Sea of Stars - IC

[Haval]

"I'm not expecting the cogboys to answer, yer ladyship," Hannabel answers Anika. "But Pytho didn't need another astropath to talk to you and the Lord Commander back when we met Bolterface"

'You're right. I was a little distracted when that was going on. Pytho, if we want to be careful let us know if there's anyone friendly down there. We can always try the vox afterwards.'

After watching the auspex, 'And we might want to reassure the Navy. Not that I would want them to act as bait, but if there's anything hunting ships out there it'll probably go for them first.'

Anika will redirect the ship's auspex so she could try and scan the planet directly. You would hope that anything powerful enough to destroy a cruiser would be difficult to hide. 'Can we do both? I'm not the best at void walking but we probably have people for that. Presumably we can take a look at the larger pieces of that cruiser to learn how it was destroyed.'

Spoiler: ooc

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Assuming I can do this now

Focused Augury on the planet
vs. Per 43 (+20 Detection)
(1d100)[8]

[Destro_Yersul]

Pytho's response came back a few moments later. "I can't reach anyone down there," he said, "which only means they don't have an astropath. We're too far away for me to do anything else."

Anika's scans of the planet also came up empty, at least of large hostiles. The planet's surface was fifty per cent covered by dense vegetation, tall trees and alien plants forming a green belt blanketed most of the landmass. The remainder was either water or ice, both poles capped with thick glaciers. Here and there, stone ruins poked up from the canopy, the remnants of some long-gone civilization. Unsurprising, given the Magos' purpose here. She found the Mechanicus facility easily enough, a large concentration of metal glaring like a beacon on the ship's auspex. This was the source of the vox signals they'd noticed earlier, a repeating binary pattern reaching out to space.

[Leon]

++The Vox message is garbled++

[rax]

"If it's all the same to everyone else, I'll stay here and make sure the Sting keeps flying straight. Bolterface doesn't have much to do though. Couldn't she babysit some crew on a void walk? Should be right up her alley...she's even got that fancy armour to help her out. Once we know there's no one waiting out there, we can head down and talk to the Magos. Assuming he survived, of course."

[Kaptin Keen]

Spoiler: Provided this is over the vox, where Bolterface can respond

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If enemy ships are out there, I generally prefer to have shields and hull between myself and their macroweapons - but in this case, I agree: I'll happily pop out there, and have a quick peek at what we might find.

If I was a raider or pirate, I might well think to booby trap debris I figured the Imperium would eventually come to root around in. Or leave behind some other sort of surprise. I suggest we bring someone at least halfway tech savvy, some marines, and whatever civilians we need to do the job.

[Haval]

Anika will try to listen to the signal herself. She didn't know what it was saying but the pattern could sometimes be familiar to something she'd heard elsewhere.

Over the vox so everyone could hear, 'I can go along with the crew if we need someone to open any doors, but I'm not one for dealing with explosives if we're really worried about that.'

[Destro_Yersul]

Listening to the signal from the planet, it didn't sound like any sort of regular binary Anika or Felidae had ever heard. Probably why Ravia thought it was nonsensical. There was a clear pattern, though, and to Felidae it sounded like some of the older emergency codes she remembered from the past. The Mechanicus loved keeping things forever, it made sense they might still be using one of those if they had nothing else. Anika did a little digging, and eventually came up with a handful of translation routines. The first two did nothing, but the third spit out an intelligible message: Help us, we are here. Suffered losses to attack. Message repeats.

Felidae's expedition to the debris field was a brief one. The shuttle flew into range, scanning for any surprises along the way with its augurs. The team completed a spacewalk, confirming that the ship was completely unsalveagable. They found evidence of sustained bombardment, the ship having been hammered to pieces by macrocannon fire, and sifting through the debris turned up nothing of any value. Either it had been stripped before it was destroyed, or the ship hadn't been carrying anything worth stealing.

[rax]

"Well, I suppose that confirms that something shot the cruiser to hell. Some of the crew were betting that the cog boys had blowed their ship up themselves, to prevent some hideous experiment from escaping. Glad I didn't put any thrones down for that!" Hannabel laughs.

[Haval]

'The hideous experiment could always be on the surface.'

'So, the code is a distress call and someone needs help. We could go down there to take a look.'

[PotatoGolem]

Macharius claps his hands together. Well then, no sense in dilly-dallying, what? I suppose it's off to the planet for us. No signs of surface to air defenses, correct? Magos, Anika, see if you can lock down the location of that distress signal. We're not going to get the Sting into orbit unnoticed, so we'll have to take the shuttle. Hannabel, how are our odds of a stealthy insertion in the Aquila? All hands, prepare for overwhelming military response if this turns out to be a trap. We'll need at least a half-dozen shuttles of Marines ready to land.

[Leon]

++Least we wont be flying into a Blizzard on this occasion++

[rax]

"Lord Commander, if we're going down there, I suggest we let the Talon and Commander Tam know first so they can set up a defensive cordon while we're in orbit. I don't want the Sting being the obvious target if whoever killed the cruiser decides to come back for dessert," Hannabel replies.

"As for a stealth insertion? That's not happening in an Aquila as far as anyone near the distress beacon is concerned. We'll be a bright, beautiful star descending from the heavens to whoever bothers to look up."

[Destro_Yersul]

The last time the Aquila had gone down to a planet, it had been with terrible visibility in the middle of a snowstorm. On this planet, they had no such misfortune. The skies were clear, the verdant green of the lush jungles shining bright under the midday sun. The Aquila roared low over the canopy, the treetops rushing away beneath them. Here and there, poking up through the trees, they could see a crumbling stone spire. Hannabel had the vox beacon locked in on the Aquila's cogitators, the sturdy shuttle eating up the distance as it raced through the sky.

The Mechanicus facility came into sight suddenly, a break in the trees all the warning they got of its presence. There were two octagonal prefabs linked by a tunnel and accessed by airlock, and a long, low building that probably served as the bunkhouse. The place looked utterly deserted, the shuttle touching down on the single landing pad without any contact attempted. They filed out, and got their first real look at the facility.

The buildings were pocked and scored by weapons fire, spent shell casing bright glints of metal amidst the grass. Two turrets that had protected the landing pad were destroyed, their remains cast down. The airlock to the large prefabs looked like it still worked, but the door to the long building was badly dented where it had been forced open.

The source of the vox signal was a man-sized contraption set right next to the shuttle pad. It featured an aerial and a series of large capacitors wired in to a portable squad vox, and had the look of something that had been hastily cobbled together out of necessity, rather than designed to work this way. At its base was a footlocker, the lid tightly shut. Several wires from the capacitors ran through holes drilled in the back of the locker.

[Kaptin Keen]

Peering suspicously at the contraption, Felidae mutters: I give that thing an about even chance of being boobytrapped. I would approach with caution.

[rax]

"Huh, interesting. Whoever hit the cog boys really wanted what they were working on here. I wonder if this base was the primary target all along or if they sent a landing party after they failed to find what they were looking for on the cruiser? In any case, they did a thorough job, which makes me wonder if there are any actual survivors that set up this beacon, or if the beacon is bait? And of course, who's behind this?"

Moving around the area, Hannabel gathers up some of the spent shell casings from the grass. "Hello, little friend? Care to tell me who fired you?" she giggles.

[Haval]

On the lander Anika will peer with professional interest at the stone spires as they flew past them. 'Was that a building? What are the Mechanicus doing here anyway?'

On the ground, she will use her auspex to see if she can pick up anything from the vox device. 'Better safe then sorry.
If it's not a trap and there are survivors they might be hiding somewhere. If your camp was attacked and you knew that your ship had been destroyed, maybe you don't want to hang around where the attackers could find you if they come back.'

'Come to think of it, if this was the site of a battle, where are the bodies?'

Spoiler

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Tech-Use to scan for anything weird about the vox device
vs. Int 53
(1d100)[76]

Common Lore (Underworld) to see if the shell casings are familiar
vs. Int 53
(1d100)[85]

Scrutiny to look for any sign of blood
vs. Per 43
(1d100)[76]

[Destro_Yersul]

Bodies weren't hard to find, once one left the clearing and looked in the buildings or surrounding jungle. There wasn't much blood, most Mechanicus members being beyond such things, but there was plenty of oil and other fluid splashed around. The shell casings were mostly small bore, probably from autoguns, with a few shotguns and at least one heavy weapon thrown in. There wasn't much that could be said about them, other than that they had come from a wide variety of manufacturers; there was no common supplier for the munitions. Most of the bodies they found were Skitarii, armed with implanted las-weaponry. The burns and scoring had probably been caused by the Mechanicus defenders returning fire. The base was small, though, and it was likely they had been severely outnumbered.

Anika's auspex didn't pick up anything strange about the vox beacon. It was giving off strong vox signals on multiple wavelengths, but that was to be expected given its function.

[Kaptin Keen]

Spoiler: OOC

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So ... what are we looking at? Defenders used las weapons, attackers used stubbers? The attackers took their dead with them? When most of the bodies are skitarii, does that mean the rest are techpriests?

Can we make any assumptions based on how the attack was staged? Are their vehicle tracks leading to and from the base? Did they rush madly, or take up hidden or well protected firing positions beforehand?

If stubbers - then human, right? Also, to me stubbers indicate ... raiders, pirates, low key operatives of some sort.
The attackers would clearly be able to pick up the distress signal. That's ... potentially useful. They'd be fools not to be monitoring it, if they're still around. If so, we can feed them some sort of false information of our choosing.

[Haval]

'You would have thought that the Skitarri would have put up more of a fight, so were they just that outnumbered? I suspect that the Mechanicus will not be happy with whoever did this, so maybe they removed their own dead to make it harder for the Mechanicus to come after them.' That gave her an idea, 'Magos, I don't suppose anyone with mechanical eyes is likely to have recorded footage of the battle? It does seem like the sort of thing a Tech Priest would be capable of.'

'I can't see anything wrong with the vox device, but that doesn't mean it's safe. I'd say maybe open it and take a closer look if the Magos thinks it's ok. Unless we want to find a servitor to do it for us.'

Anika will go and investigate the long building with the forced open door.

Spoiler

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I don't think anyone tried Scrutiny on the Vox device yet vs. Per 43
(1d100)[35]

[rax]

"Autoguns and shotguns. That tells us that the raiders weren't xenos at least. Definitely human, then. With the variety of ammunition I'd also guess that they weren't part of a highly organized group. If they were, they'd have standardized armaments. So probably not an Imperial faction, unless they're deliberately trying to hide that fact. Possibly a Rogue Trader, but more likely pirates, renegades or low rent mercenaries. That's not so bad, except that they had the brass balls to attack the Adeptus Mechanicus and hulked one of their cruisers. I worry what sort of firepower they have out there in the void. Something big and scary, or a squadron of escorts?"

"Hold up yer ladyship! Don't go marching off on yer own. If there are survivors, they might be desperate and do something stupid. I'm coming with you," Hannabel calls out when Anika heads for the bunkhouse.

[Kaptin Keen]

There were buildings, remember? I think we can't rule out the Mechanicus cruiser was shot down by something groundside - they might have dug up some ancient lance battery or some such.

I'll come too. Have a look around.

[Haval]

[COLOR="#008080"]
"Hold up yer ladyship! Don't go marching off on yer own. If there are survivors, they might be desperate and do something stupid. I'm coming with you," Hannabel calls out when Anika heads for the bunkhouse.

'Not stupid enough to mistake me for a band of pirates surely.'

[rax]

"Stupid, no. But people who've been shot at, who've seen their mates die messy deaths and may be wounded themselves, tend to have itchy trigger fingers. They may light you up without ever stopping to find out that you're friendly."

[Destro_Yersul]

Anika examined the vox device carefully, trying to figure out how it could have been trapped. The obvious answer was something in the footlocker, since nothing else attached to it seemed like a trap. All the other components were a clear part of the device's operation. Putting grenades or something similar in the locker would likely damage the device, and for a legitimate distress call that wasn't what you'd want. The locker was too small to fit any particularly dangerous weapons that weren't explosives. Shaped charges were a possibility. If it was shaped charges, then they'd only be a threat to someone standing right in front of the locker when it was opened.

The bunkhouse had been set up for thirty to forty people. It was cramped, but that would hardly bother a Skitarii. The accomodations were spartan, and there was little in the way of personal belongings. They could have been taken, but it was likely they were simply never there in the first place. Bunks for the junior Mechanicus were up front, bunks for the Skitarii in back. The senior Magos and his research team probably had their own seperate accomodations, which would put the total number of bodies on the ground at a little under fifty. Not a big number, once the support vessel in orbit was removed. A number of dead Skitarii were the bunkhouse's current occupants, but there were nowhere near enough of them to explain the number of bunks. Counting up the bodies in here and the bodies outside left ten unaccounted for, plus however many the Magos had with him.

[Haval]

'Dead people in the bunkhouse and the door broken open. Did they try to defend this place when they realised they were losing or were they surprised in here before they knew they were in a fight?' It's not like you could tell if the Skitarii had been caught without their weapons. Maybe there was more solid information on that in the other buildings, and there was always the footlocker.

[Kaptin Keen]

Felidae ponders the cobbled-together and possibly booby trapped contraption: Say .. is there any sort of authentification on that signal? Any ident codes, indications of rank or unit, anything to suggest it wasn't placed here as bait?

I mean, sure, it's in binary. But other than that?

[rax]

"So it looks like we have about ten grunt survivors plus the Magos and his understudies? Curiouser and curiouser. The obvious conclusion is that the survivors set up the signal and then retreated somewhere safe to await rescue, but if they did that, they'd have to be observing this place to make contact with any would-be rescuers. From our behaviour so far, it should be clear that we're not affiliated with the raiders, so why aren't they reaching out to us?"

"Of course, it's equally possible that the survivors got taken away by the raiders and this signal is either bait or a trap. And that's another thing that bothers me. This place was defended by Skitarii and turrets, plus a feckin' cruiser in orbit. A cruiser doesn't go down quickly or quietly, so if there was a fight in the void, this lot should have been on full alert when the raiders landed. But this looks like a surprise attack, and if that's the case, they either didn't come by shuttle, or the defenders weren't expecting a fight. That gives us a third option - this is an inside job. The defenders weren't expecting a fight because the people coming down were deemed friendly and the defence was a bust because they were sabotaged by some of their own. Which would mean that the missing cog boys aren't survivors, but traitors."

"Ugh, all this thinking is making my head hurt. I guess we won't know until we either find a survivor or until we figure out what the raid is about. I say we leave some marines out here to guard against an ambush and check the rest of the complex."

[Leon]

++The Skittarii may have been on downtime restcycle when the attack occurred++

[Kaptin Keen]

I say we open the locker. If it's trapped, that's a piece of information in itself. I'm sure out tech guys are better than theirs, if it's the raiders set this up. Not so much if it's the magos, perhaps, but then it likely isn't a trap.

[PotatoGolem]

The captain ponders the scene. Hannabel is correct that this may have been the work of traitors. However, it's also possible that the attackers jammed the cruiser's communications before the fight, preventing them from warning the ground team. It's not like you can see a space battle from here, after all. There's a lot here that's suspicious, and we're not going to find anything out waiting on this shuttle pad.

Macharius taps his vox. Sting, send down a few shuttles of marines to lock down this site.

He turns back to the team. Well then, let's check out the rest of this complex. Flannery, Barak, with me. He walks towards the other buildings, Praetorians in tow.