Valley of the Skulls

Pale multi-colored light outlines Jermaine's form as stares out over the hive city. He has not spoken to you since you arrived. Heavy incense fills the room; exotic smells mixing with the musk of old scrolls and untouched books. As the last of your comrades arrive an acolyte enters the room carring a small tray, its contents coverd with a black velet cloth inscribed with glowing high gothic scripts. Two sanctioned psychers flank the acolyte on each side appearently deep in consentration.

Jermaine turns slowly appraising each of you. "Definately not the troops i requested.." a disappointed sigh escapes his cowled lips.
slight whirls and humming can be heard behind his robes as he approaches your group, "I need you to travel to cerixa VI, to investigate a new cult that has been causing some trouble there. There are reports of undead in the lower hives. I have a ship awaiting in bay 6; collect your gear the pilot and his crew are ready and awaiting."

Alaric smirks silently to himself from the rear of the group.

It had been some time since he had been given a mission of any significance. The chance to root out evil and chaos hadn't presented itself in some time.

"As you command Inquisitor," he said with a quiet, gravelly voice.

Alaric looked upon the others gathered with him.

Despite the pervasive odor of what could only be dead whores, Seum never shows a change in demeanor.

Alaric is a little too trusting as usual. Jermaine seems content to throw anything he can at this problem...

"No disrespect, but you wouldn't know to request us."

He turns for the door and assertively calls, "Move it to the ship."

Two guards motion you through the security doors to bay 6. A large Thunderhawk Gunship bearing Jermaine's personal insigna waits, with a small squadron of inqusition storm troopers standing at attention by its bording ramp. "You must be Jermaine's men." A well dress pilot yells over the low hum of the engines, as he beckons you over.
The interior is efficent as it is and simple, Imperial Prayers etched into every visble inch. The squad of troopers follow you on aboard wasting no time in securing them selves. "This is Captin Jim Darent" the pilot motions to the only trooper still standing. "He will be accompaning you and your men. We lift on in 10 minutes, I recommend you stap down until we are out of orbit." with that he turns and makes his way to the cockpit.

Captin Darent makes his way over to you, and nods"I do not know what fools errand we are being sent on now, and in truth it doesnt matter, since i doubt any of us will be allowed to remember it.. tha is provided we even survive. Me and my men will do out jobs. You can count on that, just dont waste em foolishly." with a quick salute and faster about face he turns toward his seat and begins stapping himself in.

Alaric moves to strap himself in, checking and rechecking to make sure it is properly secured.

Alaric turns to his comrades - "Did Inquisitor Jermaine give any further instructions, information, or perhaps a dossier on the threat?"

"Jermaine didn't know who we were, so either 1) he didn't care, or 2) the Chancellor wanted it that way. Given this ship I'd say he's got connections and the mission is of high importance, so he likely knows who we are. When he wants to contact us he will. Otherwise, I wasn't going to stroke his ego and I think I can speak for us all that there was no reason to stay in that ass-ridden stench of his parlor.
Captain Darent doesn't seem to know anything more thankfully, or he and his troopers would likely have half the planet wise to our arrival with his protocol. I was also given instructions that another of my sins would be joining us. Perhaps he knows more, though I doubt it. We have transportation and know what we're looking for, that should suffice. Ask the pilot if you're still unsure, once we're out of orbit. Either way, we're headed for the usual shit-storm. We've gone into worse with less."

Seum secured his straps and laid his head back, showing no concern.

Glad you'll do your job Captain, meat shields are hard to come by...

.

With in minutes of everyone securing them selves, the lights of the passenger bay dim, a deafening and violent shaking fill the hull. With out warning you, are thrown back against your seat...blackness settles in.
You awaken in the zero gravity of space, the strom troopers have already unbuckled and broke off in to groups checking various equipment.

Alaric checks himself for injuries. Then looks around for any intruders, flurries of activity, and Captain Darent.

Darent along with two of his men appear to be taking inventory towards the rear of the cargo bay.

Alaric moves towards Captain Darent.

"What's our status, Captain!"

"Enroute to Cerixa VI. Should arrive in a little under a week, we are schedule for refueling 2 days from now then then Cerixa a few days later," he turns and goes back to his list.

It appears that everyone else did not black out.

"Captain, have their been any unusual occurrances over the course of our journey?"

Looking up from his data slate, he peers quizically in your direction" Are you alright? We've only be on our journey for 20 minutes or so. Pretty standard take off, if that is what you are asking."

Alaric gives a slight nod. "Thank you Captain."

Alaric walks back to Seum. "Have you experienced anything odd just now?"

Seum lowers his voice, "Look Alaric, we don't know these guys for shit, so pull yourself together and stop being paranoid. If something is of concern to you come find me and let me know your status rather than making woman sounds to these men. The captain already looked at you like an Orc.
Put yourself to use and go help the troopers with the ships materials. See if you can gain some rapport: find out whom we can rely on in a fight and who might have some skill. I'll work with the captain to learn what I can about what we're headed into."

Seum dismisses Alaric with mild disdain. He approaches the captain.

"Captain, I would like to review all flight plans, schematics of Cerixa VI, and any resemblance of a dossier given to you by Jermaine. If none are available, please proceed with me to an area for consultation."

sigh,"If you will" Darent turns motioning for you to follow him.
As the two of you approach one of the cargo bay terminals, Darent calls one his troopers over. "Pull up the information on Cerixa VI" Darent turns to face you."A hive planet with a population of approximately, 6billion mostly lower class. The majority of the planet is waste land one city located at the planets south pole is contains the entire populace. Normaly we would just virus bomb the planet and be done with it, but they produce large amounts of fuel for our navy and therefore the planet is not expendable." He lights a cigeratte.
"I wasnt given much information about why we going, never really am I suppose. Just told to wait for you two I assumed you and your companion would know what we were doing." He gives you a questioning look.
"Other then refueling in 2 days and our landing after that I dont know much more about our future plans."

"Captain, who is on your breacher team? Being as so much population in one city, I am expecting very close quarters and I'd like to know the men I will have to depend upon when the shit hits the fan."

With a surpised look, Darent glances over his shoulder, his hand instictively moving the to the hilt of his hellfire pistol. "Alaric, I did not see you approach, careful sneaking up on people like that. As for our breaching team, you see it these men and myself. I can not speak for any of them really, they were just assigned to me before we left orbit. But i can assure you all of the Inquistions troopes are well trained and do our jobs. There are 10 of us including myself , 1 heavy weapons team, 7 troopers, what else do you wish to know?"

"As I can see you're very busy, who is your second in command?"

"Captain, I'm afraid we've been told very little. We're investigating religious fanatics of some kind and we appear to be expendable to the Inquisitor, so have your men ready for close quarter combat once we make it into the sublevels of the city.
Where is our landing site, and do you have a contact name once we land or is anyone expecting our arrival? If we have means for me to contact them before our arrival, I would like to do so.
Is this ship capable of processing seismic readings or issuing some scout drones to monitor outside the city, or perhaps for the entire planet? Given our investigation is a result of the planet's valuable resources for mining, I'm guessing these bastards will have taken interest. Perhaps an increase or decrease in activity, or simply anything unusual in those read outs will give us valuable information.
If we've no contact, I think it would be to our advantage to land outside city limits if possible. Despite any efforts on our part to remain inconspicuous, I'm afraid this ship alone will give us away. If there is some sort of backasswards cult on this planet I want to know about them before they know about us.
Please have your men make a duplicate copy of our inventory and mobile weaponry once they've finished."

A lowered brow and steel jaw can not hide the concern on Seum's face.

looking to Alaric "Yours seems the easiest to answer, my second in command would be whoever was left alive and assigned the postion by either you or Seum. Most of the men here do not even know their own names, I am assuming this is your first encounter with Inquistorial Stormtroopers. There are 3 outcomes for us when we are sent on a mission, 1 we find nothing and get to return, 2 we find something and die while removing the threath, 3 we survive the threat and our minds are wiped clean to avoid any corruption we may have been subjected to. If I fall in battle the men will carry out my last order, and continue to fight what ever threat we face, untill you, alaric, or another Inquistion agent tells them otherwise."

Seum," I know even less then you do, this ship is set to dock in main the spaceport, and will leave once we are off. I do not have any contacts but you are an Arbite. Perhaps, your brothers will help us? As far as drones or readings outside the city, this ship will not be staying around long enough to do so, nor does it have that capability. We could instruct the pilots to drop us off out side the city, but i would recommend against it, we would have no transportation, shelter, and well it is a wasteland...
I will get you a copy of the inventory ASAP."

with a deep breath Darent takes a long look at both of you "You must have proven yourselves somewhere along the way, or I doubt you would be here, but it seems this may be your first time out alone. If the inquistion is involved its either aliens, demons, psychics, mutations, or hersey. Now, whatever it is, its likely a small unconfirmed threath right now, or there would be a much larger force sent to deal with it. My recommendation is sit down and prepare yourselves for whatever we may be up against, and think back about whatever information you did get from the Inquistor that may offer us some help. When we land, I suggest we go talk with the local Arbites and see if they have any ideas why we were sent."

Seeing as all these men are wiped after every mission, I suspect the oldest one will make the best lieutenant. Doubtful any of them could give any reason to choose another.

Alaric goes to where the weapons cache and looks to see if there are any available that aren't already assigned.

Inside the weapons locker 2 troopers are carefully cleaning each of the 8 hellfire Guns, while another inspects and cleans each of the heavy flamers. They pay little attention to you as they continue their work. Moving past them and the storage bins they have claimed you open the last 3 lockers, inside are 2 stub automatics, 1 handcannon each with a full clip, an ornate great sword, flail, and 2 sets of guard flak armor.

About five minutes after your conversation with Darent, one of his troopers approaches you(Seum). He hands you a datapad, and walks away. Glancing over the pad you see a list of supplies.

8 hellfire guns with melee attachments
27 charge packs
2 heavy flamers
4 fuel canisters
1 hellfire pistol
1 sabre
3 krak grenades
18 frag grenades
10 suits of guard flak armor
9 backpacks
10 clip/drop harness
10 filtration plugs
1 medkit
3 datapads
4 demolition charages
1 magnoculars

Alaric takes mental note of the equipment, then addresses the two troopers.

"How go the preparations?" in a thin, raspy voice.