Tales from the Reach - Meida Terminus Raid

The ramp settled into position and the away team filed out onto the dusty surface of Drusaal. Meida Terminus was about as far away from Drusaal’s primary settlement, Yamham-Mavit city, as one could get without leaving the planet’s surface. That made it an ideal place for those that had a less than stellar record with law enforcement to congregate. Captain Lucia Salvian and her Imperial Navy Armsmen therefore kept a tight hold of their weapons. Fortunately, their contact was waiting for them not far from where the lighter set them down. Morton, or Morty, as he preferred to be called, was as roughshod and sun-bleached as the rest of Meida Terminus, but he knew the area and for a reasonable fee would lead the team to where they needed to go. Morty leads them through the winding alleys and tunnels of Meida Terminus until at last he brings them out onto a pair of parallel streets separated by a central walkway.

“This is Grease Vipers territory,” he explains, “Datum hoarders, so if anyone has the info you need it’ll be them.”

Captain Salvian considers her options, deciding to split the team up to cover more ground. She turns to her team as a klaxon sounds its wailing alarm and there’s movement at the other end of the street.

“Hames, take Shalks and Morty here up on the walkway to the right. Solis and Vega take the middle, the rest of you with me.”

The team bursts into action immediately, with only Morty showing some hesitation. But he quickly falls in line with the Armsman Kyel Shalks and Master-at-Arms Martyn Hames as they charge up the stairs to the walkway. Likewise, Armsmen Solis and Vega charge up the stairs of the central walkway.

Captain Lucia and her crew advance up the street.

The Captain and her group meanwhile keep to the ground level as they make their way down the right-hand street. Coming up to a barricade, Armsman Grell fires off a burst from his rotary cannon at some gangers that have made themselves known, they’re more warning shots than anything else. The response however is not a warning. From behind a pipe and burst of hard rounds slam into Grell and pitch him into the dust. His armour protects him from the worst of the damage, but the wind has been knocked out of his lungs.

A few paces behind them Tech-Adept Gluvico, Medicae Clarrisa Minst and the canid Alexi cover the rear of the crew. Whilst Minst sticks a needle full of stims into Grell’s neck to get him back on his feet, Gluvico and the hound skirt further to the right to a ruined Mechanicus building.

Elsewhere the crew has more favourable luck. From the central walkway, Armsmen Solis and Vega fire off a burst of las-fire each, although their shots only graze their target. Hearing the snap-crack of lasguns discharging, Hames and Shalks ready themselves for confrontation while the ganger Morton gets to work on the lock of the first data-cache. Thanks to a lifetime of thievery the lock yields in no time. Morty throws open the lid of the cache to find it nearly full of parchments and vellums. The ganger can scarcely read Low Gothic let alone the High Gothic that the papers are written in, so he decides to take them all by stacking and binding the papers together with twine.

Drusaal local Morty breaks open the data cache.

Captain Lucia, along with Grell and Minst, huddle behind the barricade and squeeze off shots at the gangers near the pipe. They don’t manage to score any hits, but the incoming fire does distract them from Gregor Solis on the central walkway. The Armsman lines up his shot and with pin-point precision puts a las bolt straight through the skull of the Grease Viper ganger. His fellow Armsman Theo Vega attempts the same, but he only manages to wound the ganger he is aiming at.

Gregor’s shot does however leave them slightly exposed. A fact that a pair of gangers seek to take advantage of, with that in mind one runs up the stairs firing as they go. The shots hit their target, but Gregor’s armour keeps him safe. The second takes their shot from beneath the hab stack and would be a killing shot had their poorly maintained autogun not jammed.

From behind the pipe, the gangers fire back at the Captain and the crewmates in cover behind the barricade. Their shots are wild but one of them finds its mark in Grell and the Armsman slumps over in the dirt.

The ruffians keep to cover as they fire back at the crew.

As gunfire erupts from all directions, Gluvico and Alexi sneak through the burnt-out shell of the Mechanicus building towards an unmarked data terminal. Likewise, Morton takes the opportunity to start lugging the stack of parchments down the stairs, taking pot shots at gangers as he does so.

Lucia and Clarrisa sprint from cover towards the data terminal, the former firing her pistol at the ganger that Theo had previously wounded. Whilst her shots don’t kill the ganger, they do keep him from firing back. From his elevated position, Gregor attempts to finish the ganger off but they have pressed themselves too far into cover and his shots go wide. Completing the ambush, the canid Alexi bursts from cover and pounces on the ganger. Although caught by surprise the ganger fights back with gusto, landing a solid punch to Alexi's ribs. The other ganger manages to gather his wits and tries to help by prising Alexi’s jaws off his fellow gang member’s neck. Unfortunately, he only succeeds in helping Alexi rip the ruffian’s throat out, who collapses in a spray of bright red blood.

Alexi takes the gangers by suprise.

The ganger charging up the stairs may have gotten a few hits on Gregor but Armsmen is covered by the rest of the team on the other walkway. Master-at-Arms Hames, along with Armsmen Theo and Kyel unleashed a battery of shot and las fire. The ganger is peppered by gunfire and falls crashing to the bottom of the stairs, miraculously still breathing. Unfortunately, the two Armsmen are themselves caught in the crosshairs of the gangers both on and under the walkway. A torrent of return fire comes from four of the gangers. A lucky hit sends a round ricocheting off Kyel’s helmet, momentarily dazing the Armsman.

Morty, meanwhile, continues to drag the stack of papers towards the stairs. Although he does try to fire a few shots at the ganger that fell down the stairs, his poorly kept autopistol jams.

Both Gluvico and the Captain reach their respective data terminals at about the same time and they connect their dataslates. Both dataslates automatically deploy data harvesting algorithms, sanctified by Mechanicus Infohunters the programs brute force their way into datavaults and scrape the information they need. In no time at all the dataslates ping their completion, the pair remove the slates. While Gluvico skirts around the exterior of the building, the Captain heads towards a staircase leading to the central walkway. At the top of the stairs, Armsman Gregor has completed his own harvest from the data terminal and is sliding his slate back into a pocket on his uniform. Unfortunately, accessing the terminal has left the Armsmen exposed, and a trio of rounds from under the stack knock the wind out of Gregor and pitch him to the floor.

Armsman Gregor Solis accesses the data terminal, even if has left him terribly exposed.

From the central walkway, Armsman Theo takes a shot at the ganger on the opposite walkway, but misses. Kyel likewise attempts to bring them down with a well-placed shot, but they also miss. Having picked themselves up from the bottom of the stairs, the ganger fires wildly up at Theo. A lucky shot catches them under the armour and the Armsman falls with a grunt of paint.

Martyn Hames charges into combat, firing his shotgun at one of the thugs as he goes. The shot only clips the ganger who manages to fight back, landing a few good hits on the Master-at-Arms. Sensing an opportunity, the other ganger wades in hoping to finish Martyn off. Martyn has other ideas however and kicks the first ganger back to give himself an opening, it’s enough for him to bring the shotgun up and blow the second ganger’s head from his shoulders.

Master-at-Arms Martyn Hames shows the ganger the error of his ways.

Behind the pipe, the ganger throws Alexi to the dusty ground who lands awkwardly with a yelp. He spins round to find himself nearly face-to-face with the Medicae Clarrisa, they manage to fire off a panicked shot. Clarrisa’s shot connects but it is easily absorbed by their crude flak armour. The ganger’s shot manages to graze the Medicae in the thigh, not too serious but enough to bleed.

Morty, meanwhile, bashes his pistol on the wall enough times to unjam it and fires at the ganger still at the bottom of the stairs, but he misses again.

Captain Salvian races to the top of the stairs, seeing Gregor gingerly pick himself back up, she sights the ganger under the stack and with a squeeze of the trigger sends him reeling backwards, bleeding from a wound in their shoulder. The Armsman manages to steady himself and finishes off the wounded ganger with a burst of las fire. Likewise from the opposite walkway, Kyel Shalks puts a las bolt through the neck of the ganger at the bottom of the stairs, finally putting them to an end. Nearby, Hames shows the ganger why he is Master-at-Arms, beating the ganger into submission and finishing them off by crushing their skull with the shotgun’s stock.

Like the canid before him, Gluivco pounces on the remaining ganger as Clarrisa rushes in from the opposite side. The ganger is near berserk from the slaughter of fellow gang-members. Almost too fast to track, he swings back with his autogun and catches Gluvico right in the face with its improvised stock. The tech-Adept collapses into the dirt, the blow hard enough to have cracked his helmet. With his other hand, the ganger wildly swings a stubby blade that manages to slash across the Medicae’s arm. The ganger’s victory over the two crewmates is shortlived as Clarrisa rams the blades of her scalpel-glove through the ganger’s chest. He coughs up a wad of blood and pitches over into the dust.

Between them, Tech-Adept Gluvico and Medicae Clarissa Minst gang up on the remaining ruffian.

The Captain cast a wary eye as the sounds of battle dissipate into the hazy desert air, reluctantly she holsters her pistol. Around her the crew fall in a well-drilled routine checking the wounded and making ready to evacuate. Thankfully none of her crew have been killed, Gluvico has a concussion and the rest are quickly patched up by Minst. Even Alexi rises from the dust, albeit keeping the weight off one of his paws. The team quickly make their exit, being Imperial Navy, their planet side jurisdiction is questionable at best, so they dare not to linger any longer than necessary.

Back aboard her voidship, Fury’s Edge, Lucia can finally breathe a sigh of relief. The walking wounded are sent off to the Apothecarion while a fellow Tech-Adept examines Gluvico’s head, making wistful binharic noises in the process.

Their local contact Morty loiters near the lander’s ram, unsure where to go. Lucia is tempted to stuff him out an airlock and tie up any loose ends, but she is a woman of her word. She offers to take him anywhere in the Arccan system and give him a suitable stack of the local currency; he can even join the crew if he so wishes. To her surprise he asks to be dropped back on Drusaal, in the primary city of Yamham-Mavit no less. A man can make it big there with enough coins, he says.

“Very well, pleasure doing business with your Mr. Terson.” She says, before giving him the sign of the aquila and leaving him with Hames to make the arrangements.

Two days later and three days out from Gate, the imaginatively named border system out of the Astrid Reach subsector, the crew finally find a lead in all the data and parchment taken from the Meida Terminus raid. Lucia was hoping for something that might lead them directly to the pirate lord Samir Rean. Instead, they stumble across several references to a child, presumably the progeny of Samir, named Chella. It isn’t much, but it is enough for Lucia to go on.