Shades on Twilight, part 2 - The Hulk

by DM B  

Timestamp: 6.849.997.M41

Location: Acreage system, Josian Reach, Calixis Sector

Situation: Somewhere deep inside the space hulk 'Twilight of Acheron'

Body: The boarding team consists of Interrogator Castilas (leader), Haxtes (scout), Jebediah (muscle), Parsifal (muscle), and Venus (tech-support). Azhmut remains aboard the Maiden in his new role as Chief Enginseer - seeing as he's the only mechanically incluined genuine Mars-loving tech-priest aboard and all that. Maxi has been left behind on the planetray surface - on Haxtes orders. Keep an eye on things, make sure whatever is out there doesn't eat all the citizens (becomes a moot point if the hulk impacts).

Venus has worked with the Maiden to come up with a good entry point and decent guestimate of where you must go and how long it will take you - from the time you dock you have exactly 15 hours before you must depart the hulk. Venus estimates at least 8 hours to reach the signal, maybe more, but the return trip should be much faster (unless you must take another route). She's running complex algorithms that calculate the point of no return - the point where you must turn back or go down with the hulk.

A shuttle takes you across - the Maiden is just a tiny speck against the immense bulk of the Twilight - and a boarding rig allows you entry. You spend some time suited up and in null-gee before finding a pressurized and gravitized section of the hulk. You see and experience many strange things. All these ships pushed together into what is essentially a small planetoid. Many are recognizable as Imperial vessels. Others are less easily categorized. Some are clearly not of human manufacture. At times gravity fades or you walk across ceilings and walls, as if they were floors. Everything is dark, silent and cold.  Your breath frosts as you exhale. You have all heard tales of what dangers lurk aboard such hulks...but this one seems more like a tomb than a monstrous menagerie. It would appear that you are utterly alone here...

Haxtes is up front when he sees it. Movement in a side passage. He gathers the shadows around his person and pursues. He arrives in a small chamber. The cold becomes acute, even through the insulation of the xeno-mesh suit. A small girl, silent and pale is standing there. Watching Haxtes. Haxtes can feel every hair on his body rise and a cold sensation playing up and down his spine. Psychics! The girl points back the way Haxtes came and for some reason he chances a glance. Nothing. When he turns back the girl is gone and the cold is fading.

Haxtes starts to double back when he senses something else. A something lurking just out of sight, hiding in the corner of the eye, just outside your field of vision. Almost like Haxtes himself in fact. Haxtes strains to perceive it until finally the shadows of the Empyrean shifts and he senses a vaguely feline shape. Not liking cats much of late he lets loose with the trusted bolt-pistol. Despite being more of the other world than this the shape is blown apart by Mechanicus-blessed explosive bolts.

Up ahead gunfire erupts. The others, warned by Haxtes shots, have barely managed to survive an ambush. Jebediah is down, screaming his lungs out as poison rips through his body. The other would not know, but Haxtes recognizes the distinctive sound of a splinter pistol firing suppressive bursts. Eldar renegades aboard this hulk, or someone like Haxtes who just carry their corrupt xenos weapons? The team is pinned down. Haxtes takes the little girl's hand and follows her down the corridor and away from the fighting...

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Categories: Adventures, Chapter 1 - In the Service, Adventure 1.5 - Shades on Twilight
 09/06/10 08:48:51 pm,

5 comments

Comment from:
Haxtes eventually find himself on a gallery, overlooking what looks like a cargo vault of some sort - sturdy support pylons are scattered along the metal cavern. He quickly surveys the situation - more of the warp-beasts loping away into the darkness, no doubt to flank the Inquisition team. Flank them while a black-armoured Eldar (it can be nothing else, his ornate equipment puts Haxtes' gear to shame) keeps the agents pinned with contemptuous bursts from his pistol while informing the luckless humans that their souls will soon be taken by the great Ketserar and fed to his hounds. A burst of bolter fire ends whatever plans he may have have and Haxtes drops down to the floor and regroups with his comrades. Jebedhiah quickly recovers from the agonizing poisons after Haxtes administers an antidote - its quite practical to have a poisoner trained in xenos substances on your own side. Then you make a stand against the warp-beasts. They attack as a pack, but you are ready for them and drive back the first assault. More are coming and you are forces to retreat back into the cargo vault, more hounds baying in the distance. A targeting beam slashes through the dark, spearing your lead man. Then you are caught in a powerful illuminator beam - a servitor drone hovers silently before you, the skull-and-cog symbol of the Mechanicus worked in brass upon its metal skin. Then a familiar voice: "Haxtes? WTF are you doing HERE!?" You could ask the same thing; what is Sergeant Forden of Soldevan's cadre doing aboard the hulk??? That will have to wait, however, for the warp-beasts are closing en masse. Without their handler they have reverted to a base and bestial nature. You can spot them now if you try hard enough, but they are damnably hard to kill because of their semi-empyrean nature. Two more of Molochan's drones descend from the darkness above to cover your retreat. These two are of the gun-carrying kind that Haxtes fondly recalls from Corax. Forden leads you back the the rest of the team. They are all there, Interrogator Trempan, Lady D, Molochan the Tech-Priest. And Forden of course. Not the Inquisitor though.
09/07/10 @ 12:12
Comment from:
OOC: Haxtes met this team on Corax. They workd for Inquisitor Soldevan. Read through the adventures there to get an idea of how they look etc. Trempan explains: You might remember that Soldevan is Hereticus, but that he's been working closely with the Xenos for years. More specifically to root out the heretical Veiled Hand death cult. With that mission at an end he's turned his attention elsewhere. The team has therefore been pursuing (since not long after the last time you saw them on Scintilla) a number of leads regarding xenos operations in the Josian Reach. It's another joint Hereticus/Xenos operation. The Hereticus part concerns itself with the illegal and possibly heretical activities of the Amaranthine Syndicate, a relatively new organizations of traders and backers operating out of the Hazeroth sub. The Ordo Xenos, however, is more interested in knowing if there is a xenos link to the Syndicate (they think it might be, but need more proof). So that's why Trempan and the others came out here aboard the Rogue Trader Brazen Sky - to investigate a string of leads from Hazeroth and right into the Josian sub. Only they got sidetracked when Imperial astropaths picked up the Twilight of Acheron appearing in realspace on several occasions. That in itself wasn't all that special, not until a listening post picked up Adojin's transponder signal. Orders came in from Soldevan - pursue the hulk and locate Adojin. And most importantly - secure her legendary force blade for return to the Ordo Malleus. So that's how they got to the Acreage system at this time. they followed the hulk through the Immaterium and boarded once it had reemerged into realspace and been declared stable. That was approximately 24 hours ago - initial progress was good, but then they ran into trouble, lost their secure voxlink to the brazen Sky and recently ran into these Eldar raiders.
09/07/10 @ 12:26
Comment from:
In the face of the threat of the Eldar raiders you decide to pool your resources. You avoid any discussions over seniority and claims. You can deal with that later if you succeed and/or survive. Progress is swift thereafter - under Venus expert guidance you find the optimum path. And using Haxtes as a scout and Molochan's drones to back him up you avoid any further encounters with the xenos. At the core of the hulk you find a black leviathan. A cross between transport and warship it is of Imperial manufacture, but covered with esoteric wards of great potency. It is one of the Black Ships - the great vessels that carry psykers to Terra. Adojin's signal is coming from within. A great tear in the flank of the ship offers an obvious way inside...
09/07/10 @ 14:59
Comment from:
Once bitten twice shy perhaps. Whatever the reason, the gruff Jebediah hawks a gob of phlegm on the ground as he eyes the opening - and in fact the entire length of the black ship visible in the lighting from the hovering drones - with a distrustful look, seeing enemies in every nook and cranny. His fingers deftly run through the practices of checking and double checking his weapon as he mutters the litany of protection, more out of habit than anything else. Finally he rubs a finger under his nose, shrugs and looks to the rest. "Ladies first..."
09/07/10 @ 15:53
Comment from:
Haxtes smilles at J "sure sweety, keep in the rear were you do your best work :)" Haxtes activates hes cloak and enters the ship. OCC: J we are still summing up, just a few more posts from DM and you will get too play too.
09/07/10 @ 15:59


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