Suffer The Little Children [Dark Heresy] - IC

[LCP]

Heironymous

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Looking through the windows of the door, Heironymous could see an exceptionally large and busy ward within - serried ranks of expectant mothers lay in beds separated by mass-produced screens. Here, too, the medical staff were reacting rather adversely to the sudden siren, their charges seeming no less distressed.

He caught a glimpse of his mark's head between a pair of screens - the man was heading right, towards the back of the ward.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Red halts, confused, and ducks behind the nearest corner, holdstering his pistol, and the commenced affixing his bayonet to the lasgun before shouldering the rifle.
Assuming that nothing else is still happening after all that, the rifleman will slowly edge towards the nursery again.

[Destro_Yersul]

Hieronymus heads into the ward, following after the other guy. It's a good thing he's so easy to track, what with being one of the only men in here with hair. He tries to hurry as quickly as he can without raising undue alarm.

[LCP]

Heironymous

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Shadowing the man in the white coat through the packed ward, Heironymous turned around a bank of screened beds and saw his quarry stop – standing before one particular bed, he was talking to a slim, white-coated woman with thick, red hair. She too was holding a strange, portable scanner, seemingly holding it up to the pregnant woman in the bed beside her – as she turned to look at the man, Heironymous caught a glimpse of a bionic ear, and an old scar lining her right cheekbone. Merrick.

The man was saying something to her – something inaudible to Heironymous over the wail of the siren. To overhear them, he would have to approach conspicuously close...

OOC:

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Here's the mugshot of Merrick you were given.

[Destro_Yersul]

Turning around and leaving would probably be just as bad. Looking past the pair, Hieronymus continues down the ward. He'll pass close enough to catch some of their conversation, at least. He's ready, though, if any of them tries anything. Hopefully they think he's just here because of the alarms.

[LCP]

Heironymous

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Walking as purposefully as he could past the pair, Heironymous managed to pick up a snatch of their conversation.

"...Sawney's still in there."
"Well then, get him out," replied Merrick, her voice low. "We've found what we're looking for. Time to move."
As she turned back to the woman on the bed, Heironymous caught the first few words of her next sentence before he passed far enough away for the klaxon to drown the rest out.
"I'm afraid we're going to have to move you to a facility up-spire, ma'am. This requires specialist attention..."

[Destro_Yersul]

Well, he knows what she wants, and that's enough for him for now. He passes down to the end of the ward and checks around a bit, before putting a hand to his ear, nodding, and mouthing a generic 'all clear.' Then he heads back the way he came, once again passing by Merrick and continuing on.

As he goes by, he tries to get a look at the woman they've chosen, an expression of bland disinterest on his face.

[LCP]

Heironymous

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"Well... if you're sure," the woman in the bed was saying, looking rather uncertain. "But the doctors here -"
"It's all cleared," said Merrick, briskly. "Administratum orders."

Heironymous had passed by - they were out of earshot again. He had managed to get a look at the patient however - an unremarkable-looking woman of middling build, shaven-headed like all the others, and clearly in the late stages of pregnancy.

[Destro_Yersul]

He can't go back again now. That would be really suspicious. So instead, he decides to go find Jericus and try to link up with the others, wishing the whole way that he actually had a commbead.

[senrath]

Groaning, Phrenz charged after Red, drawing his hammer at the same time.

[Saldre]

"Well... Cover's broken..."

He unsheathes his scythe and puts it together as he runs after Red and Phrenz.

[Etcetera]

"Oh, I quite understand, Doctor."
Jericus replies.
"But I have reason to suspect a support girder running through here is undergoing higher than normal stress, and I have to check it from both sides. Next time, can I ask for forewarning of any drills. It makes my job quite hard if I have to keep running about, and Emeperor knows it's hard to concentrate with this racket."

[LCP]

Jericus

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Dr Gendieb hesitated.

"Between me and you, inspector, this isn't actually a drill. Apparently there has been a weapons discharge in one of the wards. We simply don't want the patients to panic."

Starting forwards, he began to guide Jericus towards the exit to the corridor.

"I'm sure we can deal with this girder after the situation is resolved. If you would just wait in reception..."

[hr]

Red, Olympus & Phrenz

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Red's parting shot seemed only to singe the man's shirt - as the trio's weapons came into full view, the nurse in the doorway of the nursery ducked back out of sight, slamming the door shut behind her.

The wounded man still lying clutching his arm, the group headed back towards the doors to the maintenance corridors - the alarm was still sounding, interspersed with repetitions of the "emergency drill" announcement. There was no sign of any response as yet, but it surely could not be long in coming...

OOC: There's no immediate threat, so you're back in narrative time. Since Thanatos is internet-less, one of you two might want to take the lead.

[Etcetera]

"If anything, weapons discharge could bring the whole girder down. The structure is held up by a Neuman-Orr style girder frame. Trouble is, it looks like someone skimped on construction budgets and you've ended up with a structure that needs serious word. The rapid stress of firearms hitting one of the weaker girders could have an extremely bad effect. I need to determine exactly how much of a danger there is of the girder collapsing, and get a team in here to deal with it asap. It goes without saying that the damage that could be caused by the girder breaking would be of far greater consequence to your career than mere imprisonment for disobeying the direct instructions of an officer of the administratum."

Jericus' voice takes on a harder tone.

[LCP]

Jericus

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Dr Gendieb blinked.

"And where is this girder, exactly?"

[Destro_Yersul]

Hieronymus is still searching for Jericus.

[Thanatos 51-50]

OOC:
Yay for MWR Wi-Fi hotspots. I need to be at the bus to the airport in an hour as of this posting, so one last, quick post.

IC:
Red turned to his two buddies.
"Okay, guys, we can assume the drill warning is a false positive. Our big choices here are to exfil or push into the nursery, either way, we need to snap to it now. Nursery is an unknown with alot of innocents that everybody is willing to lay down their lives for with good potential for cover. The P-ways provide long sight lines and not so much cover, so it'll be a run-and-gun the entire way. I'll follow your leads."
As he notices the man seemed to still be alive, Red also took a long moment to stare down the Red Dot Sight on his lasgun, focusing on the man's head.
"Also suggest we eliminate the witness"

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Assuming nobody stops Red, he will take a Full action to aim and then fire a single shot at the nurse's head. Full-round aim action is +20-, with +10 for firing a single shot with a Red Dot, and -20 for the called shot, so his effective BS for the attack is 56.
Lasgun damage is 1d10+3 Energy.
BS - (1d100)[20]
Lasgun - (1d10+3)[9]

If combat time resumes, Red will run-and-gun if ex-filtrating, and take cover, with a half-action to aim, half-action to fire if they make a stand in the nursery. My personal vote is to exfil. A reminder that Red has Rapid Reload, so he can reload/switch out charge packs as a half action.

[Saldre]

"To the maternity ward then: we still have a mission to complete, though this alarm has no doubt scared off our friend..." He suggests as they reach that particular intersection.

"I wonder if we should check on the children, after were done of course." He thinks as he gives glance backwards.

He seems, strangely enough, unaffected by the alarm.

"What would you say, Mister Phrenz?" He asks the guardsman before beginning to walk down the hallway.

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[OOC: Assuming Phrenz does not stop him, Olympus will continue on to the maternity ward.]

[senrath]

Phrenz paused for a moment as he rested his hammer upon his shoulder. After a moment of contemplation he nodded and followed after Olympus. "If we can find our target, then this whole thing won't be for naught."

[LCP]

Red, Olympus & Phrenz

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Turning to shoot as they left, Red let off a lasbolt in the direction of their helpless victim - the shot grazed the side of the man's head, sending him sprawling to the ground once more as he was trying to rise to his feet.

Heading down the corridor as fast as they reasonably could, the three found another pair of double-doors ahead of them – through the glass panels in the upper part of the doors they could see an exceptionally busy ward beyond, filled with screened rows of beds. The numerous medics in the ward seemed to be in a state of near-panic, doing their best to conceal it from their practically immobile patients...

Roll for critical on the nurse: (1d100)[4]

(turns out critical damage doesn't work the same way as WHFRP. My mistake)

[Etcetera]

"It's running coreward, but it's not on the original blueprints. It looks like it was added part-way through construction when someone realised that if the building collapsed too early it'd look suspicious. So, they added the girder as a stop gap measure, could pocket the money and be out of the system by the time it collapsed. I suspect they're still here though."

Thank the emperor this doesn't require a skill check.

[LCP]

Jericus

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"But where in the hospital? Which ward, what floor?"

[Saldre]

Olympus walks into the room, motioning for Phrenz to follow and looks around for someone matching Merrick's description, or anybody not dressed in a Nurse's uniform really.

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(1d100)[44] Vs 36 perception check!

[LCP]

Olympus, Phrenz & Red

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Olympus stepped through the door – and the entire room erupted in panic as a man holding a huge scythe entered the maternity ward. One medic began shouting into an intercom, while others tried to help their patients flee.

Somewhere in the frantic crowd, he caught a glimpse of a flash of dark red hair, standing out amidst a sea of shaven scalps: it belonged to a woman, her and a man – again, who seemed to have kept his hair – wheeling a bed with a heavily-pregnant woman on it towards one of the far exits. They had their backs to him – Olympus could only see that they were wearing white coats.

The pair turned a corner among the many screens of the maternity ward and vanished from view...

[hr]

Heironymous & Jericus

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Jericus opened his mouth to reply – as he did so, a junior-looking medic came running from the direction of reception, approaching Dr Gendieb and whispering something urgently into his ear.

Seemingly making up his mind, he turned to the tech-priest.

“Listen, inspector... Saul, wasn’t it? I appreciate your work, but I’m afraid your inspection is going to have to wait until I can guarantee your safety. It’s not as if inspecting this girder is going to make it any less likely to collapse in the next few minutes, after all,” he said, with a feeble attempt at a joke. His mind was clearly on other, pressing things.

“I have to insist that you wait in reception. You can rest assured we are already evacuating our patients.”

With that, Dr Gendieb started off again, headed back into the main body of the hospital – he stopped for a moment as the figure of the Provost appeared in the hallway, coming to a halt as he caught sight of Jericus...

[Destro_Yersul]

"Doctor." The Provost nods to Gendieb. "Warp, Saul, you can't run off on me like that when I'm not looking. I had to search the whole damn place for you, or near enough. Which reminds me. Doctor? That lady, the other inspector you mentioned earlier? She needs to move one of your patients. You should go see if she needs help. Overheard her as I passed by looking for my friend here."

[Saldre]

"Over there!"

Olympus makes his way trough the room as he attempts to chase down the woman and her assistant..

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Agility Roll if necessary! (1d100)[90]

[LCP]

Heironymous & Jericus

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Dr Gendieb frowned.

“Just what I need,” he muttered under his breath. Turning to one of the junior doctors behind him, he gestured to the office he had emerged from.

“Dr Dorian, get back on the vox-sender, please. Find out where our help is. Dr Jass, come with me.”

Striding away towards the growing chaos of the wards, Dr Gendieb disappeared from view, his subordinate scurrying back into the office. The alarm continued to sound, the calm voice of the announcement still repeating over its wailing.

“Please remain calm. We are conducting an emergency drill...”

[hr]

Olympus, Red & Phrenz

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Launching forwards after the pair, Olympus immediately collided with a woman in the white uniform of the hospital – both sprawling to the ground, she scrabbled away, leaping to her feet and pulling a metal gurney between herself and Olympus. Some of the women on the beds were screaming, trying ineffectually to get away.

“Stay back!” shouted the woman he had collided with, trying to manoeuvre the gurney between them as a mobile barricade. “Stay back!”

[Saldre]

"Out of the way, woman!"

Olympus growls, knowing full well his threatening demeanor would probably have little effect on the hospital staff. He grabs onto the gurney and attempts to wrench it away from her hands and pull it into his direction so that he may throw it aside and carry on with the chase.

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(1d100)[19] Str Check, and (1d100)[98] Agility Test again assuming the first is successful.

[senrath]

"Stay calm, you idiots! We're not trying to hurt you! Phrenz roared at the ward, trying to intimidate them into silence. He then braced his hammer against his shoulder, and charged after the fleeing woman, doing his best to avoid Olympus and the woman he was tangling with.

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(1d100)[100] vs 24 (before any modifiers) for intimidate. I really need to train that.
(1d100)[6] vs 29 for agility.
(1d100)[46] vs 49 for strength, in case Phrenz needs to force someone out of the way.

[LCP]

Olympus, Red & Phrenz

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Forcing the gurney aside, Olympus staggered to his feet - as he regained his balance, Phrenz came charging past him, weaving through the terrified civilians and skidding round the corner in the rows of screens behind which their quarry had disappeared.

The woman and her assistant were clearly in view ahead of him - as they became aware of him behind them, they accelerated, the wheels of their patient's bed squeaking frantically.

Around the next corner, Phrenz realised, were the passages to the front of the building. They were either heading for the front door, or the elevators...