Edge of the Void - Campaign Turn 6
At last, Tareefa and her crew have a lead on the data-stick they recovered from Drusaal. Eager to complete their quest the crew leap into action.
Chapter 6 - A Promising Lead
Rogue Trader Tareefa el-Khatib watched the twinkling lights in the sky from the window of her borrowed manor house. The layman might guess the lights to be the plasma drives of voidships but Tareefa’s trained eyes saw the truth: there was a Merchant Fleet mustering for departure in Mehara’s high orbit. Tareefa had actually been in the Merchant Fleet at one point, but she had sacrificed everything to get her Warrant of Trade and become a Rogue Trader.
She turned away from the window and painful memories. The Merchant Fleet would take days or weeks to sort itself out before departing Mehara, and it was best to not get in the way. Especially not if they were out there escorting the fleet. Not that her own voidship, the Glorious Endeavour, was capable of leaving the system yet. A malfunction in the warp drive had left them stranded in the Arccan system for the time being.
Exiting her chambers the Rogue Trader found the manor’s owner, Lady Yasmin Ryant, waiting outside. Who, as usual, was dressed to the nines. Today she was in a gown with voluminous skirts and frills all up the front. Her Ladyship had been absent from the manor for the last few days, busy doing whatever it is she did in the upper echelons of Mehara’s Administratum. Tareefa had let her know of the quest that Blind Divine, the Death Cult that Shai belonged to, had given them. There was no harm in it, it was an open secret across the Astrid Reach subsector that the cult was actively hunting the perpetrators of the House Virtuosa assassination. It was what had brought Shai into the Rogue Trader employ.
Tareefa was glad to see Yasmin, hopefully it meant some news. The last few days had been slow to say the least. Her Tech-Adept, Gluvico, was no closer to narrowing down where on Mehara the data-stick they had found on Drusaal had come from. Even Shai and Finn’s explorations on the freezing streets of Larom had yielded nothing of interest.
As it turned out, Lady Yasmin did have some news. She had found some discrepancies in the rental payments of a warehouse downtown. The kind that can’t be explained by any of the usual reasons. Someone was going to great lengths to keep themselves and their activities hidden. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was enough.
Battle 6 - A Well Placed Shot
Wind whipped through the streets as the Rogue Trader and her crew approached the warehouse. It is the early hours of the morning, and the streets are quiet. Tareefa would have preferred some foot traffic to help mask their approach, but it was not to be. Regardless her team surge into action, in a now familiar routine the Armsmen and the Tech-Adept Gluvico make for the stairs while the Lord-Captain herself along with Shai and Guillermo move across the frozen ground.
Tareefa, Guillermo and Shai scramble for cover.
Just as the Rogue Trader and her entourage reach a pile of rubble a burst of gunfire erupts from the direction of the warehouse. Shai screams as the rounds strike her in the shoulder and pitch her to the floor. Tareefa and Guillermo press themselves against the rubble as Shai scrabbles into cover. Keeping low, Guillermo scoots over to assist the Death Cult Assassin and examine the wound.
“No penetration, thank the Emperor, flak layers did their job.” His voice was tinny and distorted from his armoured helmet.
“Hell of a shot though…” Shai adds, tentatively testing her shoulder’s range of motion.
The old Crusader grunts in agreement, eyeing the tight grouping of the impacts on Shai’s bodyglove.
“Too good. Too good for lowlife gangers I reckon Lord-Captain.”
Tareefa nods and activates her vox-bead to the rest of the team.
“Be advised, the enemy is competent.”
Armsman Finn eyes his target in the distance.
Heeding his superior’s words, Armsman Finn creeps to the top of the stairs that leads to the raised walkway. Behind him, his fellow Armsman Bron and the Tech-Adept Gluvico hold their positions. Through the stacks Finn can see the roof of the squat warehouse and, more importantly, the crouched form of one of the guards. Levelling his hunting rifle and peering through the scope, Finn takes a moment to observe the man he is about to try and kill. He can see that the Lord-Captain is correct, these are no run of the mill gangers. The guard on the roof is stock-still with their weapon ready, scanning for movement. They’re even practising good trigger discipline. Whoever they are, they’re clearly not some sump-killer hopped up on stims.
Whoever they are, they’re about to die. Finn braces himself, ranges the target and pulls the trigger. Primarily designed for killing game, the larger calibre round makes a mess of the guard’s leg and he crumples into a bloody heap. Bron and Gluvico take that as their queue, charging up the stairs and onto the walkway. Finn meanwhile taps his own vox-bead.
“Tell Shai I’m grateful for the distraction.”
“Likewise,” Guillermo replies as he, Tareefa and Shai use the resounding boom of Finn’s rifle to sprint to the nearby stack. The Rogue Trader signals Guillermo and Shai to skirt around the outside of the stack and flank any enemies near the warehouse’s entrance.
The enemy does not sit idle, however. Having seen his compatriot gunned down on the roof, one fires a burst in the direction of Finn’s shot before grabbing his wounded friend and beating a hasty retreat. On the ground meanwhile the guards advance cautiously, covering corners and keeping themselves concealed as best they can.
Such caution is inconsequential in the face of the Lord-Captain’s precision shooting, however. In one fluid motion she rounds the corner of the stack and fires a single shot from her duelling pistol. The shot is perfect, flying first through the viewing port on the barricade and then the guard’s neck. Before he has hit the floor the remaining guard roars in anger, spitting hatred and bullets at Tareefa as he moves up to the same barricade his compatriot has just died at.
Bronn, Finn and Gluvico meanwhile thunder down the walkway, hoping they can draw a bead on the one remaining guard.
The Rogue Trader fires again, but now the guard is ready and twists to avoid the shot. The bullet strikes, but the guard’s flak armour easily keeps him safe. Instead, he moves out of Tareefa’s line of sight, a wild spray of bullets keeping her in cover.
Guillermo prepares to strike.
On the other side of the stack, Guillermo slips into position under the walkway while the guard’s attention is focused on Tareefa. He waits for the tell-tale sound of a spent magazine being ejected from the guard’s auto-pistol before bursting from cover. To his credit, the guard doesn’t panic, he merely turns with grim determination to face the armoured Crusader thundering towards him.
At the last moment the guard leaps forward, a combat knife striking out trying to get around Guillermo’s shield. Guillermo is momentarily forced onto a defensive footing as the guard steps in as close as possible and unleashes a flurry of blows. The guard is so close that Guillermo is forced to reverse his grip on his sword to get any leverage, this done he strikes back and drives the pommel into the guard’s gut.
The guard grunts but barely slows, it does give Guillermo some room to manoeuvre though and he drives his shield forwards like a battering ram. It gives him the room to correct the grip on his sword and thrust it forward in short sharp strikes. One catches the guard in the meat of the shoulder, and the guard recoils momentarily. That gives Guillermo the space to activate the power field on his sword and bring it down in a wide arc that bites the guard in the neck and drives down into the chest cavity. Even in death the guard scrabbles for purchase on the Crusader, trying to bring him down as the last of his life ebbs away.
With all the guard’s dead or having fled, the crew fan out and secure the site.
Aftermath
Tareefa holsters her pistol and watches as her team busy themselves with making the area secure. She glances at Shai, who’s rubbing her shoulder. And then to Guillermo. The Crusader has removed his helmet and kneeling next to the man he has just killed, his gruff features set in a pensive stare. The Lord-Captain had watched the fight between them, the rough-shod guard looked like he was a match for the Crusader even with the latter’s armour, shield and power sword. Guillermo had been right; these guards had a level of skill that belied their appearance. It wasn’t just skill Tareefa realised, they had discipline, they had been trained. Yet they looked exactly like the scruff gangers one would usually find in the dark places of any Imperial city. There was something amiss here.
“Search the bodies.” She orders.
As they’re closest to the two bodies, Guillermo and Shai immediately start emptying pockets and pulling clothes from the dead guards. Their equipment provides another clue; each man has a vox-bead rather than some crude radio unit, and each has four spare magazines for their weapons. Your average hive scum might only have a single magazine and a handful of loose rounds they would have to manually load. And then there’s the rounds themselves, they’re Departmento Munitorum issued. Well trained and well equipped it would seem. On a hunch Guillermo starts stripping one of their rifles, old memories of a life in the Astra Militarum bubbling to the surface. He shows Tareefa what he finds; the exterior of the weapons are battered and scarred whilst the interior workings are near pristine.
Again, an outward appearance of dishevelment masks what lies beneath. A knot begins to form in the pit of the Rogue Trader’s stomach.
The crew return their attention to the bodies, now near nude. Both have some old battle scars and a scattering of tattoos.
“Gluvico, your blacklight.”
The symbol of the Holy Inquisition
The Tech-Adept makes a few adjustments on his portable cogitator and a bulb on the exterior of the device switches on creating a small pool of violet light. He begins to run the light over the bodies in a methodical sweeping pattern. Near the right collar bone they find what Tareefa had been dreading. Rendered in invisible ink, a hidden tattoo now illuminated by the ultraviolet light. The tattoo is a stylised I with three bars across the middle. The symbol of the most secretive and feared of all the organisations in the Imperium.
The Inquisition.