Perhaps the sonic assault could be considered a SLIGHT reprieve in as much as it seems to disrupt the shambling enemies from firing at you for a moment.
And for better or worse, you are not facing the literal "hand cannon" anymore.
The fact that you ARE facing some kind of horrible mutant abomination made out of muscle and rage on the other hand.
And, you seem to have got under it's non-existing skin...
Archibald follows Iota's lead and fires at the beast's head, hoping to bring it down fast! His damaged ears seem to filter the noise of bolter fire from his mind. In his vision is only the monster and its damaged, ugly head.
Two mini suns fly true and hammer into the horror's skull!
Seeing the horror so close and getting ever closer with every stride was a pretty horrific surprise to Heinrich - he thought they had gained a considerable lead by now.
And then the stupidly loud shout hits him like a close-by detonation, rupturing ear-drums and sending pain spasms through his nervous system.
The gun, linked to his mind by the MIU, was blacking out for a tiny moment in sympathetic pain only to reawaken moments later with a fury and need for vengeance.
Human consciousness and machine spirit come together with a single purpose in that need and Heinrich sends one bolt against the very, very close target.
=> 13X, Pen: 4
Damned beast, not sure if the troops still hear anything but we got to do something for morale here
"Beast, you might be warp tainted but you can be shot out of existence just like all the others! Archibald and I have done so before!"
Iota then sitches a pretty nasty salvo of full auto bolter fire across the beast, making him wish the single shot bolters they had found were capable of full auto like his personal gun. Still full auto comes with it's own drawbacks - out of the 6 salvos of full auto fire only 2 more remain in the current magazine.
The beast takes a pounding alright.
Between focused fire and rapid fire for effect, it now sports numerous grievous looking wounds.
Boltershells tearing open gaping wounds, making it look more like ground grox than flesh, burns from plasma, and both it's gun and it's tubes are now damaged.
And your troopers, having been given no other orders, defaults to focusing on the biggest threat, adding even more bolter fire to the mix.
Incredibly, it still refuses to go down.
And despite it's looks, it doesn't seem to have slowed down any.
Holding it's massive gun against it's chest, it leans forward and smashes it's free hand into the floor, and then, still crouched, it charges.
As it closes in, it swings it's gun outward, catching Solonius full in the chest, sending the old soldier flying, it then swings it's fist at Heinriche's face, missing by an inch or less.
Instead it smashes into the wall, up to it's elbow.
It then yanks it's fist free, it's whole arm now bleeding from many shards of metal embedded in the flesh.
All it does is making the arm look even more deadly, as it's now studded with numerous jagged metal points.
Horrifyingly, as it's glowing eyes focus on you, you can sense a dark mirth sparkling there.
Iota lets his Boltgun drop into its sling and with a single fluid motion practiced for years and years it is replaced by his power axe. He then takes a moment to pick a good spot on the hulking monster in their midst before letting axe spark to live and hack into it.
Heinrich ducks and rolls under the monstrous assault, cursing [it]and[/it] praying in the same breath.
"Thrice cursed s&!%fest of fighting in person, oh Emperor smite this monster!!!"
Coming to a halt on his back and under the looming creature, his nerves strained to a limit.
Despite his previous cursing, this was not too different from a straving run against an enemy capital ship.
And he knew what counted when doing one of those: precision and timing.
He takes a single deep breath, aims then fires at point blank range.
X, Pen: 4
Archibald knows to not let the enemy have a nice thing, so he takes careful aim and tries to at least disable the new weapon.
Once again, the monstrous fiend amongst you doesn't even seem to TRY to avoid your attacks.
Taking another boltershell at range so close the explosive force washes over the shooter, as well as being dug into like a particularly stubborn Sanguinala pudding with sword and axe.
And yet..It.still.won't.go.down!
A brute such as this is hard to read, having no real facial expression (or a face), but it certainly is beginning to look quite a bit worse for wear by now.
Great gouges has been torn from it's flesh, and it's spewing blood everywhere.
So focused on it are you that for a moment you forget that it's not alone.
Ironically, it's size now works FOR you, as it more or less shields you from the firing of the dead men from behind it.
Most of the shots slamming into it's back, which doesn't seem to faze it all that much to be fair.
Apparently, being in such a target rich environment, it honest in on Heinrich and sends a short but powerful punch straight at him.
Heinrich sees the powerful blow coming but for a split second can't seem to find any way he could possible dodge to, being surrounded by the truly massive and revolting form of the enemy mutant.
With a jolt of adrenaline he goes for a backflip and manages to get away from the wild swing.
He now finds himself locked in deadly melee with the creature though, where his long-barelled bolter is definatly not the right choice of weapon.
His mind races. Withdraw to get into a better shooting position? Drawing his sidearm? Run away scr- nope, not that.
Looking at the powerful power weapons of his companions landing cleaving blows, he decides for the most risky maneuver.
Play decoy.
He gets into a well balanced position, his senses sharp and focused on the enemy, while yelling a (pretty badly tuned) "In Terra we trust!" into its (pretty mauled) face.
Archibald presses the assault. This beast seems to have a singular focus. All the worse for it. His power sword flashes again, trying to bring it down!
Iota pulls back his axe and as much as he'd like to do something smart to change the flow of battle into their favor - this is melee combat. The value of clever tricks are greatly diminished when in hacking distance of a large lump of flesh which doesn't even deign to dodge. And so he takes a heartbeat to find a good spot to strike and then hacks in.
The big brute takes all the blows coming at it without making any noise whatsoever.
An eerie thing, when considering that it clearly CAN vocalise it's intent.
Then, seemingly completely at random, it switches targets, ignoring the offered challenge of Heinrich and instead turns on Iota.
Rising high, it swings it's metal studded fist downward in a powerful blow.
It's difficult to tell what is happening behind the beast, since it's size is blocking your view, but there seems to still be coming hostile fire from that direction.
Then again, you can hardly tell what is going on with YOUR side either at the moment.
Iota tries to get out of the way of this massive fist but as much as he used to be better at this - the added ~250kg of his tech priest implants have left him less-than-skilled in the art of dodging.
As he ducks to the side the fist hits him on his shoulder, driving him to his knees and a loud crack anounces that _something_ has just broken althought nothing visibly changes. But it stops there. Iota does not go down and instead glares at the thing full. Instead he Steps forward, spitting a spray from red flecked spit at the thing. Now inside the range of the things arms and with a clear path towards its vulnearable... everything he swings once more.
Seeing his risky maneuver not working, Heinrich disengages with a quick duck-and-roll just as the other two oficers maul the mutant some more.
He comes back up a handful steps further to the back.
As does his bolt rifle...
Hacky Thwacky you get BONK!
I mean... ahem... Archibald continues to take apart the foe with precision strikes to vital areas, like the armpit!
A hit! A fine hit!
By now, the beast looks TERRIBLE rather than HORRIBLE, except it's pretty horrible that it is still standing of course.
It's not merely wounded, large parts of it's flesh have been hacked away by axe and sword, and yet it persists.
For a moment it seems to hesitate, almost like the sheer plethora of targets is causing it confusion, then it lashes out, both with fist and gun.
With a sickening crunch, two more of your crew are sent flying.
You are causally optimistic that it's on it's last leg now however.
In the name of the Emperor just DIE ALREADY! Archibald roars as he goes all in on the beast.
The bolter comes to his shoulder and Heinrich focuses his mind, still linked to the machine spirit of the gun.
He hesitates for a moment, giving the Rogue Trader and the Magos a chance to put the beast down.
Iota swings once more. You'd think that there is no way to miss the fat blob in front of him but the axe does not bite, instead catching on the gunk flowing out left right and center out of the monstrosity and slides off relatively harmlessly
The mass of muscle and hate finally topples, hacked and shot into near oblivion.
Even then it struggles to keep going, it's baleful eyes full of hatred towards all of you.
But even it's unnatural toughness just can't keep death at bay at this point, and it's struggles subside.
Having several dead or wounded, you take the opportunity to continue your retreat.
Thankfully, the big corpse now serves as an obstacle for your remaining foes, and even though you are slowed down by your wounded, you make good ground.
Your lungs burning, your legs hurting, you finally tumble back into the relative safety of your forward outpost.
If nothing else, as you make it past the barricades, you are reassured by the presence of gun servitors and heavy weapon platforms.
They do not seem needed however, because as your foes stumble in behind you, something wondrous happens.
As each foe in turn crosses the doorway, it stops, shudders and falls down.
As it's carcass hits the ground it dissolves into dust.
Archibald, grabs Solonius and runs. The weight of him drains Archibald quickly, but the Captain isn't about to let the Master at Arms go. He trusts the bodyguards and his other officers to cover him as he heaves the crochety old soldier back to safety.
The feat takes its toll and Archibald collapses just after handing Solonius off to men at the post. He has to be dragged out of the way of the rest of the retreating party.
Then he sees yet another wonder. Chaos held back. Chaos defied! As each monster turns to ash, Archibald's heart grows lighter. By the Emperor! They can't enter here! he almost whispers in shock.
The wave of relief as his bolt flies true to finally blast out a considerable junk from the things brain case is nearly painful.
His entire nervous system, including the MIU, seem to shut down for a few heartbeats, followed by a jolt of adrenaline as his awareness reminds everything else, that the danger is in fact not quite over yet - there are still things on the loose and after their collective guts.
The withdrawal, what they should have done from the creatures first arrival, is as chaotic and hectic as such things typically go.
Forever after, he would find it hard to give any kind of detail as to what he actually did during those minutes.
One they made the way back to the shrine room, he would discover that the clip of his bolter was spent completely.
In fact, the clip that was in the gun was from someone else, seeing as it was marked with a little high gothic number VI at the base...
His first clear recollection is lying prone on a cargo crate, aiming down the corridor, observing on awe as every inhuman thing crossing the threshold turn into dust. As much as the previous moments would forever be hazy, this scene would instead be carved into his memories for the remainder of his life.
Without conscious will, he begins reciting litanies under his breath, not quite daring to leave his over-watch position just yet.
After all, the Emperor had to watch over an entire galaxy, so who could tell how long his divine oversight, the only explanation for this spectacle, would last. Surely there are hundreds if not thousands of even more pressing battles fought throughout HIS realm...
Paying close attention to the vox, he tries to figure out how many troopers they have lost and what the status of the Master-at-Arms is.
The next couple of hours are quite busy.
Field chirurgeons see to the wounded, a second patrol is sent out to retrieve the dead, and supplies are replenished.
Turns out, while any death is of course regrettable, of the almost dosen fallen, only two are truly dead.
A further three are unlikely to return to active soldier duty, but will be able to return to lighter duties, whereas the rest are said to be able to recover fully.
Solonius is touch and go for a while, but he is a tough old bastard.
It doesn't hurt that due to a previous injury, his spine has already been reinforced, thus preventing it from snapping under the force of the blow he received.
It also doesn't hurt that despite the prodigious amount of medical supplies used to stabilise him, for a Rogue Trader dynasty, it wouldn't even make a dent in the supplies available back on the ship.
Still, he won't be rejoining you on this mission.
The father spends most of his time as you recover, leading the faithful in songs of praise for your salvation.
Eventually though, things calm down and eyes begin to turn towards the captain for further orders.
Archibald examines the slowly, oh so slowly, expanding map of the area around the Safety Zone produced by this odd relic. The Tech Priests were still examining it, and he's getting the feeling that they're jockeying to see who will be the one to dedicate their life to plumbing its depths of secrets.
He is attended by Solonius's second on this mission, a bull of a man with a salt and pepper beard named Lt. Arcturus Mengsk. He is an old soul, much like Solonius, but unlike Solonius Arcturus is fond of words and has the eloquence to use them well when he wants to. He usually doesn't want to, preferring simple speech with an easy drawl, but Archibald appreciates that the man has the ability.
Archibald looks to his commanders. My first priority is to get this ship separated from the rest of the Hulk if we can, which means securing it at the very least. We can't do that with the men we have. We need to get the shuttle bay doors open and the Rising Sun directly umbilicaled to it if possible. More than one entry point would also be ideal.
But, First Things First, Those shuttle bay doors. Iota, Those are yours. I trust your judgement in how to go about this task, but we need access to our resources or were dead in the water here.
Lt. Mengsk, continue light probing patrols. I need as much of this ship mapped and secured as we can, but don't overextend until we have reinforcements.
Heinrich, I need you going over every scrap of info we collect on this thing. You're the best pilot we have, so the how and when of extracting it is going to be all you.
I want this ship out before either the Hulk decides to take another jaunt through the warp or some other faction arrives and decides to kill us for it. I'll be happy enough taking exploratory license fees and a tax on whatever is extracted from whomever wishes to explore the rest of it, but this ship is our prize!
Iota breathes a sigh of relieve as the thing goes down. Then stops himself suddenly when the smell in his nostrils starts to burn so hard that not even the adrenaline of the current situation can keep him from noticing any longer.
The track back is a blur - the medical attention is not so much. Where others just need to have their wounds tended Iota needs to repair the damage to his augementations, most notably his cyber-mantle and while it is a pain - figuratively and literally - it just won't do to let anyone else do this while he remains concious. And the pain eventually ends and he feels a lot better afterwards.
Receiving Archibalds orders he scratches his chin, then answers:
"The sitation is still the same as before old friend. I need access to the bridge or main engineering to get those doors open. Or a month of time to weld it open. Ship hulls are built to resist atomic bombardment. Getting through by force is not a quick job. I suggest we think about our loadout and then go back out there.
The single shot boltguns are wonderful against elite infantry but this time we've been confronted by both a horde and something we could think of as a tank.
We should have plenty of flame weapons and missile launchers in the stockpile of the security detail. Those are not rare by any definition. I imagine having one or two each along would've gone a long way against those... things."
"Flying... With what?! Thoughts and prayers...? Well, considering the room we're in, that might actually work..."
Heinrich simply nods at the lord captain's orders.
"I agree with the magos, we need to get to the bridge first, or there will not be any flying."
He turns to face towards the various clerics surrounding the marvelous statues in the middle of the room and waves father Vasco over.
Then, as the discussion turns towards armaments, Heinrich adds in:
"As far as anti-tank duties go, I would recommend for a two-man team using a lascannon. I would also like to query the master of armory for a meltagun. We could have slagged one of those side corridors with one or two blasts, giving us an escape route. It would also have made a bigger dent in that mutant..."
Once/If the head priest arrives:
"Father, do you see any chance to get this statue mobile? We could ferry in a cargo-eight and maybe mount the statue on the flatbed...?
Or do you see a way to channel and expand its holy aurora, so it may protect our journey to the Lord Captain's price?"
Slowly, a plan begins to form.
The general concept remains more or less the same.
First, you need to locate either the bridge or main engineering.
Second, you need to get the hangar bay doors open so you can begin to receive further supplies.
Third, you need to secure this part of the hulk, the mysterious, possibly archeotech ship, and see if it can be salvaged.
Unfortunately, you lack anyone to man a lascannon at the moment, since your elite crew are all trained in bolter weapons.
However, you do have access to both melta and flamers, though you'll need to be the ones using them yourselves.
The father shakes his head at Heinrich's query.
"Sadly, my son, I do not believe so. While the statue is certainly the FOCUS of this miracle, I believe it is only part of it.
This...sanctum, is also part of the miracle.
Were we to remove the statue, I believe we would also see the miracle end.
It is not a risk I would take, though it is ultimately in the lord Captains hands."
Meanwhile, Lt: Mengsk have assembled a fresh escort party.
And just in time too, as the second scouting party returns from penetrating slightly deeper into the ship.
"Lord Captain, the young cadet salutes you, we found and intersection further down the corridor after your battle.
One section leads to an un-powered lift, but it looks like there is an emergency ladder inside the shaft.
The other end leads to a pair of large, unmarked doors."
Archibald nods. Thank you.
Lt. Mengsk, I need a heavy scout team, a protection detail, and a technical investigation team with cutting tools. We're going to investigate both. We need to find our goal as soon as possible.
With a bow, Heinrich accepts the (quite expected) concerns of the priest.
As the groups assemble as per the captain's orders, a breathless runner approaches Heinrich, a quite bulky, cloth-wrapped item clutched in his arms. He bows and offers it to Heinrich, which takes it with a thankful nod and straps it to his back.
After some thought, Archibald edits his orders slightly. Listen up, everyone, we're going to hit the doors first and see what's in there. I don't like the idea of leaving unknowns at our back. Then we're going to leave the security team at that intersection and proceed up the ladder to see what's up there. Questions?
Archibald makes sure he has everything squared away on his person, then motions the scouts to lead on.
Heinrich just nods as he gets the Lord Captain's orders.
As they get to the door, he unwraps the bulky item to reveal a hefty, polished-to-a-sheen meltagun.
"So, do we open the door or does this little baby open the door?"
Iota holds up one palm towards Heinrich in a motion indicating to stop:
"Let me take a look. Not everything is a nail just because you are now equiped with a heatray shooting hammer."
and then gets to work on the door, checking to see if it can be opened without causing grevious harm to the ship they want to acquire for themselves
After taking a good half an hour or so to study the ancient machinery, actually OPENING the door turns out to be quite an easy task.
It is not locked in any fashion, just lacking in power, and it's easy enough to siphon off enough juice from the active parts of the ship to power up the panels and punch in the runes of activation.
You even manage to do it well enough to power up the lights inside, so by the time the heavy doors struggle open, the room inside is mostly lit up.
It's not a pretty sight.
Surely this must have been at one point an impressive feat of engineering, but aeons of decay and neglect have left the once powerful machinery inside the room looking quite sad to the trained eye of an explorator.
It's not MAIN engineering, but it is clearly an engine room of some sort.
The power cores look dead however, and there is no pleasant hum in the air, only dead silence.
Archibald hangs back and lets Iota take the lead on this one. Until his analysis is complete the best thing to do is stay out of his way.
Iota takes a closer look at those power cores. They might be dead but they just left a room where the "power core" only required some water to get back online. Who knows what this ship holds?
If these had been standard imperial style power cores, it wouldn't take a decent explorator more than half an hour to analyse them.
Sadly, this is either xenotech or archeotech, which means it could take days.
especially since these show signs of actual damage.
In face, there are signs of a battle being fought here, scorch marks, bullet holes and explosive residue.
No signs of bodies, but maybe that isn't so strange after what you've seen so far.
Either way, getting anything out of these would be a "proper job" as they technomats say.
Iota gets up from his technological meditations and reports to Archibald.
"We can probably get this running again in the future but it will take more work than we have time right now. This might also be where the zombies earlier came from - it looks like a battle was fought here and enginneering rooms usually have plenty of menials which will defend them in an emergency. Still nothing to gain here at this point."
Archibald nods and sighs. Battles in engineering. Always happens. Never good. Ok, Tech team and Security force, you are here. Tech, see what you can get cleaned up at least. Security, this is your section. You are our fallback point if things go ploin-shaped up top. Use whatever scrap the techs can pull to make defenses here. The rest of you, let's get climbing!
He leads the way to the ladder, but refrains from climbing up first. He wasn't sure Solonius wouldn't feel the disturbance to his safety radius and have a fit all the way back at the base.
While the Magos is working, Heinrich takes a small team and does a quick search-and-clear of the room, ensuring no lingering things remain. He will also check for other doors, walkways and crawlspaces large enough to possibly allow anything larger than a mastiff through.
The ascent is a long one, and while the ladder appears sturdy, it's still a somewhat nerve rattling experience to climb and climb....and climb.
Especially concerning is the lack of any ledges for you to rest on, or regroup.
So when you finally reach a door, you realise that the only way for the Explorator to work on it, is to allow everyone head of him to continue on for a bit to leave room.
Thankfully, mechandrites makes it easier to stay in position while working.
It seems like if the system to the doors were given a jolt of energy, it might awaken them long enough to open for you.
Perhaps if a tech priest were to try to use his lumen systems it would work?
While Iota is not decked out with a lumen system - prefering to keep the human form and all - he IS equiped with a potentia coil like any other tech priest. Not having a whole lot of external modifications makes it difficult to grant this power to the door thought and so the first attempt fails with a fizzing cable and sparks lighting the elevator shaft.
"That didn't go as planned - still not a problem. Just a moment more. Variable, if you please."
The second attempt, aided by the servo skull Variable is more successful. Variable provides his usual recharching cable which is very much compatible with Iotas potentia coil and from there it is much easier to fashion a cable to connect between the servo skull and the door.
"There, that should do. Get ready, it will open in a moment."
And with that he climbs down again to give the security detail a chance to be the first in the face of potential danger.
Probably best to get an electoo to supply power to auxiliar devices, and an electoo to hardwire connector with switchable connection point to make it easy to connect to any given powered device
With the jolt of sacred power, the system that had previously been slumbering momentarily awakens, and jumps to it's task, almost eagerly.
The fact that a system that has probably been de-powered for...an incalculable but most likely truly excessive time, starts up this rapidly and acts with no hesitation speaks to the robustness and intricacy of the whole thing.
Iota barely has time to even disconnect before the doors begin to open.
scrambling out of the way, the security team quickly moves in to secure a beachhead.
In the lights of their luminators, you can see another corridor, this one built in the same utilitarian style as before, giving you hope that you are still in the same ship and have not fallen prey to any of the abnormal travelling perils of a space hulk.
Ahead, just inside the farthest reaches of your light sources, you can see a door.
This one is much smaller, although still more than what would be needed for just a normal sized human, and somewhat more ornate.
It's still fairly austere compared to what you are used to, but the slight glint hints that the frame might just be silver or something similar.
The door itself is a pitch black, with the now familiar symbol etched onto it in crimson red.
In a muscle born of pure muscle memory, Heinrichs gaze wanders down-left to a spot where the auspex screen of his fighter would have been.
Momentarily perplexed that there isn't one, he sights.
He should have got one before setting of.
Turning towards Iota, he whispers:
"I have a query, Magos, do you have an auspex device with you - and would you be willing to let me operate it for the duration of this expedition?
I am quite familiar with the rites of data retrival from my time spent in the cockpit of various fighter craft."
"I have indeed, Heinrich. Variable, join uns for a moment"
The servoskull hovers over, revealing all the antenae and cabeling of a tradional auspex - except for a screen.
"My dear friend here is in fact a fully functioning Auspex unit and he is even MIU capable. I can let you operate it but you might find the changed point of view unconformatble while walking around looking through his eyes and Auspex sensors."
For a moment, Heinrich looks surprised and a bit lost at the hovering, augmented skull.
He reaches out for the device, waving it closer and closer until he can touch it, not without a small instinctual shudder.
He turns it over and around in his hands, noticing the complete lack of input or output devices.
Beside a standardized MIU socket.
He sights, mutters the litanies of connection and data retrieval and jacks a connector into his neck socket.
Trying to ignore the incomprehensible muttering at the edge of his, now shared, consciousness and quickly actives the augur array of the device.
After the first round of scanning with the default settings, he starts tuning through different, much more complex scan presets and filters, searching for weapon signatures and traces of biological matter, the latter in case the default settings only search for "living" organisms - something that probably not applies to the undead creatures they encountered before...
After several rounds of scanning done and a bit of calibrating, Heinrich is somewhat surprised to get no pings whatsoever from the area beyond the door.
And this was done by Auspex systems calibrated by a Magos level tech adept as well.
Drawing from the information that IS gathered, the suspicion is that the area is hermetically sealed, and has likely been so for a LONG time.
For all you know, you are the first to enter since the ship was made part of the hulk.
At the same time, the doors do not seem locked at all...
Heinrich remains upright and unflinching for a good three minutes before his hand reaches blindly for the connector and pulls the plug out. Upon which the servo skull quickly returns to the Magos' side.
He shudders for a moment and offers a final prayer to the Omnissiah for returning his mind in one piece.
"Hrm-huh. No traces of immediate danger. No threatening energy, weapon or life signatures around.
Up ahead has undisturbed seals and it seems very, very old.
There aren't any locking mechanisms at the door as far as I can tell."
For a moment Heinrich hesitates as if poundering whether to voice some thought or not.
"If the door were sealed, I would have voiced concern.
A tightly sealed room may contain all kinds of dangers, including lethal gases or diseases.
My recommendation is for sealed void suites when opening the door anyway.
Only the emperor would know, how our forefathers managed dangerous cargo..."