First real deployment for the newly assembled squad, they just shuffled into the briefing with their Lord Commissar CO, Callsign:Slowjams.
First assignment: Some offworlders where "Acquiring" some 'Nid dust, and trying to boost it off world, several bad things could happen if the rest of the imperium at large discovered what the HY EX where taking to get a edge on the bugs, so the squad was sent to stop them, and as everyone in the HY EX likes to say, "Hua Yuan is a dangerous place for Offworlders." Told the place to be was the starport on the southeast section of the slum bit of the hive, next to the bowling alley.
Everyone piled into the squads transport vehicle, a hand me down Taurox covered in enough neon and graffiti to count as a modern art piece, affectionately dubbed the "PartyWagon" by the group.
En Route to the location we stopped at a traffic light, and up next to us pulled a civilianized Taurox, who started revving his engine at the squad, a challenge to a street race, which was accepted, and readily won, and the loser.... well he got T-boned by a shipping transport big enough to eat Rhinos.
At the starport it was raining a heavy sheet of neon colored rain, a storm had moved in, but the squad could make out a few things, 1. there where 5 cloaked figures loading crates onto a small ship, 2. these crates had the HY-EX stamp on them, and 3. Orders where orders.
The Stormtrooper, 8-Track, took initiative and rolled out the back of the transport the instant it stopped, and snuck around behind them, up onto the loading ramp of the ship, and sat there weapons drawn, while the Sergeant, Yeehaw, tried this the diplomatic way, and approached in full view to confront the offworlders.
The offworlders where speaking High Gothic and where less than enthused to see themselves being interrupted, and stated they where not expecting to be stopped and refused to identify, this made the rest of the squad aim weapons at the cloaked figures.
Finally when a laser sight rested onto the lead figure they drew a item in their offhand and a hellpistol in their primary, the sergeant not being able to see well in the storm mis-identified the small item as a grenade and called it out, diving to cover. The team marksman Glowstick took this opening of seemingly hostile aggression as a reason to blow the cloaked figures hand off, partly slagging the held item. The now misbalanced figure clutched its arm and yelled to blast the squad to the others, and they started to draw weapons from under their cloaks.
They did not get to even full draw as 8-Track began firing his laspistols , a opening barrage to the four escorts, all with multiple degrees of success, including a natural 1 crit succeed, did enough damage to all of them they died in that turn, with him having dispatched the escorts he tried to hold the lead figure at gunpoint, just for Glowstick to then relieve the figure of their head with a follow up shot.
With a infinitesimal dip in the action, 8-track and Yeehaw glanced at the smoking hand, and both recognized the half melted item, a just freshly pressed Inquisitorial Rosette, but before either of them could properly panic they heard the ships mounted weapons spool up and swing into firing positions, both of them yet again diving for cover.
The ships weapon was short lived, for the same person that started the gunfight ended it, Glowstick shot down the barrel of the ships cannon and detonated its explosive round, setting off a chain reaction and causing the ship to basically split in half in flaming wreckage.
8-track then took the initiative to start framing someone else for the killing of a new inquisitor, painting a gangsign off the top of his head on the wall, not being able to think of anything he simply scrawled "Sillynannies for life" with the Partywagons paintcannon, and relieved the bodies of any ID he could find, discovering that he had killed a fireteam of Cadians, before throwing all the bodies into the burning wreckage of the ship.
Another squadmember grabbed a dataslate off the inquisitor, eventually cracking it, revealing the Inquisitors plan was apparently to share the unique tactics of one regiment with another to increase "Cohesion", The RCP, Regiment Cohesion Project, seems to now be dead in the water, at least on this end of the system.
Back at base 8-track told sergeant it would behoove them to just keep their mouth shut about the offworlders identity, but was ignored, Yeehaw then told the Lord Commissar the entire rundown of the events, including the slaughtering of valuable cadians and the basically assassination of a fresh inquisitor. Surprisingly, the squad didn't swing for this, and where instead told to just not talk about it, and let no one know it happened.
Also Slowjams deemed that everyone had earned a little R&R for recovering the 'Nid Dust, and said we could have the rest of the night off on the town. The team, mostly decided by BOOMbox and 8-Track, decided the Disco was it.
The Disco.
Arriving at the Disco the squad kind of just spread out relaxing, helmets all off, and hanging from shoulderpads by the straps, BOOMbox began doing shots at the bar at a alarming pace, Yeehaw trying to follow some of the squad to socialize and get to know them better, 8-Track found the dancefloor, Matchbox found the arcade, twitch ran off god knows where, and Glowstick just kind of stood around with his lasgun at the ready.
After a while some people filed in, about 6 guys, and at the front was the driver of the civvie Taurox we outraced, behind him was some big brute in piecemeal Carapace armour. The racer seemed to have been looking around for us to settle the score. Yeehaw tried again to be diplomatic, and went to talk to them, in his own special way, stub revolver first, holding the revolver in the gut of the racer, while the racer stated he heard that a some people got greased down at the star port.
"Yeah! That was us!" came a call from the back, Glowstick had just given up the game in the middle of a crowded disco. ***BANG***, a gunshot rang out from Yeehaws stub, and the racer dropped dead as the gunfight broke out, everyone drawing their weapons. BOOMbox took initiative this time, and in a brief flash of lucidity decide not to use explosives, and instead drew their Flamer, and scorched a pair of the gangers, and Yeehaw took down another couple with a combo of his Catachan warknife and his warhawk revolver. Matchbox tried to fire his las-uzi, but he had gotten two of them and tried to ducttape them together, a adhoc twinlink reducing his accuracy to "Lightshow". Twitch ran to engage the big one with a knife, but flubbed the attack. Finally the last one that was not the big guy dived behind the bar, and was then quickly shot by 8-track with his hotshot laspistol through the bar.
Then the big one drew his weapon, and only now does the squad realise..... The dudes a Ogryn, and draws a HY-Grade M41 Multilaser, and fires it directly at Yeehaw, and hits, rolls to see what photolength hits him, the 8th colour, pink, Quad damage, the beam is strong enough to slaughter a tank, time slows in the thumping discotech, the music blaring in the background as the beams begin to speed toward the sergeant, who is still holding the body of the first man he killed with his knife, and right before the beam hits, the Sergeant spins on his heel to the left, barely dodging the beam, as everyones ire and attention snap onto the huge brute of a ogryn, and level a equivalent amount of lasfire against the attacker, dropping the ogryn in short order, good news.... the bad news is that as he falls his hand seizes and begins to fire the multilas into ceiling , blowing huge chunks out of the ceiling as there was a few more gangers we hadn't noticed before engaging us, everyone dodging lasfire and trying not to eat a tank killer to the face, or get crushed by falling debris.
After the gunfight ends, with minimal wounds on the HY-EX side, debate breaks out on just what kept the sarge alive, 8-track of course claims it to be "THE BEAT" and that for that one moment the sarge grooved just right, against the ogryn who held no rhythm, another said just luck, a round of "The Emperor Protects" of course echoed, and some even claimed fate.
In the middle of their discussion a small street child approached them, and asked if they where the guard, the guys who beat up the bad men. The squad basically nodded their heads, and the child said good, because some bad men had kidnapped his mother and where holding her hostage and he needed help.
The Squad said they would help, and along with dragging the Multilas onto the Taurox to finally give it a real weapon mounting, got the address of the place from the kid, apparently some kind of mansion on the ****** side of town, and after making sure no one had heard over the disco music that glowstick admitted to the starport massacre, loaded up into the party wagon.
The Mansion
So the group rolls up to this place, real nice, has about 4-5 guards posted, nice suits, even nicer shooters, nice big mansion, big metal gate with fancy decoration, one dude manning the switch to open it. This is the place, and most of the team is seeing red at the idea of kidnapping, and also debate if they even should be believing the kid that the people here are up to no good, then we realise.
The guards clothing, complexion, look, how they carry themselves. These dudes are offworlders..... Hua Yuan's a dangerous place.
8-Track and Twitch pile out of the transport after a heated discussion of tactics with the sarge, and having solidified the plan, which boiled down to "Stab people until you get caught, then the truck will ram the gate and come in blasting." seemed a good course of action. 8-track easily scaled the wall and dropped into the bushes below, Twitch however was not so lucky, and got caught trying to climb it, and started causing a distraction with the guard, up until the guard drew a lasgun and pointed it at Twitch, this earned him a cut throat and a bush to lay in from 8-track, who had snuck up on him.
8-Track was still listening to his damn music at this point, with Eurobeat blaring out from his headset, so imagine the scene from predator where they are looking out in the jungle for it, but instead of clicking from the monster, its the Initial D soundtrack. the other guard on that level hears the music, and walks over to the bush to investigate, and the last thing he sees as he leans into the bush to look, is the pink visor of a very prepared stormtrooper, who jams a mono edged knife right into his eyesocket, killing him instantly, and giving him a seat right next to his ally in the bush.
With the coast clear Twitch scales the wall and they both clamber onto the roof, where 8-tracks idea was to use their Krak Grenades to breach the roof rainbow style and drop onto them, but after being reminded that there might be hostages, reconsiders. Twitch then peers over the ledge of the roof to a balcony and sees another guard, who quickly gets abducted by the squirrely guardsmen, and stabbed.
The balcony cleared the two call in a Sitrep to the rest, that they are now entering the mansion proper, and inside..... welp yeah...... women chained to walls and beds with recording equipment, so high on stims and chems that they don't even know what dimension they are in, scarring all over the place. Not wanting to get scene and get them active and give away their position the two sneak past them before calling in the situation again, and give confirmation on the events and call in to cause a distraction.
So the rest of the group tries to ram the gate, how Matchbox managed to miss the huge ass gate and slam into the solid durasteel wall we will never know, but the taurox roughly bounced off as everyone piled out but the driver and turret gunner, Yeehaw shooting the gateman square in the face mid dismount from the truck, and a large gunfight broke out infront of the mansion.
With a sufficient amount of crazy ******** going on outside twitch and 8-track began clearing the mansion room by room, before reaching a library, as 8-track began to look for evidence of what the hell was going on he got attacked by another figure in a cloak, but this one lashed out with a neon Cyan and Pink talon mutated from his arm, and 8-track put down the mutant with a shot to the heart with his hellpistol. Radioing in the strange occurrence sarge stated to secure the area, so 8-track and Twitch are gonna sit in the library a bit.
Outside during this huge ass gunfight, a Leman Russ battle tank bursts through the wall of the mansion, and begins to engage the squad, luckily it seems the gunner was either working with a old weapon, or was inexperienced, since he didn't really fire, but the Taurox spun off to get away from the battle cannon, and the tank pursued, finally BOOMbox woke up mid chase in the bed of the Partywagon and figured out what was going on. The chase led into a circular tunnel, with the tank gaining on them, seeming intent to run them over, it seemed to have been stripped of most armor and fitted with a strong engine, a speed demon of a tank.
Then the awesome happened, just as the tank would have crushed the partywagon, Matchbox slammed into the slopped tunnel wall, and looped the damn taurox, impossible you might say? these degrees of success disagree.
BOOMbox realized that the tank was missing its manhatch on top, it completely open, and tried to chuck a krak nade into the offending tank as they looped over it, and these degrees of failure stated.... the window was closed and the nade clacked back into the truck........ a fate point spent recovered from the certain death of two player characters and sent the grenade hurtling into the leman russ, vaporizing the enemy crew and disabling the tank.
With all the enemies killed the squad alerted the Arbites and returned to Slowjam.
Back to Slowjam the squad was commended for their performance, and their saving of several dozen hostages by the unidentified cult, even with the recovered corpse of the mutate it was taking time to identify the source, and 8-track and Twitch failed to mention what happened on their end after being told to secure the area, catching someone sneaking out of another room full of chained up women with his pants down, Twitch elected to first turn the man into a eunuch with a hotshot laspistol, then when told to leave no living hostiles, executed him.
The Arbites seemed more than willing to help the captives be processed and released back to their homes, after a VERY thorough investigation into if they where corrupted or not, chaos taint and whatever.
But with the leman russ scavenged by the thieving urchins that the squad basically is, and the mansion incident resolved, that was the end of the first session.
