H.D.M.S Magnificent - Officers Club

Brigadier-General Edvardius Holstenn handed off his peaked cap and coat to a waiting steward, before meandering his way to his favorite table. It was right next to the large armaglass windows that dominated the far bulkhead. The table was long and could seat thirty. Every seat was taken by junior officers of both Imperial branches. As well as Munitorium Logisticians, Administratum Prefects, Tacticians and Intelligence Officers. Everyone who wanted to advance themselves base on more then just merit. A cadre of the most useful individuals a General needed.

There was nothing that went on on board that Edvardius wasn't appraised of. Every little intrigue and scandal. He enjoyed such little distractions, not that they ever diverted his attention. Unfortunately.

This little excursion to Immundra was going to be much more involved that he thought. So many new factors had come into play. When he'd accepted this assignment, it was passed off as a six month, no-more-then-a-year at best. Something to blood his teeth on before moving on to a much grander promotion. Still, things were going better then usual, but two primary factors were going to complicate things even further.

Foremost of them was Inquisitor Azrael. That trigger-happy lunatic was throwing a wrench into everything. If that man could shoot an Astartes Captain, with no thought to the repercussions, what chance did he have? One wrong word or perceived lack of faithfulness could have Holstenn staring down the Inquisitors gun barrel. No, it was best to stay under Azrael's radar. Give the man a wide berth and carry on as if he wasn't there in the first place.

Besides, to kill an Astartes was one thing, but Holstenn was far better connected that any Black Templars Captain. If Azrael wanted to start poking his nose into his business, so be it. There was nothing for him to find. Any lose ends had been dealt with a long time ago.

Of course that man would test him, but Edvardius was certain he could deal with anything the Inquisitor could dish out. After all, he was just an Inquisitor, not a strategist or an experienced military commander. Inquisitors set goals and soldiers achieved them. Nothing more. Besides, Azrael would be too busy with that crystal business and the Chaos forces to bother him. Yes, dealing with Azreal would be easy enough. The other issue was less so.

Commissar Dalimond. He was another animal all together. He was respected and feared in equal measure. Though only a newly minted Commissar, his reputation preceded him. Nearly as trigger happy as Azrael, but with far less influence. That said, his unique powers as a Political Officer put him in a very dangerous position of authority. While Dalimond technically had the authority to have him executed for incompetence or cowardice, to try such a play without an overbearing burden of truth, would be suicide. No, Dalimond wasn't a threat, yet, but if he wasn't kept on a tight leash, he would be trouble. Men like him always were . . .

The arrival of his drinks and appetizer roused him form his thoughts. A flute of his favorite Terran vintage and a plate of perfectly grilled morsels of the finest Grox. Magnificent. The main meal would be three courses of exquisite delicacies. Precisely what he needed before he was inundated with requests for meetings.

All in good time, he thought, as a steward unfolded his nakpin. He wondered who would call on him first . . .

Inquisitor Azrael cleared his throat, stepped forward and began to walk around with his hands behind his back as he spoke, "I guess with this new development I have no choice but to step in." He waved his hand, "Not to take over command or anything but merely to set a few boundaries. Yes, let's call them that, boundaries." He moulded to walk around the room as he spoke, "First off let me make this as clear as I can...With the new developments this mission has now become one of the up most secresy. That means you will not answer or send transmissions out side of our joined forces. Should one be caught doing, they will immediately be labeled a traitor and taken for interrogations."

Azrael took a moment to let that sink in as he walked around. He then broke the silence, "Secondly, as the chaos and xenos forces here have seemed to begin to use and look for these crystals and the nature of the crystals themselves are currently unknown, should these crystals be found to be warp based or of any heretical origin....This whole planet shall be taken into consideration for exterminatus. And that means should any of you fall under its influence, You shall join with the fate of this planet. Understood? Good."

Azrael walked back to where he was standing before, "That is all General. Parden, the interruption."

(OOC: DAAAAMN, I almost feel like I am a bad RPer with the detail that some of you people can bring :O, I will push the time forward a bit so that we can get some action. We don't want the RP to freeze up)

Time is a valuable ally in war... And it was indeed used to its greates degree.

As the great imperial fleet closed in onto the planet the orks finished their stronghold, a massive ramshackle fortress of destruction and "so'me propa fighin". The orks, not taking heed to the beauty of the peaceful planet burned and chopped down wood and vegetation around their fortress, creating a massive wasteland, soon decorated with the wheel marks of ork truuks and craters of bombshells.

The chaos infested mountains are now more Dark then ever, the corrupting energies seeping into the stone itself, colouring it black. Their efforts to collect the crystals have proceeded smoothly, already gained a quite high amount of the strange mineral, but to their frustration is the act of draining the crystals very complex and difficult. Almost none of te rituals they have attempted has managed to break out the full energies and those thar HAVE have resulted in massive explosions with crystal like shrappnel.
But the energy is far too great to ignore.

Two days after their approach of the system, finally the imperial guard has begun orbiting the planet. Readying to terminating the enemy and bringing this faertile system into the imperium... Most do atleast want that.

(OOC: you are free to create a bit of a story about what your characters have done during this time, I assume the inquisitor has fired his gun multiple times)

As days had passed an the ork fortress grew in size, wooden palisates where changed to metal walls and gun emplacements jumped up everywhere, scouting and outriding took to the surrounding areas to find a fight, infighting itself was kept rather low in due to the very effective fighting pits that surrounded the Big arena where fights and battles where a constant thing, Galgradak himself also going Into several enmasse fights to show whos the boss and just becouse it was fun.
A allmost at the end of the second Day before te imperial arival Galgradak had been called to the Big meks workshop as they had found a Way to use the crystal, the warpheads Said the crytal was filled with energy, and a lesser wierdboys head had exploded when he Got too near.
The meks had seen it for all the electromagnetic power it had and now they ad in the orky way found some Way to weaponise it. A decent sides kustom trukk rolled out of the shop, it was driven outside the fortress. The meks had made nervous tampering as their impationed boss looked from the side line.
And Then there was a massive power build up and the machine sparker and kicked as a massive lazor beam the. Erupted and flew Into the wooded horizon burning its through a number of trees. "Iz gread boyz, nows gets me mor of dees ear wen we fint da crystals, UN get me a slugga." He had told them as he left to go about the rest of the Day, fighting and leading da boyz.

Ooc: also Krooza Bob had gotten his recruits.

In the middle of a wide square marked by many craters and burning oil puddles, a couple of dozens of stormboys were standing in an extremely, for orks standards, orderly formation. Despite the high amount of soldiers, 2 days ago in that boot camp there were at least 50 orks, though their numbers quickly had dimished because of accidents, summary executions or just because Ead Ztompa missed his scheduled fungus beer. In front of 2 almost straight lines of greenskins, Ead Ztompa was yelling orders to the recruits gained from the fight in the arena.

"Two days aggo, ya bunch'o lads were just brainless grots oo didn't know oo to proppa wield a choppa! Now, ye'r ztill a bunch'o grots, BUT now you'z karring a big bomb wiff ya, pluz ya know to kick sume gits in da gubbins!
Wif moy speshul trayinin, now ya kan stomp uvva gits in new cunnin ways, in addishun to die in proppa funny way! Now, we's gunna get readdy for da first big scrap! Dem scouty boys found a bunch'o spikey wuns 'iddin in da mountains on top'o diz Rok ere, and da meks sayd dere a lot'o dem impperial humies comin in for a gud fight as well. Onze da party ztarts, WE, DA URRIKANE SMASHAS, we'll shuw all'o dem oo's da krumpiest!
EZ DERE ANNY QUESHUN?"

For a moment the silence ruled in the camp, as Ead Ztompa was inspecting the hesitant faces of his subordinates, until a hand was raised. As soon as the nob noticed it, he immediately reached the questioner, getting close face to face, with a grim chuckle on his mouth.
"do ya wunt to knuw sumefing, Snagathug?"

The boy, already little in size, seemed getting even smaller in front of his menacing leader. However, the trainee's lack of comprehension of the concept of cause effect, made him ask anyway"Boss, but wut we do if we run outta fuel wif owa rokkit paks?"

In all answer, Ead Ztompa leaned back, then inclined his body forward, hitting violently the stormboy's head with the protruding tip of his giant jump pak.
With that beating the ork immediately tumbled, then the Deffskull commander looked at the rest of the crew, shouting "YA GRAB YER ROKKIT PAK AND ZTART BASHIN SUME EADS! DAT'Z WUT YA DO!
MOAR OVVA! NEVA FORGET DA FIRST STORMRULE! NEVA BEIN 'EZZITANT! JUZT JUMP WIF YER ROKKIT! IF YA KILL SUMEFING, DAT MEANS YA WERE RIGHT! IF YA KILL SUMEFING WHILE'XPLODIN, DAT MEANS YA WERE RIGHT TWICE!"

With that last statement, Ead Ztompa ended the daily training with a loudly belch.
For all that the stormnob cared, his new squad was already more than prepared for the fight, and went to search Megabash in order to know if any stormboy duty was requested. On his way, though, he approached a boy on pause, drinking a fungus beer. As soon as he got next to the unawary greenskin, the stormnob punched on the face the unlucky guy, then quickly cathed in the air the glass of toxic liquid. Aftert that, he moved on his path, while taking a refreshing from the training day.

<Megabash>
In the days since their discovery of the crystals Megabash had found himself quite busy, delegating tasks to various sub-kultures with no small amount of chagrin and irritation as he fought a tough battle to keep things in relative order. One day was spent bashing up their Meks so they wouldn't bitch about him press ganging their burna boy welders into teams of 'Klean up Krews' which were tasked with dealing with the incredibly aggressive infestation of fauna that sprouted up over their camp. A number of boys resting during the mess didn't wake up, choked in their sleep by freshly sprouting creeper vines. More than a few had been torched to prevent 'kontamination', something Megabash didn't bother to look into or really care about, long as it kept all that stupid not Orky green stuff from ruining their camp.

Another day he was clobbering a number of the Nobs for plotting the usual coup, sparing the Warboss the trouble of such work. Normally an Ork would relish such a fight but both Megabash and Galgradak found it tedious with both getting all the more annoyed when such opponents were found far too weak to be worth the trouble. Oh well he had a few new skulls on his belt. A third day brought him a bit of a break as he started gathering those Meks not dedicated to studying the crystals to get some improvements done on his battle wagon, this ended in a bit of blood shed as they decided to start from scratch and melted the whole thing down. Needless to say after clipping a few legs and chaining the Meks up by meat hooks to their workshops ceiling they wouldn't be doing anything but building him something worth the trouble.

Of course the Nob had been paying some attention to their newest Storm Nob, rather pleased by the development of a 'arder core of dead killy rokkit ridas. Of course his own Bashas were as attendant as ever, the variety of clans amongst them didn't stop their group from having pretty much the run of the camp. In truth Megabash was no Goff, instead the black armor, aided by his reputation, was just down right kunnin camouflage. A Blood Axe would have a hard time getting respect even at his size and strength, but a Goff? Everyone respected a good Goff, so instead of mixed camo patterns or other kunnin disguises Megabash had long ago decided to masquerade as the bull headed tough Ork clan instead, making it much easier to give orders that weren't entirely Orky with their 'tactics nonsense', no one liked to argue with a Goff after all.

Whenever 'Ead Ztompa decided to seek out Megabash he would be mucking about in the Mek's workshop, overseeing the construction of his new ride. Chains rattled as straining grots in the rafters struggled to work the legless Meks around like twisted marionettes as they hammered together some great leviathan of a vehicle. Already Megabash knew it was going to be slower than his previous wagon, but the guns the frame looked capable of fitting would make up for it.

Commissar Dalimond had returned to the Gortex command center along with three of the five of the senior officers that had accompanied him to the briefing, those that remained behind which included the regimental commander had followed the Brigadier general to the officers club. Jacob however needed no answers that could have been gotten from the general nor did he feel obliged to confront the Brigadier for any infraction if there were any, the formalities that follow can be afforded with the mere presence of the regimental command and the two senior officers that remain.

In the meantime the rest of the Senior staff were discussing the nature of the reconnaissance mission given to them in the briefing, Dalimond knew that the strategy that the brigadier proposed was one of caution for the time being while members of the Cult Mechanicus ascertained the potential danger posed by the crystals. It was a reasonable strategy yet Jacob was concerned for the mobility of the Gortex troops and their transports in such difficult terrain, unlike Taurox transports Chimeras were not considered all terrain vehicles and suffered a tendency to get bogged down. There was a serious risk that reconnaissance patrols might not be able to safely travel very far from the proposed base of operations and moreover there was a further risk of valuable military equipment becoming stranded in hostile terrain away from the center of operations.

Of course there was always the choice of sending infantry without their transports but that does not solve the problem of the distance such squads would have to be able to travel in difficult terrain not to mention their vulnerability without their Chimera transport. The issue that Imperial forces were to remain inconspicuous while they establish the base of operations does not assist in this predicament, it would appear that difficulties would have to be expected and possibly even tolerated, however there was one option the Commissar thought that might provide a most useful tool in this environment. Turning round Dalimond beckoned to a nearby vox operator and the man brought him a vox caster system along with a communicator, after checking the settings and if the line was linked to the correct channel Jacob spoke into the communicator.

'Hello this is Commissar Dalimond to the Gorax 340th techpriest assignment, yes, I want you to get a consignment of Chimera transports equipped with heavy flamers ready.'

<Ead Ztompa> @DeranVendar

The stornob didn't need any indication to find Megabash, he only needed to follow the yelling of the Second-in-command chief coming from the biggest mekshop in the ork fortress. That situation actually provided Ead Ztompa with an excuse in order to get an insight of that place. He wanted to visit the building not only for seizing unnoteced interesting gear, but also because in the previous days unusual activity in that area.
Yelling, clanc, shooting and explosions were common place when mekboys were at work on their next crazy project. However, lot of lightning and zapping erupting from inside that particular laboratory. Whatever was hidden there, the Deffskull was absolutely focused on figuring out.

On the entrance, he was welcomed by quite an annoyed mekboy, whose lower limbs had been replaced with meet hooks. Ead Ztompa simply pulled aways the hanging ork, proceeding deeper inside the structure.
All sort of weird equipment was spreaded all over the place on several working tables, which didn't caught much of the greedy ork's attention though. What really attracted the most the stormnob, instead, was a considerable pile of flashy gems crackling with some strange energy, gathered next to a massive tarpaulin covering something mechanical.

And on top of all that, standing on a suspended bridge, Megabash was coordinating all sort of operations.
"OHI MEGABASH!" Ead Ztompa yelled, catching the Goff's attention.
Before the type could answer, the stormnob activated his rokkit pak and jumped forward, landing right on the bridge, as the defeaning noise around him was covering his voice.

<Megabash>
Saws began to rev up as the Storm Nob rocketed toward him, Megabash expecting some sort of assault found himself letting the weapon go quiet with a deep snort, rather saddened by the lack of blood shed. Several grots fell from the ceiling and made fresh piles of splattered gore upon the ground, joining a spanner boy whom had been shot to pieces by the nob mere minutes ago. "Wotz ya need dere 'ead Ztompa? "

"Me and moy lads are finally readdy for a proppa gud foight! Wunna tezt moy kunnin taktiks on da field now!.....In addishun to dat..."
Ead Ztompa pointed the tarpaulin and the misterious mineral "Wut's all diz stuff for? Ez et gunna be some big shurprize? Dat little ztone down dere dough...." The ork was getting overexcited for the amount of flashy stones below the bridge, which were attracting him like a light with insects. He was in particular interested in what appeared to be the biggest stone in the pile "Can Oi "borrow" dat wun? Dat wuld look real orky on moy rokkit pak....."