Rogue Trader: The Hand of Fortune

[Hotfoot]

Ravion frowned. Six dead, and in a particular fashion. "Very well, we'll leave these be for the moment. See if you can discern the reason the scrubbers failed. When you're done there, we could use you in the control room. Sergeant, let's make sure no surprises await us in the control room, shall we?" He holstered his plasma pistol and withdrew his power sword, nodding to his retinue, those that had exited and were ready for close-quarters fighting to come with him.

[fgalkin]

Berenice left the shuttle controls to the techpriest and leaned over the corpses examining them carefully.

"Very curious, this," she muttered.

Six old and decayed corprses were sitting in the cockpit seats. Four of them were armed, weapons holstered, one still had bandages covering old wounds. The last man, his uniform still showing a lieutenant's insignia, was sitting in the forward seat, the laspistol he used to blow his own brains out still in his hand.

She paused, leaning on one of the high-backed cockpit chairs containing a corpse.

"Captain, I believe we should hold off our excursion to the bridge for now. We still have no idea of the ship's layout in any case, and I would very much like to see more craft opened."

With that, she began examining the craft more carefully. She found some ration bar wrappers, strewn about on the floor. One of the locekrs revealed several void suits, their air supply exhausted. Another revealed the source of the empty wrappers, a few bars still left.

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Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Vehrec]

"Understood. I advise that you bring some sort of power supply with you if you have any intention of my accessing those systems when I arrive." Getting down to work, Vir began the rites of Atmosphere Refresher Diagnostics, omitting the incense for time and because it would not burn without oxygen.

As he worked, he sang to himself, mostly operatic verse from his youth. Not something he would normally do but to turn the old phrase on it's head, In space no one could hear you sing. With nothing else except the whirs or his augmentics and his own breathing to keep him company in the silence, a little self-made music was appreciated.

After less than a minute, he had an answer. The filters, spent and clogged, were in need of replacement. After a moment's reflection, Vir removed them for closer and more detailed inspection. If plague or poison was responsible for the death of the crew, he wanted to know about it. He looked at the other two and opened a vox channel to them. "Nothing more to be done here, let's be on our way."

[fgalkin]

Berenice walked out of the lighter with her armsmen, motioning one of the junior techpriests under Vir's command to follow.

"Please unseal this craft for me," she asked the techpriest pointing to the next lifter.

------------------------
Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[rhoenix]

Paying only casual interest in the lighter with the bodies in it, Magnus instead strode near the others at the front of the group. Dead men held little interest for him, as their wills had departed, leaving nothing for him to feel.

"Ravion," he spoke up the next time they stopped. "This part of the ship has no taint of the Warp that I can discern. I will continue looking."

[Cpl Kendall]

Steel had spent the time since boarding close by his Lord, Hellgun held at the ready. With his master clearing intending to make his way to the bridge, he remained nearby, slightly to the side and aft of him, ready to react to any threat.

[Hotfoot]

No warp taint, no air, no other clues. This was unfortunate, but to be expected. The answers would not be found here. The bridge or the engine section, either would contain more useful answers. He motioned to an engineer with a portable power supply after he and several others had made their way to the control room. Two bodies awaited him, once again killed with high caliber slugs. "Let's get the cogitator banks working and get what knowledge we can from them. If we can find the fastest way to the bridge or a hint of what happened here, good, if not, we move."

[frigidmagi]

"I will give the poor souls in the lighter last rites." Volran declared soberly.

[Cynical Cat]

The engineering crew hooked up the portable power supplies to the control booth equipment. Light fluttered and then activation glyphs red positive and machinery hummed. A quick survey showed all equipment functional, although without power to the bay equipment there was little that could be done with it.

Skipping to the end showed the last entry was a massive cargo hauk, but no other sign of abnormal activity in the log. Whatever happened was not recorded. A quick scan of earlier activity reveals fairly frequent activity, not untypical of a Rogue Trader with a fast ship, a good Navigator, and the knowledge of several profitable destinations. The shorthand for the locations is too cryptic to be of use without further reference sources.

The engineering crew on the other lighter cracks it open, as requested. Inside are three dismembered corpses, apparently crewmen and women who had their limbs literally torn from their bodies and their features ravaged by a bladed instrument or perhaps a bestial maw. Further investigation indicates that the hull was breached on the upper level with the apparent attacker apparently tearing a hull through the lighter's armoured hull.

A trail of blood leads to the cockpit where a corpse sits with a death head rictus. The body has been shot a dozen times, probably with a mix of las and projectile weapons. The corpses fingers are unnaturally long and the last joint is exposed, sharpened bone.

[fgalkin]

"Fascinating," Berenice observed. She expected to see either something like this, or crewmen starved to death, but this surpassed even her own expectations.

"Please revive this machine and report status," she told the techpriest. "Karl," she motioned one of her armsmen forward, "check the supplies."

When he was gone, she examined the point of entry- a large hole in the outer hull, edges jagged as if made by a set of claws, then followed the creature's trail of carnage to the cockpit.

"Emperor protect and watch over us," she muttered. Then she closed her eyes, opening her warp eye and stood there, examining the corpse of the creature for signs of warp taint. She found nothing.

"My Lady," Karl's from behind her brought her out of her reverie. "The supplies are mostly untouched."

She sighed. That was to be expected. A picture was beginning to form.

"Ravion," she said, opening a private vox channel to the captain, "if you would be so kind as to join me I will to introduce you to what the crew have been hiding from. Bring an astropath with you"

---------------------------------------------------------
Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[White Haven]

Graylen's eyebrows shoot upwards at the sight of the dismembered corpses occupying the freshly-unsealed lighter, attempting to climb up into the hairline that he no longer possesses. He stalks carefully around the inside of the small craft, but it's not until his attention is drawn to the deformed, bone-bladed finger of the gunned-down figure that he lets out a low growl over the vox channels. He nods briefly and makes his way back out into the cavernous hangar bay.

"Mutation or taint, one or the other. If it was taint, it's apparently long gone, but mutation..."

A theory is beginning to form in his own mind, one corroborated somewhat by the slashed rent in the hull, but for the moment, he keeps it to himself.

[Karrick]

Valther made his way into the lighter's cockpit to more closely examine the corpse with the bladed fingers. In particular he looked for any other differences from the human norm.

[Hotfoot]

She sighed. That was to be expected. A picture was beginning to form.

"Ravion," she said, opening a private vox channel to the captain, "if you would be so kind as to join me I will to introduce you to what the crew have been hiding from. Bring an astropath with you"

Ravion sighed, looking to his assembled men. "Steel, Magnus, and Graylen, go help our Navigator figure out what she stumbled on. Everyone else, let's start pushing towards the bridge. Keep an eye on the auspex and don't open a pressurized door without Atellus ready to take fire on anything on the other side."

[rhoenix]

Turning his head slightly at the sound of Ravion gathering people's attention, the Astropath Magnus nodded once at the plan before turning to the other two. "Steel? Graylen? Shall we?"

With that, Magnus walked in a measured though ground-eating pace toward the afflicted lighter that the Navigator, Berenice had discovered, his cloak fluttering behind him almost as if it were gathering hidden breezes in the nearly airless environment.

As he approached, he hailed the Navigator through the vox in his helmet. "Greetings Berenice, we approach."

Having done the preliminaries, all of Magnus' senses went into high gear, mentally "feeling" everything he could on and around the lighter before going in.

[Cpl Kendall]

"Certainly," Steel replied and left with Magnus and Graylen. He let Magnus take care of the preliminaries with the Astropath and headed up to the lighters flight deck.

Making an inspection of the corpse through his suit helm, he comments via vox; "This mutation is unknown to me. I would not have expected to see the bones exposed, elongated fingers are common enough, but claws? Something from the lower decks you think? Or perhaps a result of something getting in."

[Cynical Cat]

There was no sign of unusual warp activity in the lighter, but that was no surprise. None had been detected in the bay earlier. The body was, however, something different.

It had been shot with multiple different weapons, sustaining wounds that surely had to have been fatal, but there was no place to shoot the body as it had been positioned. The bone claws were probably the result of the flesh being altered by the power of the warp, turning the bones into psychically charged rending talons and sloughing off bone. The warp also explained how the poor crewman had survived being shot a dozen times and kept on moving. He hadn't.

Rather the thing that had taken his flesh had altered it to suit his needs and gone hunting. Wounds that would have killed a man did not stop the warp predator from its grisly business, but the being's time in the material universe had probably been limited, as was usually the case. When the shell it had taken could no longer sustain it, it had abandoned it and slid back into the warp. If this followed the typical patterns. Probably

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"Sir," Sergeant Clayvore saluted and his squad took point. The bridge would probably be up top, in the general vicinity of the observation dome. The spacers stomped out of the bay, ignoring the occasional stray tool floating in microgravity.

There were heavy cargo elevators and doors, which they ignored and instead went for a likely looking access hallway. There was another body drifting here, clearly shredded by heavy caliber slugger fire. They pushed it out of the way and moved on, turning a corner and going down a short passage. There was an bulkhead door and then another turn.

That lead to a dead end. "What in the Emperor's Name?" cursed an soldier.

"Quiet in the ranks," said Clayvore. "My lord captain, this is going to be harder than I thought. I believe this ship is equipped with a Tenebro-Maze."

[White Haven]

Graylen nods curtly to the astropath, moving with the pair to join the lady Navigator. Once out in the open again, he exchanges sword for pistol once again, keeping a close eye out for any signs of movement.

"So, you've evidence?"

[rhoenix]

Looking concerned, Magnus shook his head in reply to Graylen after a moment. "I'm still gathering evidence, but it seems like the crew here managed to make a few admirers out of the local Warp-based population. I will redouble my vigilance."

As he finished examining the body, Magnus seemed to take a long, slow breath before exhaling. Once he'd done so, he activated his suit's vox, opening a private channel to Ravion. "Captain Ravion, I await evidence to be proven wrong, but this may have been the work of a Warp predator, or a few of them."

[fgalkin]

Berenice had just finished taking shots with her pict recorder as the others arrived. She made a point of ignoring the astropath's message. If the man could not bother to learn the most basic rules of addressing one of the Nobilite, she had little to say to him. She had to maintain the reputation of her House, after all.

"So, we find out what killed the ship, " Berenice said when the others arrived. "I suggest you unseal the remaining craft. Look for a log or journal of some kind. Let me know if you find anything unusual. Take pict-shots," she offered the recorder.

She walked out of the lighter and headed towards the control room, her armsmen in tow. First, she carefully looked over the dead body there. When she was satisfied, she moved on.


"I wish to examine the recovered data," she told the techpriest there, handing him her dataslate. "Were you able to find the ship's schematics?"


-----------------------------------
Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Marcao]

His concerns at the time revolved predominantly about keeping an eye on Ravion. The loss of the Rogue Trader would lead to disaster. Furthermore, he was not the best suited member of the entourage to go about poking for information. His heavy bolter remained craddled in his arms, the six members of his escort remained stationary in position around him. It was akin to a planetary body being orbited by satellites. As men and women darted in and out of the lighter, he watched with a reasonable degree of interest. He was not convinced that within the small vessels they would find the clues to unravel the mystery but a little bit of knowledge could at times be more useful than none at all.

It can also be much worse. There are things that can bend and twist the human mind, let alone the human body.

After he was satisfied with his visual scan of the Lighters as they waited silently for their mother to be reclaimed his attention settled on Ravion once again. How would he handle this situation? Ravion answered his thoughts a moment later by ordering him to start pushing along with the others towards the bridge. It was decisive action and he approved of it. As Sergeant Clayvore saluted and his squad took point he moved immediately after them his own squad of six men moving with him. They avoided the elevators but that was good practice given the existing circumstances. The body they found bore the marks of heavy caliber slugger fire. Nearly instantly a frown blossomed on his features and he felt a familiar sensation slither into his heart.

Orks?

He hated Orks. The wounds on the body as he moved past it looked like they could be caused by Ork weaponry. If that was the case, then it was possible that there remained some Orks on the vessel. They were notoriously resilient but he had no proof aside from the quickening beats of his heart. He could not act until he had tangible evidence of their presence. He turned a corner and the length of corridor which led to a turn was met with a frown.

I have seen this before.

A soldier cursed a mere three steps before him and he smiled grimly. A second later Clayvore put into words what he had thought. A tenebro-maze would be useful in the long run, but in the short term it was an obstacle that had to be overcome. His head turned as he sought to seek an answer to their immediate problem.

[Karrick]

Valther made his way to join the group heading to the bridge.

[Hotfoot]

Horrid creatures are one thing, plague, even warp madness. That they could handle, but a tenebro-maze? When they had time to explore, to map it out and be used to it, it would be an asset, but it was designed to confound boarders, and right now, they were the boarders. "Sergeant, I have no interest in engaging a meat grinder on its own terms. I'd rather map it when we have time and don't have to worry about whatever it was that tore through the previous crew. We could slog through the maze, and our astropaths could give us warning, but make no mistake, this will slow us down. I will not have crew coming on board to get lost and torn apart until we can get a full measure of the threat. Do you think we can attempt to enter the bridge from the outside, bypassing the maze?"

[frigidmagi]

Volran finished the last rites for the crew and hearing about the Tenebro maze over the vox stopped and waited. It would be best he thought not to get in the way until he had something useful to contribute.

[Cynical Cat]

"Sir, obscuring the path to the vital areas of the ship is the function of the maze. That said, there are limits to it. If we want to proceed from the landing bays, there's no way around the maze."

[Hotfoot]

Ravion nodded. "Right then. Sergeant, let's lock down the hangar and establish it as a secure LZ. We're going to stop landing for the time being and have the lighters on standby until we can secure the ship further. I want the gun cutter to be the fallback point should things get ugly. We'll take a squad of men to attempt a void entry nearer to the bridge to bypass as much of the maze as possible. Astropath Goodwinne will stay with the group in the Hangar to give them warning should our particular beastie not be easy to detect on Auspex. The engineers will stay in the gun cutter unless something of particular interest is found." Ravion switched over to a private frequency, getting close to the sergeant. "And Clayvore, I do not want heroes this day. If your men cannot hold the hangar they are to withdraw to the cutter and bleed the enemy for every inch they take. If the cutter looks to be overwhelmed, we cede the hangar. There are more we can take, after all."

On a frequency for his team, he relayed his next order. "Load into one of the lighters everyone. Goodwinne, stay behind in case there are still any of those warp things on board and they get an idea to come for us. I hope none of you are prone to void sickness."