably because it is so often replaced in favor of a Self Destruct switch.... which in the case of a Titan would involve the destructio of this entire facility and anything nearby within kilometers of radius!"

Adrianne was now leaning over Vala as the tall Psyker was bent over behind her, her eyes moving across the control panels and the Titan below.

"We would probably need a whole team of Tech Adepts and a small army of servitors to even consider any reloading procedures on the Titan. 'Streamlining' is a concept alien to the Mechanicus." Adrianne mused as she tilted her skull-masked helmet; her long white ponytail flitting partially onto the control panel as she ran a pair of sharp, pointed and armored fingers across the console.

Admittedly, she knew far less about how the whole facility worked than she would have liked. The console was covered in mystic runes and esoteric prayer-parchments to the Omnissiah about the serving of the console machine spirit. All of which meant very little to Adrianne!

Then the thought occurred to her that the group's tech heretic was indeed fiddling with highly complex and intricate technology; one of the venerable God-machines of the legendary Titan Legions no less!

Leaning a bit closer to the side of Vala's head, Adrianne would lower the volume of her own voice to that of a hushed whisper.

" ... are you really sure you know what you are doing... ?"

[WardenCelestine]

The tunnel that connected to the Titan was filled with the sound of heavy fans that kept the air inside of it flowing, their low hum was an oddly comforting sound over the otherwise silent surroundings of the forge. The hall was roughly fifty feet long and illuminated with bright lights that were installed into the ceiling every few feet or so. Their white light bleached out most of the color of the hallway, giving it an eerie look. Half way through the hallway, Aviza would receive a message from Nova back at the Imperial guardsmen headquarters.

"Aviza? can you hear me? there is quite a bit of interference in the coms as of late, not sure what is causing it but I know it cant be anything good." Aviza was quick to reply, hoping Nova could hear her on the other end of the com. "I hear you well enough, we are currently heading into the Titan to investigate what is causing the interference and a number of other concerning occurrences." Nova quickly replied by saying "We made contact with Techpriestess Malig, she is leading a group of Skitarii and a number of Tech Guard to your location. There is also word of Ork movement in your area, at least that is what our sensors tell us, you could have more company heading in your direction shortly."

Aviza thanked Nova for the information and switched channels to inform the rest of her squad what was currently happening. "We have incoming Orks that are heading to our position, as well as friendly forces. From the control room, you should be able to control a number of heavy bolter turrets that are positioned around choke points that lead into the main area of the forge. Use them to take out the Orks and watch your fire for friendlies. I will contact you all again once there is more information to be had." With one swift movement, Aviza pulled open the large metallic door to the end of the hallway that lead into the Titan and quickly scanned the entry point for any hostiles.

There were none, at least that she could see at the moment. Suddenly, both Aviza and Nergüi's coms would be flooded with trash code and blasphemy that was seemingly being screamed at them from a source close by." Aviza flinched slightly and brought her weapon up, and aiming it forward into the darkness ahead. Her visor quickly turned on showing her a number of valuable things and enabling her to see everything in the dark with advanced night-vison and thermal sensors.

A message would show up in Nergüi's visor, the message would say "Hold fire untill squad leader engages, watch your aim inside of Titan to minimize damage." Stepping quietly forward, they would make their way further into the Titan, carefully rounding corners and checking every square inch of the Titan for anything out of the ordinary. Everything that was happening outside of the Titan was a mystery to both Aviza and Nergüi for now, since their coms were completely shut off from the outside world. For a while, all would remain the same, nothing stood out besides the strange messages that came through their coms every once in a while.

While rounding a corner near the internal weapon storage for the Titan, they would hear metalic footsteps upon the floor, there was quite a bit of hurried movement coming from inside the room they were near. Aviza took the right side of the door and motioned for Nergüi to take the left, Aviza motioned with her left hand that she would enter into the room first and Nergüi would follow very close behind her. There was most likely going to be a firefight so Aviza readied her weapon and would fire the first chance she saw anything hostile. The number ten would show up on Nergüi's visor and count down to the number zero, as soon as it did, Aviza would breach the room and use her training to shoot at their new enemy, The Dark Mechanicus. The darkness around them was lit up with the flashes of her bolter as round after round flew through massive area. For now, they did not fight back against the two of them, and merely scattered about in a panic like motion.

[rivaan]

“Bahhh.... damn those cog lovers and their overwhelming need to make everything overly complex and dependent on self detonation to stop it!!!” Vala nearly shouted, her fingers racing across the consoles like she was possessed, pushing aside parchments and reading the symbols and runes as she went on, while pulling databases after databases searching for anything that could be of use given the current situation which involved a possibly out of control Titan of all things!

“I swear someone should replace all their servos with some manuals on how to streamline thigns...” She ranted as she pulled the next wall of data text to read through as fast as she can, reading any system files and functions she can pull across from these old archives, who knows they might get lucky and locate some form of ancient command that they hadn't managed to screw up quite yet.” Yeah... and for the near future of us all, I sure hope the mechanicus knew what they were doing when they were managing all these ancient protocols...”

While Vala was busy working on the console, the sound of gunshot vaguely reached her through the comm static and whats more it was echoing out of the Titan entrance.” Well so much for time...” She mumbled, when she found what she was needing. A Titan would naturally require great maintenance, a machine that complex would need a lot of supervision an repair if it got damaged in any way. What's more she figured out a way to make sure the Titan wouldn't be usable for a little while.

“Apparently it's not going well inside... we cannot have this thing going out and out of our hands so...” Vala started and looked at Adrianne.” We cannot really get it into refueling procedures they are a little too complex and encoded to break right now with little time, but I located lower priority subroutines we can abuse for the purpose... I'm going to send the Titan's 'machine spirit' into self diagnosis... given the complexity of the Titan and surely whatever was inside doing something, it might give us roughtly eh 15 minutes from the moment it's main systems are started. Think of it as a delaying trap in case someone else aside us grabs hold of it!” Vala proudly stated and pointed at the console by her.” Get those hands in working and try to breach the jamming... my comms are mostly clear all I get is static from you all scramble' messages, but my comms themselves work fine and are not jammed. Switch your frequency to this and try to hail our leader inside the thing. I need to know what kind of tech opposition to expect if I have to attempt to hold this Titan here just by messing with it's systems...” Vala said an showed the psyker her comm frequencies.” In the meantime I will try to get hold of that Titan's internal comms... ohh hey a schematic! Good now we only need to get access to the sensors... This might take a little... or more...”

[Rithy]

Adrianne watched the massive titan down below from over the console with Vala, whilst the tech-heretic was spewing out a wall of tech-mumbo-jumbo that was either far too complex or insane for the distracted Psyker to understand.

A part of the Psyker felt an instinctive pang of guilt and a subtle need to reprimand the tech-heretic for what she was doing to the revered god machine, but given the situation; what with the gunshots going on inside the very titan, she could imagine far worse for the titan than a simple extra maintenance check if its very crew was corrupt.

Besides, if the Titan princep was corrupt, the machine itself was as good as useless to them!

" ... Switch your frequency to this and try to hail our leader inside the thing."

"Sure, I'm already on it." Adrianne raised her wrist-mounted computer to press down on the runes, adjusting her frequency. The first time she changed the frequency, nothing happened. Adrianne shook her wrist mounted computer, temporarily turned it off, restarted it, and suddenly her comms was clear.

"It seems to be working!" She exclaimed, quickly activating her comm.

"This is Psyker Valenthin, this... wait, did you activate the heavy turrets, Vala?"

Adrianne suddenly asked to Vala as the deep, heavy churning of metal cogs could be heard from the insides of the roof above them; as a large, dual-mounted heavy bolter turret was slowly moved down from the roof through an old hatch; with a pile of dust falling down from the machinery above it to rain down into the middle of the control room.

[Eisenhorn]

At this point, Ansgar was out of his element, and he was not pleased with the situation. As a Krieger, his first instinct was to depart the command center, meet up with the Adeptus Mechanicus element, and move on from there. Not sit here and observe, but their orders had been clear. Observe using the consoles, and one of the most recent comms from the Celestian, use the Heavy Bolter Turrets to take out remaining Orks and move from there. Unfortunately, the Krieger had no experience with remote operated systems, his Engineering training hadn't covered the use of Goliath remote explosives units, bodies were more plentiful for sapping and demolitions work than wasting precious resources. However, the grinding of gears and concerned remark from the psyker got his attention, and the message had been clear. Choke points, not inside the Control Room. "That is unlikely ma'am, she is busy with the Titan. Stand clear!"

Tugging a Krak grenade out of his satchel of explosives and pulling the pin, he tossed the krak grenade up between the ceiling and heavy turret itself, targeting the turret ring and connection point with an anti tank explosive. With a loud, tell tale crack, the turret was dislodged and crashed to the ground in the middle of the room. Thankfully, it was not positioned over any consoles, and a sturdy boot to the side confirmed it was no longer functioning. Unsurprising, it had been severed from whatever was connecting it, and without the hand, a gun would not fire. Or the equivalent, depending on the wielder of the previously mentioned gun. Moving over to an unoccupied console, he began looking for maps of the local area outside the Forge, any sorts of bridges reinforced for Titan movement and the like. "Arbites, request you handle the heavy bolters and cover the Tech Priestess. If they reject remote commands, warn the Mechanicus forces en route. Mercenary, did you find any maps before jumping into slowing a hostile Titan scenario?"

Digging through the files and records as best he could, which was a great deal slower than the tech heretic, he had a simple plan. Anything that large couldn't just use any bridge or passage, and going into the wrong areas could spell doom. He was hoping there was a bridge that would be necessary for the Titan to pass over, which could be dropped as it attempted to cross. Gravity would do the rest at that point. "It is unlikely the planet has Titan killer class weaponry, so if it goes rogue, there is no fighting it directly, outside of boarding actions. Maps would help identify terrain features that could be used to slow or incapacitate the machine." Assuming that they could predict where the Titan would be going with enough time to be able to rig such places to ambush the thing. Of course, unlike most Guardsmen, the time to get clear of the detonations was not factored in, which meant it would not take nearly as long to rig up.

[Jb]

@Andromedai Nergüi followed behind and to the left of his present commander, bolter held carefully but relaxed in his gauntleted fists, the HUD of his helmet – placed back over his head before entering - bringing up reams of information as they moved through the large hallway door and into the interior of the God-machine of the Emperor; the Apothecary watched Aviza as he scanned their surroundings, feeling confined and altogether uncomfortable within the confines of the Titan, watching for any sign of the enemy.

When the comm suddenly burst into life, his ears suddenly assailed by code and heretical chants, the White Scar did not flinch as the Sister did – there was a reason that the Astartes 'knew no fear' – but did imitate her in raising his bolter up to his shoulder as they padded through the dim internal structure, a little more on edge with anticipation than he had been before.

"Hold fire until squad leader engages, watch your aim inside of Titan to minimize damage."

Blink-clicking his acknowledgement, Nergüi hooked his finger about the bolter trigger in preparation of anything happening...

He heard the interlopers long before they revealed themselves, tracking movements and smells that the Sister would have found impossible to replicate, the barrel of his bolter moving with their steps but his finger keeping away from firing; he had been given an order, and he would follow it.

Three...two...one.

They were in and Aviza was firing, multiple targetting reticules flashing up inside his helmet as if in alarm at their presence, his finger squeezing down mere seconds after his temporary superiors weapon started lighting up the nearly pitch-black room. Soon enough their quarry was dispersing, fleeing off in multiple directions as bolts pitched a number of them from their feet, turning others into ragged red messes.

After opening his helm-comm to Aviza the White Scar spoke, the joy of battle clear in his voice, “your orders, Sister?”

[rivaan]

“Well this means whatever's inside the Titan's hacking systems outside of it...” Vala growled as the Kreigsman took care of the turret.” Yeah... give me a moment...” She replied quickly going through the menus and pulling a general map of the area.” I didn't spot any bridges that the Titan would have to pass, but feel free to check it out. I didn't exactly ahve time to study it properly...” She explained and returned to her Titan systems hindering, before throwing a look at the others briefly.

“Someone of you inform the tech priests that are arriving about possible security measures turning hostile. I will try to slow the spread of the intrusion, but I cannot hinder both it and the Titan forever, so tell those cog lovers to move it as if there are free servos given out.” She sarcastically said and pulled the schematics of the Titan once more.

“You could try to bring the hangar on it, but it won't really work... Alternatively maybe a … I think I recall a slope we might be able to use, but let's be honest if this Titan goes out of our control and leaves the hangar chances are we might not live that through it's first shots will be us.” Vala commented and finally found what she was looking for.

“I located you, you piece of scrap metal!” She shouted, laughing.” The fueling line... If it can be fueled in... it can also be emptied. Even a Machine god cannot go out of control if it has nothing to fuel it's movement...” Vala mentioned.” In the event that the Titan tries to go online and it triggers the maintenance routine I set as trap, I will activate the repair routines to start emptying it's reservoirs... In order to repair something of that size, you need to have no fuel in it otherwise a single internal spark and it will go boom...”

“Haven't you gotten hold of our glorious leader yet?” Vala asked as she was struggling with combating the enemy hacking and running the systems to prepare in case the Titan tries to go online." You know... this seems oddly familiar. I saw similar way of machine spirit work on an Infidel once..."

[Rithy]

“Someone of you inform the tech priests that are arriving about possible security measures turning hostile."

"Yeah, yeah, I am already on it." Adrianne gently placed her gloved fingers on top of Vala's head to give her hair a gentle pat as the tech-heretic worked furiously on the console, and the tall Psyker stepped away; her ragged cloak flowing ghosty behind her.

"I think they have found trouble already... " Adrianne said, as she watched a video feed in the corner of her her HUD from one of her servo skulls: currently hovering high over a narrow mechanical corridor filled to the brim with a mob of greenskin attempting to open a heavy bulk that would lead them on an intercept course to Techpriestess Malig! A pair of mekboys were attempting to cut their way through it whilst ignoring the impatient jeering from the mob behind them shouting at them to work faster!

The sound of hungry, crackling purple and reddish energy flailing wildly about could be heard in the control room as the Psyker grabbed the upper handle of her staff and pulled her long, curved two-handed powerblade from its socket.

"I will see to them. Arbites, I'll need you for this task!"

Without asking for permission, Adrianne would place her left hand upon the back of Herold's collar, before in the next second; both the Arbites and the Psyker would vanish in a snap of air as Adrianne teleported them out of the room; leaving behind only the smell of brimstone in the air!

*

Techpriestess Malig's entourage flowered through the corridors of the Titan forge like a river of red; spear-headed by a cadre of red robed Skitarii cybernetic warriors armed and at the ready wielding long, galvanic rifles. Yet as they were leaving their last elevator, stepping into the maze-like corridors of the forge, a blast could be heard from their left as one of the heavy bulkheads were blasted inwards in a flurry of lights and explosive discharges.

"OI! WERE YOU THINKING OF LEAVING WITHOUT SAYING AT LEAST GOODBYE TO DA BOYS?! WOT GIVES!"

Sounded the groveling voice of a hunched-over Ork as he stepped out of the fire and smoke, surrounded by lesser Orks. The greenskin in question was covered in head-to-toe in layers of strange, alien effigies and trinkets adorning his heavy metal plate armor that was grafted directly into his green skin. The top of his head was bulbous, as if his tiny green skin brain had grown to abnormal proportions and was threatening to burst from his head at any moment; only kept contained by a crackling metallic crown surrounding it! A shimmering field surrounded the greenskin, emanating from a generator backpack with two rising bulbous orbs behind him; and in his hands he cradled a staff made out of metal and bones.

The Skitarii would react instantly with mechanical efficiency and discipline, spinning around and dropping three Ork boys within the blink of an eye in flashes of blue light from their galvanic rifles! The eviscerated green bodies of the Orks falling flat before the Ork weirdboy, spilling ash and blood into the air.

"Now dat's just rude dat is, I better teach you some manners!"

The weirdboy grumbled, his gaze moving back up from the corpses to stare at Malig's entourage. But before the Ork could take a single step more, the heavy grinding of gears made both sides pause as high above them in the ceiling; two dual-mounted heavy bolter turrets would descend from their rickety platforms to aim directly at each of the parties, a mechanical blink confirming target lock!

The first of the heavy turrets opened fire, annihilating half a dozen greenskin within the blink of an eye with murderous overkill before the second could could even stop to gawk at the merciless fire being spat their way by the ancient weapon hanging overhead!
However, before the second turret could even contemplate opening fire on Malig's own entourage, a spinning, crackling power sword would fly through the air to sever the attachments above the turret; causing the whole thing to fall with a crash into the tiled floor below!

The spinning power sword, as if commanded by invisible powers, would fly back to return to the hands of a skull masked psyker and a much shorter arbites that had just appeared on a ledge above them!

"Tech-Priestess Malig!" Adrianne made a gesture of acknowledgement at the tech priestess and her entourage below; not really having much time for a conversation as she instead gave Herold a nudge in the side!

She was unsure how Herold would react to what might have been the man's first experience of teleportation, but Adrianne felt relatively confident that the Arbites' soul hadn't been devoured by some malignant entity in the brief trip from the control room.

"Arbites! The greenskin! Fire already! Fire!"

[POOHEAD189]

"The Dark Mechanicum." Herold said grimly, the scattered reports and gunfire over the comms confirming what he had feared. Tech Priests that have given their souls over to the Chaos Gods to explore ever deeper into their malevolent studies of mechanics, experimenting in ever more corrupt and debased ways. He had faced Orks, Men, and even an Eldar. But the Dark Mechanicum was something he had only heard of through reports.

It seemed it was not to be, for he felt a slender hand grab his collar and within moments, the physical reality he had come to know disappeared in the blink of an eye, and Addrianne's previous words ran through his head. "I will see to them. Arbites, I'll need you for this task!"

He believed it was a good thing his mind ran them through once more for him to recall, because it was the one semblance of time and logic he would experience in the brief second he was suddenly emerged into what must have been the warp. Even though the psyker was taller, Herold was bigger in terms of bulk and if he was capable he would have torn his collar away from her. But it seemed this was all for the benefit of the group, for when reality set back in he found himself looking down at a mob of Orkoids that were currently under fire from a turret, and what looked to be loyalist tech priests under attack.

"Arbites! The greenskin! Fire already! Fire!"

He cast her a black look, fully realizing he could have lost his sanity going through the warp, particularly without warning. But it turns out he was safe for now, so he grabbed at the combat shotgun at his side and whipped it forward within the blink of an eye. With well trained aim, he fired into the mass of green below, his slugs tearing through unarmored and surprised Orkoids with a satisfying ease. The mekboy's shield pinged and lit up as it felt bullet impacts, but held strong.

For now.

[WardenCelestine]

The only answer Nergüi would receive, or would need, was the contentious fire from Aviza's Adrastus Bolt Caliver. With each round that was fired, one of the tech-priests from the Dark Mechanicus would be blown apart, sending flaming viscera flying through the air. Once the sound of bolter fire finely died down, the low hum from all the machines and electronics that flowed through the interior of the Titan could be heard once more. Aviza and Nergüi would extensively check the rest of the Titans internal weapons storage to find it completely void of any other hostiles, "That was all of them, my sensors are picking up no other movement or signs of life upon the Titan."

Kneeling down next to one of the deceased tech-priests that were in better condition than the others, Aviza motioned for Nergüi to run a quick medical scan of the heretic then to forward his findings to her. When all was said and done, there was no doubt that these tech-priests were indeed from the Mechanicus, for what reason they were inside of the Titan, still remained unknown. "We should head back to the rest of the retinue and report our findings to them."

Aviza took out a vibro-knife and cut something off of the tech-priest that they had recently scanned before putting it into one of her sealed containers for safe transportation and holding. Aviza knew their findings would have to be reported immediately back to Nova once they could reach an area with a strong and secure signal that others could not listen in on. That would have to be either outside of the warehouse or finding a position where the signal connected perfectly from inside. When they reached the docking hall that connected to the exterior of the Titan, the easily distinguishable sound of gunfire could be heard coming not far from their position.

Their coms would now work, and Aviza quickly made contact with Vala, "I hear gunfire not far from our position, we are heading to investigate the source." Aviza did not get a reply from Vala, but from Tech-priestess Malig, and remaining Skitarii as orders were give in a calm and relaxed tone, issuing fire upon the Orks and heavier firepower upon a shield of some sort. "Sounds like they need our help." said Aviza as she started to sprint back towards the control room before taking a sharp left and jumping over the railing. She would free-fall before landing feet first, letting her armor absorb the force of the impact.

There would be no time wasted, Aviza would sprint towards the sound of the gunfire and arrive a very short while after. Not only was the Tech-priestess there with her Skitarii, but also Herold and Psyker Adrianne. Raising her Adrastus Bolt Caliver once more, she fired upon the large ork. "Focus fire upon the Wire Boy!" yelled Aivza as she continued to dump rounds into the hostile Orks that were now apparently going into a blood-rage.