Session 9
Write-up by Jason (jymmijamz)
Game – Rogue Trader
(Run by) GM – Chris
Altius (Astropath Transcendent) – Jason (jymmijamz)
Victris (Navigator) – Will
Admiral Winter (Lord Captain) – Tanya
Gnothics Sexxophin (Explorator Tech Priest) – NightUlf (Darren)
Chapter 9
The tree line burns, the clearing is a ravaged mess. Albina’s five man security detail is down to two.
The landing party start to appear out of their cover each looking around with bemused eyes. Gnophics heads over to the fallen alien, after poking the body with his toe he bends and starts looking the corpse over, picking through the things gear. Gnophics removes the armour and holo suit. As he moves away searching the rest of the clearing, Victris swoops in collecting a shurikan catapult and a couple a very small plasma grenades. Seeing his colleagues helping themselves, Altius decides to see what he can acquire for himself. Hunting around the clearing he stumbles across a discarded mono sword. After a few experimental swings, Altius think that if nothing else it might be worth some thrones and slumps down against the shattered remains of a tree.
Albina moves over to Altius and starts to minister to his wounds. Meanwhile Admiral Winter and Victris discuss whether or not to set up a defence or just clear out. Altius think that he knows what the aliens are, although they are very thin, he is sure that they are the same species as the four armed planet killers. “I know what they are!” he exclaims, trying to rise to his feet. At his outburst Albina plants her pistol against the side of his head. “Now, now, just calm down. I need to finish this.” She whispers in his ear.
Meanwhile Gnophics wanders over to Winter, and keeping his voice low, tells her that the xenos are in fact Eldar, and they are very good at staying hidden. “If they do not want to be found then we will have great difficulty doing so.” The Lord Captain thinks about his comments for a moment, before answering. “Okay, I think that apart from Albina, we should keep this to ourselves for the moment.”
“As you say Captain”
After a brief discussion with Albina, Winter announces the they should cleanse the planet of the filthy xenos and take the world in the Emperors name. Albina looks up from one of Victris’ servants, who had taken some wounds during the battle. “My Lord Captain may I suggest, that if we to do that, maybe we should return to the ship. From there we can bomb the distant mountains; I believe that that is the most likely place for the Eldar to hole up. Then we can return with a much larger force.”
“Good idea, make it so.”
As they lift off, passing through the stratosphere, Victris suddenly convulses and slumps to the floor, where he lays thrashing and babbling. At the same time Altius’ mind is almost painfully filled with the feeling of a presence, a presence that is now aware of them. The feeling seems to be coming from the ice planet. As his mind crashes back to reality, Altius looks around the cabin, add on seeing Albina’s stone eyes looking at the quieting Victris, decides to keep his vision to himself, not wanting to be shot as warp tainted. Winter leans down to the recovering Victris and asks him what happened, but he has no recollection of his fit, just a sense of heat.
They are met by Marcus, who offers a bottle Amnsec to Winter and mentions that some of the crew have something for her, Lylith was going to kill them but Marcus thought that the Lord Captain would like to see what they have for herself.
“Okay, brig tem in.” she orders.
Three cargo workers a brought before her, carrying a large squirming sack between them. Falling to their knees, the three men start jabbering, each talking of the other. Lylith finally has enough, and kicking out at the closest of them, tells him to get on with it. The man opens the sack to reveal an old man, on examination they can all see three fingers growing out of the back of the man arm – Mutation. “Please your Lordship, he’s a faithful man, please spare him. Please don’t kill him, he means no harm.” A look passes between Winter and her arch-militant. “My Lord, may I suggest that these men are trying to protect this mutant, I say they are heretics to. Should I do all three?” The Lord Captain Admiral Winter considers the question briefly before nodding. Lylith pulls her pistol, a looks at the four men. “Tell you what; I’ll make it easier for you by… “ Blam, blam, blam. “Not telling you when I am going to pull the trigger.” She finishes with a big grin.
Winter rolls her eyes. “Right, now that’s sorted, Lylith debrief Albina. I want suggestions from the both of you, on how we proceed with the next stage.” As they turn away the order goes out to start bombing the suspected alien stronghold.
Meanwhile Gnophics heads to his sanctuary and workshop. Nothing has changed in his inner sanctum, so he swaps out the pic-corders data crystal and scans through the images, but nothing happens. Going over to his work station he starts to examine the bounty he retrieved from the xenos body back on the planet, but to no avail it’s just too alien.
While this is happening, elsewhere on the ship Altius goes to his chambers, to meditate on his resent visions. As he opens his mind, he is aware of another mind reaching out to him, a mind full of love. His mind is filled with a joy so unnaturally strong that it fills Altius with dread, snapping his mind shut Altius locks out the sense of love. Hours pass and Altius eventually drifts back to reality, as his awareness returns to the present he hears a voice projected straight into his psyche. “I am all ways here if you need me.” The joyous voice says, before fading away.
Victris visits the medicae to have his wounds treated. He is worked on by two crazy tech priests, who after getting stoned n tranquilizers, bolt him back together. “So how long should these bolts remain in, before I can remove them?” he asks. “Remove them! You are now closer to the Omnissiah, they should stay in forever.” A brief pause, and them the priest continues. “Or two weeks until it heals.”
A conference is called in which Lylith lays out her plans for the assault on the planet. During the conference Gnophics’ underlings, Shiroijin and Joshua report on their preparations for landing on the ice-planet. “It’s so cold down there that most weapons will not work, flamer weapons will not ever spark. So after some research we found an old pattern used on a similar planet, and the answer is magnets baby, yay science baby.” With a roll of his eyes, Gnophics cuts the connection and turns back to the room. “They are well on their way, developing some new weaponry that might help. But what does our Astropath think about the proposed attack on the Eldar?”
“I am not a warrior; I shall leave tactics to those that are. The only help I can be is to pick up any stray astropathic transmissions.” Victris looks over at him. “So have you felt anything?” He asks. Thinking back to his resent meditation and the earlier episode aboard Lander one, he decides to keep things quiet until he better understands them. “I experienced nothing during the last encounter with the aliens, how about you?”
“No I have felt nothing since arriving.” Come Victris’ quiet reply.
Seneschal Marcus clears his throat. “This is all good and well, but it’s not making us any money. So far we are falling further and further into dept with Lord Captain Zanatov. I think we should focus on the deposits found on the ice world.” Winter gives him a hard look, before answering “Yes I concur, but cleansing for area of the xenos is also a top priority.”
It is finally decided to compromise, by sending a battalion of forces down to the verdant world under the command of Lylith. Meanwhile the command group, along with Albina and a security detail will head down to the ice-Planet
GAMING TALES 