"Journey Into The Vast Expanse..." - WH40K RP IC Thread

[Jokern]

For some time, only Terrela's calm breathing could be heard. She was thinking of the new crew again. It was hard as most had not introduced themselves. Finally she answered with her emotionless voice.

"Firing line for the man in the brown greatcoat if it was up to me. The rest seem acceptable, though they will have to prove themselves in the future."

Short and straight to the point. Effective and saved time, just the way she wanted it. Some might call it cold, but for the Commissar who had seen war for over 50 years any second could be your last, so quickly getting your point out was important. She continued answering Drake.

"Good. Perhaps you can finally tell what new prize you're seeking on Footfall. I don't like secrets nor surprises."

The Commissar had become suspicious when the Captain did not tell her what he wanted to do on Footfall. Gathering more crew was obvious, which was not the Drake she knew. There was something else he was after, so secret that had not even told her. There were still anger in her because of this, but Terrela suspected as well that all would be revealed in due time. That was also a part of Drake she had come to know.

[Ace_General]

Buck wakes up momentarily and notices that the captain hasnt sent for him and rolls over, and goes back to dreaming about "well porptioned women" and blowing up planets of heathens and xenos

[McScottish]

Buck wakes up and dresses and grabs a cup of recaff and heads to the bridge and sits down in the first officers chair and says to Drake

Morning Captain. Or is it Lord Trader Drake? Mind if we grab some breakfast together along with your commissar and discuss staffing the senior postions of the ship

OOC: Woah, woah, woah there!

I know you might be a tad impatient, but you've just done a complete time-leap, not to mention asking about 'senior positions' after only just arriving aboard the damned ship; why would Drake even consider putting a relative newcomer, even one he knows already, in charge of anything on his ship?

We're still on our way to see the feinting Elysian, unless stated otherwise, and altering the plotline like that is against the rules.

Good to see you back, but please feel free to edit the post into something more in accordance with everyone elses.

[McScottish]

"Surprises, Terrela? When have you ever known me to surprise or keep secrets from anyone?"

Though the question was delivered in as deadpan a manner as Drake could muster, his tone entirely monotonous and his facial muscles perfectly controlled to give away nothing, he knew as soon as he began speaking that the Commissar would see through his innocent act. He did not know how, or why, but she always seemed to be able to know what he was thinking- or at least to hazard a pretty close guess.

"I agree about the crew though; Logan is certainly full of hatred, for those that took his family and therefore for me. Hightower is a peacock who places far too much belief in himself, or in an amasec glass, but not enough in the Emperor for my taste. The rest are able, if not exceptional, and their faith and belief varies greatly between them...I do not believe you will be required to execute any of them too soon though."

Dim lighting swept over the faces of the party stalking through the corridors- Drake and arguably his second-in-command surrounded by servitors and escorted by a handful of black-and-crimson clad Armsmen bearing shotguns and cutlasses- picking up the sharp angles of the Traders face, the thin lips and the topknot of raven-black hair gathered and tied to the back of his scalp. On the other hand, the lightning only made Terrela appear more ominious in her featureless mask and dark clothing, something about only being able to see a pair of eyes looking out at you from behind the bulbous nose and mouth apparatus giving even Drake the shivers.

"As for Foo-"

A man in a surgical coat and face-mask aproached them from the direction of the smallest of the handful of infirmaries aboard the vessel. He was a thin man, almost painfully so, with hands almost comically stretched so that his fingers looked like the droopy branches of a Willow tree and his face like a grinning skull.

"My liege," he hissed, as if a forked tongue lay within his mouth and its receding lips, "please hurry, there is something we found that you may wish to see. It appears the Elysian did not simply collapsed, it seems he was...helped."

What in the God-Emperor's name?

"Lead on, Medicus Stein."

In a flurry of feet and whirring servitor motors, the group redoubled their footsteps; there was something waiting in that infirmary, and it had to be seen to be believed.

[Jokern]

The Commissar hurried after the medicus and Drake. Her thoughts were on Stein's words: what did he mean by 'helped'? Her gut told her that this could be dangerous. Danger to the Imperium is heresy. Heresy is exterminated. By instinct, she pulled out her combat knife, hiding it up her left sleeve, and pulled off the safety of her unholstered bolt pistol. Terrela never took risks, being prepared for a fight is better than an ambush. Her strides never stopped in their rhytm.

[Dirty Chai]

"Come along now, Mr Bourne, unless you want to scuffle with ork or kroot."
Solat'suith turned down an alley and through a large cloud of steam pouring out of a pipe on the right wall, disappearing behind the fog.

Pausing to wait for Bourne, he then slid through a hole in a wall, stepped through a dark house of rubble that smelled of carcass, leading out into another alley. From here, he glanced about, and then strode across this new alley, coming to a set of steep stairs...

.. They seemed, from the bottom, to be the way out of the maze, but they only to a new one at a higher elevation.
Here there were bodies, forms, figures along the walls of the street, sitting like beggars. Some were frozen, perhaps dead or asleep, while others shifted as if in a deep trance. Then a dimly lit building covered in warm colors and decorations off to the side came into view, with words for "House of Leaves" written in High Gothic followed by many different, roughly etched scripts. The smell of illicit substances, particularly sujamma and malemory, filled the area.

This was the Xenosium. A ghetto. A prison.
A dark corner for the non-human beings who shamelessly continued to live under and inside the human Empire.
Most died here. A bottomless pit was the Xenosium. But it wasn't impossible to leave, no.
You just needed a way to leave Footfall. Passage. Which no Xeno who was stranded here could ever manage to do. Usually.

The Ulthwean continued to lead the way to where he claimed the exit was, ignoring this part of the ghetto like had the last.
However, they came to a new set of stairs, this one leading downwards again in a spiral-like fashion.

"You must proceed first now, Mr Bourne, for I have no weapons in this place."

[Tim1988]

Gav woke from his sleep with a start as the servitor entered the room. His hand instinctively reached for his pistol, before relaxing as he realised where he was. Swinging his legs out of his bed, he headed for his sink, splashing cold water over his face to fully wake him, before pulling on his old navy jacket and strapping is holster onto his belt. All ready, he followed the servitor out of the room and headed towards the infirmary.

He was just arriving as the Trader and his accompanying retinue appeared around the corner at the end of the corridor. It was clear from their expressions and hurried pace that something wasn't quite right.

"Commander, you wished to see me?"

[McScottish]

"You must proceed first now, Mr Bourne, for I have no weapons in this place."

"It's Sergeant to you, Witch," grunted the solitary Human in a sprawled slum-area of Xenos, "must be a shame not to be able to use any of your mental powers here, ey?"

Putting his hand to cool metal once more, making sure he could pull out his pistol if it was required, the Colour-Sergeant advanced slowly down the spiral stairway and into the unknown. He did not like this Eldar, not his mannerisms of arrogant politeness, nor his clothing or the smell of him, and especially not his lilting voice. Why Drake had sent him of all people he could not fathom, perhaps it was some sort of practical joke on the Captains part?

"I'm not going to give you a weapon, but I can get you to the Captain in one piece...Emperor-willing; so, which way toward the docking bays?"

He was just arriving as the Trader and his accompanying retinue appeared around the corner at the end of the corridor. It was clear from their expressions and hurried pace that something wasn't quite right.

"Commander, you wished to see me?"

Drake arrived just behind Medicus Stein, his skin still crawling from the prescence of both he and Terrela in such close proximity, when Gav arrived and approached them. In the last few minutes, his mind racing here and there, he had quite forgotten the ex-Fighter Ace but now turned to acknowledge him openly.

"Greetings Martell, I was going to question you...but since you are now here, I think you may as well follow the Comissar and I into the infirmary."

Moving leisurely through a pair of doors, oddly thick for the doors of a place of medicine, that slid away to reveal a scene of some hurried activity, Drake moved over to a small console where Stein now tapped at buttons and muttered to himself in the phlegmatic dialect of his own homeworld.

"Medicus?" Questioned the Captain, the white-coated stickman clearly caught in a world of his own, "Stein?!"

Those hollow eyes turned back to Drake, realising just where he was, and without speaking he guided them through the crowd of servitors and Humans. Where he guided them was to the side of the pale, silent, and unmoving Elysian who had collapsed on arrival aboard the vessel; Uriel was pallid in colour, his eyes rimmed by thick red circles, his body inert and as still as one who may have been dead.

"What is wrong with him?"

"The patient is currently in a coma, one induced by his own body, or so it seems."

Stein shuffled over to a metallic table and retrieved something from it, holding it up to one of the lights by the operating table- a glass container filled with preservation liquids, and within that container...

Drake drew in a sharp hiss of breath, making the sign of both the Aquila and the Inquisition across his chest, his eyes filled with a sudden hatred and vigour which caused even his usually placid features to twist into an expression of anger.

"We removed this from the patient, more specifically from his insides through his rectum."

Somewhere in the dim part of the infirmary someone gave a small snort of laughter, but this was no laughing matter.

What Stein held up to show them twitched within the liquid- the 'glass' impervious to acid, most forms of ammunition and fire, so not really glass at all- an eel-like creature without limbs, some twelve inches long and a deep mottled green skin, the head as large as a mans fist with bulbous eyes and a jaw filled with needle-like teeth. All along the length of it's body were small holes covered by a thin film of skin, clearly capable of being opened when the time was right.

What most disturbed the former Acolyte of the Ordo Xenos. however, was the way those eyes of pure white seemed to look around the infirmary and straight at them all- though the creature seemed quite blind.

[Dirty Chai]

"The gateway has a foul guardian," Sol explained casually as he descended behind Bourne, "A species more repugnant than even yours, serah."
"I cannot hear its breath, so it must be awake.."

As they reached the bottom of the stairs, the Ulthwean gripped Bourne's right elbow, and the human would feel the necessary emergency of it.
The "foul being" the Eldar had spoken of was indeed there, standing among Romanesque columns;
Shaped like a giant among orks, the specimen had several sets of arms and skin somewhere between mold and scales.
Through the darkness of the steamy hall, it was difficult to make out much more.

A surviving member of a lost species?
A creature of heretical experimentation?
A orkish mutation?

Whatever it was, it was an abomination; both human and eldar could agree.
It was possible that the Ulthwean was aware of what it was, through the more ancient knowledge of his people and their long-lost empire, but if he did, it was useless here.

Its back was turned, and its feet were inserted into a hole in the center of the room, as if bathing its feet... likely in a pool of sewage or some other disgusting substance. Solat'suith paused for a long time, gripping Bourne's shoulder all while, before letting go and attempting to slip to the right, behind some of the columns, into a darker part of the hall.

[Ace_General]

Buck wakes up and showers and gets dressed, and orders a breakfast of Grox Steak medium rare, Recaff with cream and no sugar, Eggs, and toast. He also requests to the steward a manifest of the ships phyiscal repair condition, crew, and fuel and ammuniiton to peruse while breakfasting and sends a message to the ships internal comms asking if there is anything to be done this day.

[Tim1988]

Gav involuntarily took a step back as the medic produced the creature. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as if there was some sort of static charge in the room.

"Sacred feth! What is that thing?"

He turned to the medicus.

"Why hasn't this been destroyed? Him too," he added, nodding at the Elysian. His hand clenched around his pistol. "A bolt through the temple, then enough prometheum to reduce him to ash is what needs to be done. Then cast what's left out into the void."

Gav was chilled. What had he let himself into?

[Jokern]

Without a slimer of a thought, Terrela drew her bolt pisfol and aimed at the foul creature in the glass jar under a millisecond. Her breathing was almost non-existent while all other sounds had been shut out. Her surroundings had shrunk to a tunnel; her at one end and the monster at the other. It felt like she was on the battlefield again: death and fear circling around her, a chaotic sea of darkness and blood. Yet there the Commissar stood like a unmovable cliff. Terrela had been trained to face the most dreaded things from the deep void her whole life in the name of the God-Emperor and the Imperium. This was just another day of the Commissar doing her duty.

Terrela was calm. That was good. That meant she would not do anything rash. However, she sensed a great danger from the xeno in the jar. The best would be to purge it from its heretical existense. Then there was the man it came from. The Elysian was sfill in a coma, but God-Emperor knows what kind of danger he could be. The man in the Imperial Navy suit, Martell, had mentioned burning the Elysian to ash. She liked the sound of that. Sometimes it was better to immediately erase a problem than analyze it and give it a chance to let loose on the rest of the ship.

"Heretical xeno monster. Whatever it is, kill it. And the Elysian. We don't need heresy bringing this ship into the hands of the Ruinous Powers."

[McScottish]

Gav was chilled. What had he let himself into?

"Heretical xeno monster. Whatever it is, kill it. And the Elysian. We don't need heresy bringing this ship into the hands of the Ruinous Powers."

"None of what either of you proposed will be happening," intoned the Trader, his voice edged with steel that even the Kreigean Commissar could not muster, "I will not kill any of my crew out-of-hand, and as for this...thing..."

He turned his eyes back to the still wriggling creature in the container, Stein having now placed it on a metallic table at the foot of the bed where Uriel lay; Drakes eyes studied the thing with great enthusiasm, taking in every detail, whether great or small,so that he could write it down in the future.

"It is no creature of the warp," he half-muttered to the fiery executioner, "therefore it cannot be controlled by the Ruinous Powers." The sign of the Aquila was once more made across his chest before he turned to the Medicus "keep the Elysian in stasis, I do not want anyone seeing him without my permission. As for this thing, I have plans for it that may well be more beneficial to the Imperium than not. I am willing to take those risks." A stroke of his pointed chin and he gestured to the nigh indestructable storage vault at the rear of the room- "place it in there, under guard, and do not let anyone see it except for myself. I mean anyone."

Stein moved away to fulfil the orders of his liege-lord, Drake staring off into the distance momentarily. Did he know more than he was telling? Possibly. Had he known that Uriel was infected with something before he even reached Port Wander? Most certainly.

"There are things in this galaxy that no mortal should ever have to face," he shot a knowing glance at Terrela, placing his hand as calmly as he could on the top of the bolt pistol and lowering her still outstretched arm, "but if we are to face them, and believe me we shall, then we need to know them first."

Although his voice had taken back a neutral tone, his eyes and the way he held himself showed that he would not be swayed or argued with on this matter. Not by Terrela, the one that he cared for the most, not by Martell- one he cared for little -not by anyone.

"Assemble the officers of the vessel," came the order from his lips, directed at the Commissar who even now looked as if she may shoot him just for keeping the Xenos alive, "and gather our waifs and strays from Port Wander, we have a mission to complete."

************

"Emperor be good."

Bourne had faced many things in his lifetime, as short as any mortal mans was, from giant Greenskins to chittering Tyranid swarms, but here in this deep and dank tunnel he still felt a shiver of fear at the sight of this...this...abomination.

"Eldar!" He hissed as quietly as he may, having flinched when the lithe being gripped his shoulder but now wishing he had not slunk off, "trust the Eldar to desert an ally."

Observing the creature for a few moments more, watching with some sort of odd curiousity as it continued to bathe its feet, he snapped off the catch of his holster and drew out his pistol; with a muttered prayer he placed the cool metal of it to his lips, kissing it with a calm sigh. Even now he felt the cool calm of the Praetorians returning to him, the flog-marks on his back itching uncontrollably beneath his uniform, and his mind wishing that he held a las-gun or at least had his helmet with him.

Taking a deep and sturdying breath, he decided to take the opposite side to the pointy-eared psyker, stepping as steadily as he could to the left side of the hall. Once there, he pressed his back firmly against one of the columns.

What was he supposed to do now?! He could not just charge blindly in, nor could he simply hide behind this temporary shelter.

"Well, old boy, looks like you've done it again."

[Dirty Chai]

Sol had not abandoned the human, though he could easily have done so.
The abomination before them would require a tactic to kill and to pass by.

In the dark, he found a long, sharp piece of glass, shaped as a narrow triangle.
He waited in the dark, seeing if his human partner would shoot or at least grab its attention.

The Ulthwean glanced at the far exit to his right, considering it, but didn't budge.

[Jokern]

Terrela glared at the captain for a moment, her finger still on the trigger. Finally she holstered the bolt pistol again, though the knife was still up her sleeve. She could not go against her superior's orders, even when it came to keeping the xeno alive. One day she would kill Drake for his unorthodox methods. For now, she just nodded, made the sign of the Aquila and marched out of the medical bay. Better to leave before her zeal conquered her respect for authority and made a bloodbath.

The Commissar made her way to the bridge, where the crew were full at work, making their way towards Footfall. Principal Navigator Ekzbert was discussing something with Ship's Master Rupert over at the Atlas Imperialis, pointing and high-lighting several areas on the border of the map. When they noticed her dark presence walking in with a steady pace, their expressions turned grim and terrified. They walked up in front of her, the one-eyed Rupert asked her something she could not hear. It did not matter. He was in the way of the local communication system on the Victrix, which she needed. Out of anger, the Commissar punched him in the face and the Ship's Master fell to the floor with a bloody nose while the skeletal Navigator let out a weazy gasp of fear. Terrela stepped right passed them and swiftly pushed away the man at the comm. system. As second-in-command on board the ship, she did not expect to be stopped or questioned in her decisions. Besides, she was not in a good mood. An angry Commissar was the worst thing to approach.

Terrela picked up the microphone and pushed a button that sent her voice across the speakers of the vast vessel.

"Attention all crew members of the Victrix, this is Commissar Terrela speaking. By the orders of Captain Drake, all commanding officers are to immediately abandon their present work and gather in the main command room for a briefing. Failure to comply will result in immediate execution in the God-Emperor's Name. The new crew members who were recruited on Port Wander are also ordered to attend the briefing. Failure to be there will result in harsh punishment from Captain Horatio Drake. That is all."

She clicked the button again, turned around and marched out of the bridge with several offices hurrying after her. Fear was her greatest weapon. Not using it would make it decay, so the Commissar did her best to keep the crew on their toes. With more and more officers joining her train behind her, Terrela reached the command room first.

[Zectorman]

Durante, scrubbing the water out of his head with his own wet shirt looked into the vox speaker in the corner of the wall. Took him time to pin down a person on this half empty ship and point him in the direction of what passed off as a washroom and was at least able to wash some of the stink off of him. He listened to the commissar call the officers for a briefing and he figured he had better make his way there lest he be a forgotten face among those already on board. He would not be another grunt to die in space, h did not abandon his livelihood only to die a nameless soul in the void. At least on Port Wander his death would have been remembered.

He replaced his wet shirt and made his way towards what he hoped was the Command Room.

By the time he reached it he was dried off, he forgot how large these ships could be. It seemed he was closer to the Command room than the others considering the lack of people he knew in the room. He assumed a position close to the door, waiting for the Lord to arrive. He wondered when the rest would arrive particularly the Commissar. He would avoid speaking to the Commissar at all costs, better chance of survival if he did.

[Ace_General]

Buck arrives on the bridge and pantomimes a finger gun at Terrela and says

"Bridge my Commissarial Kreigian Comrade, where the Skipper? Or were you referring to the Operations center or the staff conference room? "

[McScottish]

Buck arrives on the bridge and pantomines a finger gun at Terrela and says

"Bridge my Commissarial Kreigian Comrade, where the Skipper?"

OOC: Please, read things carefully, Ace. They're not on the bridge, they're in the main command room for a briefing.

I'll get an update up a wee bit later.

[Tim1988]

Gav followed Drake out of the infirmary as they began to make their way towards the command room.

"I sure hope you're going to explain what just happened, Commander." The last word was said with clear disdain in his voice. "I have no doubt that you have greater knowledge of Xenos and creatures of the warp than I do, but whatever that thing was, it sure as hell wasn't the sort of thing that has a place on an Imperial Vessel."

The whole episode in the infirmary had really got to Gav and he didn't like the fact that he was clearly having things hidden from him. That creature was no ordinary animal, and he could tell from the way the Trader had reacted when it was shown to him, that it certainly was no pet.

[Ace_General]

OOC: The bridge is the main command room, then you would have a Operations/tactical center where mostly targeting and sensor data is collected and collated and sent to the bridge, then you have on Imperial navy ships a conferance hall type deal