Sizzle tries to see what it is, but can't do so without obviously abandoning his orders to watch the ceiling.
Naturally, he does give it a very brief shot, but quickly resumes his sweeps of the ceiling.
Sizzle can't determine anything over the distance but for the fact that his brother is standing on a small, circular metallic something that could very well be a mine.
Or it could be something entirely innocent.
Just as Anatoly is finishing the last measurement of his cross-reading algorithm, there is a short yell of surprise, a single echoing gun report from a shotgun and a sound of wet matter falling to the ground, coming from a corner of the room stuffed with inactive Servitors.
Sizzle rolls his eyes. Jumpy armsmen...
Yeah, I would prefer not to get into a fire fight, you know, WHILST STANDING ON A POSSIBLE MINE!
"Hold your fire! Report! Enginseer, make sure specialist Elofsson is not about to explode."
He then reaches to activate his combead and whispers into it.
Right on the heels of the Commisar's comments, the Auspex in Anatoly's hands gives off a decidedly urgent alert. He whirls to look at the squad following him before opening a vox channel to the Commissar once more.
The Commissar reaches for this combead and whispers as he waits for the report
"Can you give me a direction? Does 400% stronger also mean 4 times more distance teleported?"
He gets off the combead and anounces
"EVERYONE HALT! Check on your damn groups. What was that shot? Take care fof that damned mine thread."
Sizzle checks around really quick to get a head count and see if there's anything to report.
Permission to leave my group and attempt to deal with the mine threat, sir!
One by one shouts of "Clear!" come in from the Navy fellows.
One, two, three... then four.
Then, nothing.
<<437.8%, sir. The evidence I have thus far gathered inndicates that the increased strength is a result of physical proximity to the event, and temporal distance between the event and our current position in our shared time stream.>>
There is a short pause and Anatoly continues, <<The event happened 4.615m on a bearing 23.8 degrees to my left, amongst that group of MS63A model maintenance servitors. The event is co-located with the non-human Auspex reading I was tracking. When I refined the location to a 96.83% certainty, the gunshot, the teleportation, and the non-human spoor all reached the same point in time and location.>>
Another short pause, <<Do you wish me to continue investingating the translocation event, or assist Specialist Elofsson?>>
"Will someone finish that Emperor forsaken report? Who is missing? How the hell can someone go missing while we're moving in two large groups? Enginseer designate one person of your group to acompany Specialist Sizzle to Elofsson, then continue your investigation. Specialist Sizzle permission is granted as soon as your escort is desided by the Enginseer."
One of our armsmen is gone, sir!
The female navy leader calls for her missing member.
"Dammit, Jeff, I know you hate servitors but pull your shit together or Mr. Red-Cap is putting a not-so-funny bolt into your skull!"
The hell? Oh, that "Jeff" better be dead, because if he caused all this confusion by simply bumbling about, the Commissar will make him suffer and THEN kill him.
So...all in all, being dead already is probably preferable.
"Jeff is missing, Sir. His hearing isn't the best after our fight with a malfunctioning servitor last year. Ima gonna check up on him."
She can be seen hurrying after Anatoly who is striding purposefully towards the array of maintenance servitors.
A couple of seconds later, just as Sizzle arrives at his brothers side, a shrill shriek comes from the direction of the servitors..."Whaaaatdahe-urgh" ending in the sound of someone vomiting heavily.
"Sir, I think she found him, or what is left of him."
Even at this stage, some snark just cannot be kept in. Thankfully, Asbjörn managed to keep the tone of his comment non-snarky.
Quite an accomplishment for him.
Sizzle hurries over to his brother's side and takes a look at the thing he's gone and stepped on.
Ok, lets see. Do you feel anything? Did you feel any clicks or did you feel a mechanism bottom out? he asks in an attempt to both distract his brother from being a snarky twat for once and get him to be useful.
The Filthy Xenos MOCK US, Emperor burn their eyes, and then rest of them! Bolus grouses. Shall we inform the rest of the ship of this infestation Commissar?
Sizzle examines the device carefully, then pats his brothers leg and says, You're good. before reporting, Sir! This used to be a mine, but someone's replaced the charge with some cable and gibbons. My guess is that is more like an intruder alert now. Whoever's down here and set this up probably knows we're here now.
Sir, it's wired into that cogitator bank. he points to indicate the bank.
"That's pretty disturbing, means they expected to be found out at some point.
And if you plan on being found out..."
Anatoly, never one to waste time on meaningless gestures or words of acknowledgement when action will convey understanding and compliance much more expediently simply turns his head slightly to one side until he can read the name and rank insignia of the first of the Navy ratings, "Voidsman Martellin, you will accompany Specialist Sizzle. Assist if you can, stay out of his way if you cannot." Sometimes you have to spell things out for the simple-minded.
Continuing on in the wake of the impetuous Navy Corporal, Anatoly soon enocounters a most disturbing sight. If he were any less blessed by the Omnissiah, he might find himself vomiting on the deck plates as well.
Anatoly moves further in among the servitors while running a scan of the area with the Auspex. If he can find the dog tags of the slain rating, he will recover them and hand them off to the heaving Corporal.
The Commissar forgoes the combead this time and just talks loud enough to be heard throughout the room.
"For the love of the Emperor. We seriously had someone cut down while in formation. And not even a report from the fighting personel.
Here's how this formation stuff is supposed to work. The last person keeps visual on everyone. The second to last person keeps an eye on the ceiling and stays close enough to the last person to notice if something happens to them. Everyone else checks the front, and all corners and branches as they appear. If this happens again without a report I'm going to punch the person who should've seen it happen"
The Commissar flexes his power first-attached metal arm.
"Alright. The Enginseer is down to a single bodyguard. Enginseer, stay where we can see you while we catch up to you. Everyone else get in a proper formation or so the Emperor help you I'm not going to need any more Xenos to mulch each and every one of you!
Engineseer. Finish investigating whatever you can gather from the incident there. Then check the cabling on that intruder alert. If we can find out where it goes we might find out where that Xenos vanished to."
The Commissar makes sure they have a proper formation set up as they move over to the Enginseer - the intruder alert is already tripped anyway.
The Navy guys are pretty shocked at the sudden and near silent demise of one of their number and huddle up closely now, weapons out- and upwards.
A bit of sobbing can be heard from the servitors and a low voice muttering the same words again and again:
"How could ...
Oh God-Emperor, he didn't even had time to scream...
How..."
Anatoly pitches his vacabulator to reach the Commissar, "Understood."
As Anatoly moves over to the servitor, he speaks quietly and sets his vocabulator to produce some white noise beneath his words so his voice will, most likely, not carry outside the area around the servitors, "Corporal, your men need you to lead them. Take a few more seconds, but pull yourself together and do your duty. Grieve for you fallen later."
While he speaks, Anatoly closely examines the cavity that was made in the servitor both with his natural eyes and with the sensors of the Auspex.
"Thanks short stuff, always knew you were handy for something."
Giving his brother's shoulder a grateful squeeze, he then hurries to take his position.
"Let's make sure nobody else steps on something nasty eh? Once was more than enough for me."
After inspecting the site of Jeff's demise, and the cavity made inside the servitor, Anatoly makes a note to have the servitor preserved in its exact current state. He collects several samples of the destroyed weapon and leaves the servitor area to inspect the intruder alarm. After a couple of minute's inspection, an MIU dendrite extends from his wrist and connects to a small port in the alarm. A few more minutes pass as Anatoly occassionally makes the sounds of a person concentrating on a task.
Finally, he stands and turns to Yeta, holding out a datapad for the Commissar to take, "Sir, my report." Though there seems to have been little time for Anatoly to enter information into his datapad, the device does indeed show several lines of text along with some other figures and data.
Below this there is material data regarding the compound found on the cut edges of the weapon, as well as several images of the damaged servitor. Of particular note is an image taken from the inside of the cavity in the servitor which shows a curious imprint.
When Yeta looks up from the datapad, Anatoly is holding out one of the pieces of the severed weapon.
The rating next to Bolus addresses the priest in a low voice.
"Forgive me father for I have sinned, please allow me to cleanse my self and take my confession.
I should have stopped Jeff from leaving.
Ever since that Servitor incident he made a point of checking every single one out himself.
I have gotten so used to it, that I have neglected by duty.
And now he is dead and should I join him soon...
I want my failing known and meet the Emperor with a cleansed soul."
Bolus snorts. Negligence of duty is an affront of the highest order to the Emperor. He fixes the rating with a glare. The only salvation is to commit yourself to your duty a hundred, nay a thousand fold, from now on. Do exactly as the Commissar commands and you will earn my blessing. Only in death does duty end!
The man blanches just a little more (from ash grey to chalk white) and you can see a tear in the corner of his eye but he nods feverishly, grips his gun with white-knuckled hands and forces his eyes to the left flank - his allotted purview, which just happens to be the area where Anatoly is just striding back from.
The Enginseer looks troubled, as far as a man as heavily augmented as Anatoly Dashkov can still look troubled, and is holding several small and blood spattered pieces of a standard navy issue Thranix Pattern combat shotgun in his hands and then some more in his mechadendrites.
Following him is the female Cpl. who has distinctively visible yellow stains running down her flak jacket, less visible dark stains in her trousers and a hollow look in her eyes like someone who has recently seen a scene straight out of her nightmares.
The specialist brothers detect three more security devices scattered throughout the room (not counting the servo skull Sizzles nearly shot soon after you entered): another repurposed anti-personell mine, a laser barrier at hip-height and a surveillance pic-feed in the first eye socket of a dismantled servo skull resting on a workbench.
At this point, the entire room has been thoroughly searched and deemed clear of any unauthorized presence.
Well, at least he didn't say a thousand percent. Even zealots can be relied upon to use proper phrases from time to time.
With all the traps and surveillance in the room taken care of Sizzle falls in to his appointed place and wonders to himself what new hell they were about to walk into.
"Alright. So to sum up our little problem down here we have a teleporting Eldar who hollows out Servitors to mask their inhuman live signs from scans. With unkown involvement of the local Adeptus Mechanicus leader. Probable involvment is he is aware of this problem in some way and on the hunt themselves in rather clumsy remote controlled way. For now we're reporting this to the ship master. Enginseer, tell us where to go from the center of the formation. I'm taking point. While we move I want to hear about more probalbe ways to hide from scans of non-human life signs on this ship from you Enginseer. Also you." He points at one of the navy ratings. "You'll tell us of other likely stations of servitors around these parts."
The group moves out in formation again. With the Commissar out fron eager to punch some xenos skulls.
The addressed rating scratches his chin in thought before answering.
"Umm, I think the big water purifier room has a couple of specialized maintenance servitors in it.
Other than those ... They keep patrolling around and repairing small stuff as far as I know."
Anatoly can tell that the man is referring to Fluid Distribution room XXVI, the next in line from your current location and where an internal vox station could be found.
You have to cross two more, small rooms stuffed with cargo boxes (filled with maintenance equipment if you care to bar one open) and encounter no more trouble - but for a rather large rodent which gets promptly shredded by a blast from a combat shotgun. The guilt stricken rating seems really motivated...
The vox is just outside the bulwark leading into the water purifier room.
The deep roaring of powerful machines echo dully from within and make your teeth vibrate, even through the closed door.
Sizzle keeps to his assigned place near the back and scans the ceiling constantly. Man, I hope everyone has sharp eyes. That noise is going to make it really easy to move around...
"Fluid Distribution XXVI. There is a vox unit there capable of contacting the bridgejust outside. It is through here."
Anatoly directs the patrol efficiently to the location of the vox station while answering the Commissar's request, "Sir, a list of potential conditions that will greatly inhibit the effectiveness of sensorium machine spirits is as follows:
Primus: As we have discovered, concealment within another life form of near human status, i.e. a servitor.
Secundus: Concealment within a concentration of particularly dense material.
Tertius: Concealment within a large concentration of human life signs would suffice for all save the most sensitive and finely-calibrated sensors.
Quartus: Concealment in close proximity to high-energy machines such as reactoria, plasma generatoria, and geller-field emitters.
Quintus: Concealment in close proximity to high sources of radiation.
It is worth noting that in the case of conditions Quartus and Quintus, other considerations make these less likely. In particular that close proximity to such conditions is generally inimical to most forms of life in the galaxy.
Sextus: The incorporation of xeno-sorcery or sensorium-obfuscating technology into a more mundane hiding place.
Septimus: There are certainly other conditions of which I, not being a sensorium specialist, am unaware that would inhibit the detection of a xenos life form.
A final note, the effectiveness of any sensor will, of course, be attenuated by distance and the amount of dense materials between the sensor and the target. This will include those of the more powerful sensorium suite incorporated into this vessel."
"So. What we already know plus inside big complicated machines which should be killing them."
Arriving at the coms station the Commissar uses his command level codes to send a suprisingly short update to the Ship Master:
"Enginseer search party reports. Encountered hostile individual. One casualty so far. Fled through confirmed teleportation. Suspected identity is an eldar pirate. Unconfirmed. Search continues"
He waits a moment for a possible reply but is already ready to move on.
"Alright. Since the toxin was not found in all ship water we'll check the distribution room right here before possibly moving to the purification room with the servitors. Keep up the vigilance. Consider this hostile teritory and be ready to shoot - but not before confirming your target."
Before setting the concrete strategy of entry - what's the entrance like? closed door? person sized or larger? Opens via button or muscle powered?
Commissar Yeta has barely said the first couple of words into the intercom, when a sudden deafening wailing sound erupts from the device, followed by a blinding electric discharge which melts the intercom and threatens to blind all of you!
Sizzle grunts as the flash leaves after images dancing in his retinas. This isn't the first time he's been flash-banged though, so he keeps his head.
In the split seconds before the vox unit melts down, Anatoly reads what the sqealing and the power surge will mean and snaps his eyes closed, managing even to turn his head to the side a little. Still, the flash and the sound are powerful enough to stun him for a few seconds, though his Omnissiah-blessed constitution starts working rapidly to remove the impairment.
"What in the...?"
The Commissar manages to close his eyes before the flash
Bolus is an old man and is unable to react fast enough to the flash of light. EMPEROR PROTECT US FROM THE DEPRAVATIONS OF THE XENOOOOOOOOOS!
"What the...!?"
Over the after echoes of the ear-splitting wailing sound of the photonized intercom, you can clearly hear the fast and ominous plip-plip-plip sound of Anatolys modified auspex, warning about a close-by teleportation event.
Just as the first of you start to regain some of their abilities to see, three sounds follow each other in quick succession.
The first is the unmistakable noise of forcefully displaced air, something like a low but high pitched thunder.
The second sounds vaguely like snapping tendons or the rupturing of steel ropes.
The last one is unmistakably the sound of wet matter hitting the metal deck plating - in multiple places at once.
Spiders > Rest
As the bright pain in your vision subsides into lesser sparks and allow you to see again, you notice two Xenos flanking your disrupted formation.
Their hip-mounted alien guns are locked on your group.
Your group which is down another man as you notice.
Another rating has been reduced to a barely recognizable heap of fleshy bits lying strewn around the deck, no part larger than a fist and some smaller than a thumb's nail.
Yeta still squints his eyes and blinks rapidly but her recognizes the shape - and delights
"The cowards finally came out! Fire at will! Exterminate the filth!"
And with that he charges the nearest Xenos, intending to punch it out of existance
Despite the motivation behind the charge the swing from the Commissar goes more than just wide.
Sizzle's Lasgun snaps up and he immediately opens fire.
In spite of the dancing after-images his shots come in tight and on-target!
Yeta's enemy is neatly side-stepping the crude swing of his powerfist and very, very nearly cuts the Comissars neck with one of its wrist-mounted blades in a return stroke.
Sizzle manages to land a single las shot on the wildly dodging enemy with his lengthy flurry of lasbolts. The las bolt leaves a tiny black hole in the chest armor of the Xeno and it takes a single step back before turning its masked head towards Sizzle...