Edge of the Void - Campaign Turn 4
Wretches from the sumps of Yamham-Mavit City attempt to assassinate a member of the Ecclesiarchy! The Rogue Trader and her crew must leap into action to prevent disaster.
Chapter 4 - An Unexpected Visitor
Lord Captain Tareefa el-Khatib and her retinue had spent the last few days settling into their new accommodations, instead of living out of the gun-cutter Stormspite they had moved into one of the Spire Estates of Drusaal’s Planetary Governor. Whilst the Rogue Trader had seen her share of upscale living quarters, her retinue of were used to more spartan accommodation. Indeed, her Tech-Adept Gluvico had point blank refused to move into the room allotted to him as it had “neither the wattage nor datum throughput for this unit to adequately perform in their tasks” and so remained in the cramped repair shop aboard the Stormspite.
On the third day a soft chime sounded throughout the estate indicating a visitor had arrived. The estate’s serving staff took the guest to a reception room while Tareefa gathered her Armsmen Finn and Bron. Entering the reception room, she was a little taken aback. Tareefa had been expecting a member of the nobility or someone within the Planetary Governor’s staff perhaps. Instead, her guest looked as though he had crawled out of a sewer pipe in the lower slums. What greeted her was a balding man of indeterminate age dressed in what were, presumably, once robes but now looked to be held together only by stains and the Emperor’s indomitable will. Their arms and legs were bare albeit covered in the ritual scars of flagellation. In contrast to their general state of dishevelment, around the man’s head and covering the sockets where their eyes used to be there was a spotless strip of cloth embroidered with the symbol of the Blind Divine Death Cult. The very cult that Shai Nue Yieng, a member of Tareefa’s retinue, was a part of.
“Forgiveness, ah, honoured Rogue Trader,” the blinded man curtsied, “alas it, ah, is not you we are, ah, here to see.”
The Lord Captain narrowed her eyes, “So I see.”
“If, ah, we might, ah, beg the indulgence to, ah-” he stammered but had barely gotten the words out before Shai silently padded into the room.
She was dressed in a simple shift in lieu of her usual bodyglove, and like the blinded man her exposed skin was covered in ritual scarification. Unlike the man, her eyes had not just been removed but replaced with sophisticated augmentations that whirred and clicked as she regarded their guest.
“I am here, acolyte, deliver your message.”
The acolyte turned from Shai back to the Rogue Trader, who made no move to leave the room. He slowly turned back to Shai.
“Blinded One, we, ah, have a, ah, mission for you”
“I have a mission already,” she replied tersely, “to find the House Virtuosa murderers.”
The blind acolyte raised a hand.
“This is, ah, complo-, compli-, ah, in addition to your current, ah, mission. There is someone-”
Shai cut him off for a second time, “Fine. Give me the name and place, and they will be ended.”
The blinded man waved his arms frantically, “No, no, no, Blinded One! They must not die, they must, ah, live!”
“I’m an assassin, not a bodyguard.” Shai responded.
“Ah, yes well...” the man stammered, turning once again to the Rogue Trader.
Tareefa glowered back at him, “So, you are here to see me after all?”
“It’s, well, ah, it’s just, ah, honoured, ah, Captain, ah, that your, ah, oath…”
The acolyte grinned, despite his stammer.
Battle 4 - Plaza of the Winged Saint
All things considered, Confessor Taddeus took the news of his impromptu bodyguard detail rather well. In fact, he seemed rather excited that some ne'er-do-wells had marked him for death. He has insisted on personally blessing each of their weapons with the Tears of Saint Darran before he and the crew piled into an armoured ground car and made for the Plaza of the Winged Saint.
The Rogue Trader and her crew advance cautiously.
The air in the Plaza was hot and close, even at this early hour in the morning. But it was mercifully quiet, perhaps the Confessor’s congregation had gotten wind of the impending attack somehow. Nevertheless, the Rogue Trader took the opportunity to seize the initiative and ordered the two Armsmen, Finn and Duke, and the Tech-Adept Gluvico to the upper walkway. Tareefa herself, meanwhile, along with Shai, Guillermo and the Confessor would make for the shrine statue via the lower level.
The enemy make themselves known just as Finn gets to the top of the stairs. Born of the forgotten and abandoned places of Yamham-Mavit City and twisted by a steady diet of malnourishment and industrial runoff, they whooped and hollered as they charged forward. What they lacked in discipline they more than made up for in skin conditions, what wasn’t covered in filth was raw and red. The Lord Captain had no doubt that despite their unkempt appearance they would have made short work of the unguarded Confessor. Despite a clear preference by their enemies for close range weapons, Shai dashes into cover behind a promethium pipe. Guillermo and the Confessor press forward with the Crusader taking the lead.
The filth encrusted foes make themselves known.
Now aware of each other the two sides redouble spring into action. The Rogue Trader’s crew fall back on their various trainings; Shai keeps to the shadows and slips behind a ruined section of wall, the Armsmen Finn and Duke keep their weapons trained in the direction of the enemy as they advance ready to engage should they make themselves known, the Lord-Captain herself braces behind a rusted pipe covering the narrow street. The would-be assassins however display no such discipline beyond some basic self-preservation. The ones on the walkway continue their headlong charge, slavering and firing off random shots that come nowhere near the crew. The two below the walkway display a small measure of cunning, taking a quieter although not completely silent, route towards the plaza’s centre.
Suddenly all hell breaks loose as Finn skids to a halt and draws a bead on one of the wretched assassins with his hunting rifle. The large calibre weapon barks out with a resounding boom and one of the wretches is pitched from their feet as they’re hit squarely in the chest. Even before their bloodied corpse hits the decking their compatriot charges forward frothing at the mouth and screaming with incomprehensible rage.
Covered by Finn, Guillermo advances into the Plaza.
Meanwhile under the walkway, the leader of the motley crew unloads his pistol at Guillermo. The solid slugs strike home but the Crusader’s armour easily keeps him safe. The other wretch slinks up to the base of the statue of the Winged Saint, pistol held outstretched should anyone get too close.
The Rogue Trader’s crew are unfazed by the sudden violence and move as their training dictates. Guillermo, staggered by the shots, moves into cover behind the ruined wall and keeping the Confessor close. Shai, the Death Cult Assassin, moves to the opposite side of the statue to the enemy, ready to strike at any moment. From the walkway Armsman Bronn sprints forwards and draws a bead on the wretch hiding behind the statue. Another resounding boom rings out but this time the round goes wide, narrowly missing the targets skull instead it impacts in the ground and throws up a shower of dust. The Lord-Captain equally has poor luck, rounding the corner firing her pistol at the leader of the filthy gang, but hitting nothing but air.
The Lord-Captain teaches the wretch the error of his ways.
Despite her earlier gusto, the shouts and gunfire break something in the wretch on the walkway. She drops her weapons, skids to a halt and sprints off screaming, this time in terror rather than rage.
With half the enemy gang dead or quit the field in terror, Tareefa’s crew are quick to capitalise on their momentum. The Rogue Trader herself sprints from cover towards the gang’s leader. He flexes his muscles and drops into a fighting stance ready to engage the Lord-Captain in a brawl. But Tareefa doesn’t give him the chance, that much closer to her quarry he’s a much easier target to hit. And this time Tareefa doesn’t miss, her elegant pistol speaks with a single voice that plants itself right between the eyes of the gang’s leader. The wretched soul doesn’t even have time to realise his mistake before his brains are blown out of the back of his head.
The sole remaining ganger doesn’t register the deaths of the rest of his crew, he’s caught sight of Shai and his drug addled mind hasn’t the capacity to form multiple lines of thinking. He runs round the back of the statue firing with wild abandon but Shai’s lithe form twists and dances around the wretches’ clumsy attempts at killing her. Each step takes her closer to the ganger; in a heartbeat she’s within striking distance and just as the pistol clicks dry the Death Cultist’s mono-molecular edged katana slashes across the wretch’s neck. The head tumbles lifeless from the shoulders; the rest of the body tumbles lifeless to the floor and silence descends upon the Plaza of the Wing Saint once more.
Shai dispatches the last enemy with ease.
Aftermath
Not twenty minutes later Rogue Trader and her crew watch from the walkway as Confessor Taddeus gives his sermon to the assembled crowd. Tareefa is hardly listening however, the leader of the wretches had on his person a data stick. Presently it was now connected to Gluvico’s portable cogitator as he tried to scrape any useful data from it. His sounds of exasperated binharic were not encouraging however.
“Alas, Lord-Captain, it has been cryptographically wiped. But I’ll have a more complete answer once we return to the Stormspite.” he said at last.
Tareefa nodded in response and turned back to the sermon.
Returning to the Spire Estates Gluvico remained aboard the gun-cutter and Tareefa fully expected not to hear from him for the next week while the Tech-Adapt busied himself with the data stick. It therefore came as a surprise when Gluvico bustled into the Captain’s office only that evening.
“I trust you have something?” Tareefa asked, not looking up from her data slate.
Gluvico practically chirped, “I wasn’t able to find anything on the data stick but I did find something on the data stick.”
Rogue Trade Tareefa el-Khatib could never be accused of having anything so gauche as a sense of humour and so merely raised an eyebrow in response.
“I couldn’t get any of the data from the stick but the casing, caked in dirt!” he continued excitedly. Tareefa sensing that she was about to get a crash course in soil composition and isotope decay held up hand to stop the enthusiastic Tech-Adept.
“Where on Drusaal did it come from?” she asked simply.
“Not Drusaal,” Gluvico replied, “it came from, or spent significant time on Mehara”
Some hours later Tareefa was staring out of one the floor to ceiling view panes with a larger than usual glass of amasec and watching the dust storms swirl over Yamham-Mavit City. She smiled, today had been a good day. Her small away team was back to full strength and had performed exceptionally well in taking down the wretched assassins. More than that, Gluvico had distinguished himself by finding a reason to leave the misbegotten dustbowl that was Drusaal.