Wait! It's dangerous out there, take two!

Year: M42.013
Location: Unknown reach of the Koronus Expanse

Five standard terran months prior the Imperial Navy beseeched lord captain Desilco and the crew of the Equinox to locate and retrieve the lost frigate Conqueror of the Depths. The ancient and storied frigate had been rumored sighted in the infinite darkness of the Koronus Expanse and these rumors floated into the Imperial information circles. The story went that Conqueror of the Depths had been captained by the ambitious rogue trader lord Dhroth during the 35th millennium. Dhroth like many of his rogue trader brethren had an unquenchable thirst for conquest and riches. Unsatisfied with the already respectable possessions and holdings he controlled in the Calixis sector Dhroth ventured farther into the Koronus Expanse than any have ever dared to go. Alas, poor Dhroth was never heard from or seen again. It was not all for naught though, Dhroth may be long lost to the Halo Stars but his legend lives on at the dinner parties of nobles and ghost stories of children. Many stories have been spun about Dhroth and the treasures he wrested from the grips of unspeakable xenos horrors and it was these stories that piqued the Imperial Navy's interest in Dhroth's long lost vessel. Unable to justify dispatching their own forces so far from the domain of the Imperium they brokered a deal with lord Desilco; in return for the successful retrieval of the Conqueror of the Depths the Imperial Navy would refit the Equinox with two rare and highly prized staravar macrocannons.

Four standard terran months later the Equinox was fitted with two lovely archeotech macrocannons and lord captain Desilco had his eyes on a prize. In the process of recovering Dhroth's lost frigate the resident tech-priest of the Equinox discovered an old yet well preserved data slate containing a list of coordinates and names. After much deliberation Desilco and his councilors came to the conclusion that this list pointed towards artifacts of interest to Dhroth, artifacts he had either sold or was unable to obtain for reasons unknown. Always interested in great and even xenos artifacts, Desilco decided to set sail to the Halo Stars in pursuit of these enticing and unknown treasures..

The Equinox moved to her captain's will and thirty days later here you are.
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None of the councilors are too far from the bridge when summons are made through the public voxcasters "Master Helmsman Sky, Enginseer Prime Karitoss, Choir-Master Hig, Warp Guide Novalaz and Ergelhsutr Vnqsrudf are summoned to the bridge for an emergency assembly of councilors." You gather that the utterance of "Grodok Thescalper" is a mispronunciation of a certain xenos dwelling on board the Equinox. Do you proceed immediately to the bridge or do you attend to another matter first?

GRONK hears the message, but decides to go back to sleep instead. He rolls over onto his attack squig, killing it. His minder, used to the deaths of many a squig, makes sure to water the squig-growing pot before dragging GRONK through the halls of the ship to the bridge.

So it is that no matter is more urgent than the urgent assembly. Each and every one of you journey to the bridge with haste. Before any councilor has the moment to inquire to the reason for the sudden summons one of the voidsmen operating the communications array speaks out "I am relaying the new vox-cast sir". For a second there is an unpleasant mechanical crackle, then a human voice begins being projected into the room: "Tis is captain Bolog of ta Thorned Courtesan demaunding ya powur down all unessential systems en' make ready to be ransacked. Ya 'ave half en' hour or get torn in ta two."

Without pause Desilco addresses the assembly of councilors "What say any of you to Bollock's "demaunds" "?

[Include a visual description of your character and any background details everyone would know about your character.]

A robed man named Joachim Hig, pale and lanky, stares in the direction opposite of where everyone is with his sun-glassed eyes. Various questionably legitimate charms hung from his robes on one of his many belts, as he held out his hands in prayer. A long, messy mane of hair covered most of his face and back, hiding the scars of weathering and toil on his face.
"I say we respond with the gracious Hymns of the Emperor! That should show them the light."

GRONK DA ESKAPPER is a large ork, standing nearly 6 and a half feet tall. His right side is covered in some foul smelling slime. Most of you probably have learned that it is squished squig by now. His minder, Gobsnack Snaggleteef, follows behind him, keeping careful watch that he does not bolt for freedom.

"I say its a gud tim fur a fite!!!  I ain't heard of da Thorny Slut befour.  U no da Thorny Slut, Gobsnack?!"  This is directed to his minder.  "Dem orkies won't no wat hit 'em."

Enginseer Prime Genji Karitoss evenly glides across the room, as if on a skimmer instead of legs.
Short, tousled gray hair graces the crown of the head, reaching close to 6 feet above the floor. Heavily lidded eyes rest in the midst of an otherwise featureless face, devoid of any facial hair below the forehead. The jaw is lined with a red metallic substance, tapering down into a sharp point at the chin. An oversized turquoise shawl is draped over broad shoulders, obscuring the majority of the torso from view. A dataslate is held in the left hand, from which numerous silvery thin tendrils spring to rapidly probe and ply the slate. Perched on the right shoulder is a strange avian device, perfectly still and silent. His lower body is clad in night-black, with no indication of where the leggings end and the footwear begins.

The Tech-Priest opens his mouth, and language emerges.
"It is a good thing we do not have any unessential systems to power down. I express pride in our vessel's high energy efficiency. Let us inform gentleman Bolog that we are currently enacting a complete disembarkation, leaving ship and stores intact to ransack as he pleases."

He remembers that GRONK does not have the best understanding of human subtleties, and clarifies that no disembarkation will actually take place.

"We must needs prepare for combat as a matter of course, preferably making the first strike. The most perceptive among us should conduct a thorough augury on the Thorned Courtesan, so that we may know what exactly will be tearing us in twain."

"Voidsman, can you locate and range Mr. Bollock's ship?"

Tristan Sky, A wiry, mahogany skinned man decked in black and silver guard flak armour leans with disinterest against a control panel he probably shouldn't be. His uncaring face adorned with a single scar stretching across his left cheek, topped with a mat of brown hair, seems to say, "I can't believe they called me up here for this sht." As he rocks forward to his feet, he blows a wayward lock from his eyes and offers Bolog a profane gesture before starting towards his battle station with impressive speed. He's seen plenty of combat before and that's not about to change any time soon.

As soon as Tristan gets into the helmsman's seat and reaches for the controls, his aggravated demeanor melts away as he slides into a blur of knob turning and button pressing. Without a second thought he scans for nearby hostiles (rolls 59 out of 79 scrutiny for two degrees of success) and reports to the assembled councilors in a calculating voice, though not untouched by a hint of excitement.

Tristan analyzes the blips and beeps of the augur array terminal and concludes the Thorned Courtesan is fifteen void units to the ten o'clock of the Equinox.

Desilco smiles, and then speaks: "You make me proud esteemed councilors, captain Bolog and his crew will learn what it means to do battle with Equinox". The lord-captain proceeds to bark out orders "Quickly! Arm the staravar macrocannons, alert the crewmembers, You! Voidsman! Aid Master Helmsman Sky with preliminary auguries of the "Thorny Slut" and the rest of you do whatever it is I pay you fortunes to do!" He chuckles to himself, perhaps in scintillating anticipation of the upcoming bloodshed.

Perform any appropriate operations or preparations before the beginning of combat now.
*[Wyatt is playing for lord-captain Desilco but he is at the beach so I am running the lord-captain for now. I'm trying to keep his words somewhat bland to avoid giving the character a personality Wyatt is unhappy with.]

Tristan turns haughtily to the nearby voidsman. "Buckle up and enjoy the show, you're in for a hellofa ride." He leans down close to the controls and whispers, "ready for another go Lady Equinox?" before sweeping over the augur array again (rolls 37 against 79).

"Ready the archeocannons," he barks commandingly, "approaching firing range!"

Almost as if in response to your whisper the Equinox flickers the terminals of the bridge like a fair maiden's blush. With masterful skill and mental dexterity Tristan Sky parses information returned through the augur array that would appear alien to all others except perhaps the enginseer. After only several minutes of inspecting the specifications of the Thorned Courtesan Tristan delivers the data to the machine spirit of the holo-table in front of lord-captain Desilco's seat.

Designation: UY559-3P83E-OSACODE1424
Class: Hazeroth Raider

Weapons Systems:
Prow: Mars Macrobattery
Dorsal: Mars Macrobattery

Deviations from STC:
Reinforced Interior Bulkheads

Roll for combat initiative, let the cannons roar.

The Equinox springs into action without warning. The Jovian pattern plasma drives flare and the whole of the ship hums to the their sound, the sound of war. In less than a minute a startled vox transmission is delivered through the bridge vox systems: "Wutta meaning a dis?! You tryin to get one ova on us?! We gonna tear you a fresh hole boy-o's!". There was as much fear as anger in captain Bolog's transmission and it is obvious to all on the bridge that the sniveling brat hasn't the faintest idea what he has gotten himself into.

"We would fly like the wind, but the wind is slow compared with our current speeds, and cannot exist in a vacuum."
Against his better judgement, Karitoss links with the Equinox and aids the machine spirit. [it worked but did nothing]

With the blessings of enginseer Karitoss the Equinox moved with a little more grace and a little more poise than normal for the majestic vessel. Every little bit counted too, Tristan was about to attempt a daring maneuver to give his space born home a vicious turn while maintaining full speed. He believed the Equinox could succeed, he believed that he could succeed. Unfortunately neither belief nor tech-priest blessing was enough. The Equinox could not withstand the change in accelerations and bearing and in a nauseated rebuttal moved forward into the face of her enemy.

As the Equinox pulled close to Thorned Courtesan the void bound psykers choir-master Joachim Hig and GRONK DA ESKAPPA manned the dorsal and prow staravar cannons. They unleashed batteries of laser fire unto the Thorned Courtesan but with little success. Because of the prolonged funk of the Equinox from Tristan's previously failed maneuver Joachim was incapable of even overloading the foe's voidshields. GRONK mashed button and do-hickey and miraculously landed two laser blasts on the enemy but while one temporarily overloading their voidshield and the other was entirely deflected by adamantium armor.

It is now the Thorned Courtesan's turn to strike and strike it most certainly would. The Hazeroth class raider charges just out of close range with the Equinox and soaks her in two assaults of macrobattery fire. Enormous shells pound down on the walls around the councilor. By the time the initial battery assault is finished three hull damage is inflicted upon the Equinox.

It is the crew of the Equinox's turn once again.

"Alright Lady, let's show 'em what you can do." Tristan calls out to the crew, "I'll keep us at a safe distance while we blast 'em, this will be over in no time!" (attempts a Come to New Heading [rolls 80 against 70] but the pesky voidsman breathing at his side fumbled one too many controls and the manoeuvre fails) "Idiot! Go bother someone else!" (Tristan has the ship move half its speed as default).

Desilco currently sitting upon his captains chair clad in one of his fancier garbs a navy blue jacket and pants with golden epaulets and silver trimming with his black xenos pelt cloak of various furs around his left side utters a laugh at the first attempted maneuvers against the pirates.

He smiles over at Tristan and says to him "How nice of you to give the smelly bastards a fighting chance. If you wouldn't mind however I'd like it if they didn't scratch the paint."

"Karitoss be on standby to deal with any damages that their macrocannons might do to my ship."

Hig focuses his energies upon all the crew, linking their consciousnesses together.

Tristan turns back to his lord-captain with humility and respect, "Yes sir! Don't worry that pretty little jacket of yours, I've got them right where I want them." Tristan turns back to his control panel smiling as the Equinox unleashes its full fury at the enemy before sliding smoothly behind its unarmed aft and rearing for another assault. Tristan attempts to lock on (rolls 81 against 79), is less successful than he'd like, but nevertheless leans back in his chair as pieces of enemy hull come hurtling off.

Karitoss attempts to calculate firing trajectories but gets a headache. "Perhaps some soothing music will cure my ails," he says, and activates the ship's broadband hymn-casters.

Desilco tries to rally the crew to greater heights but his speech is wholly unmotivating.

Novalaz sees Karitoss in pain outside the operating station for the staravar macrocannons and rushes to his aid. "Rest Karitoss, you and your wit are an irreplaceable commodity on this ship. Here, I shall operate the armaments while you recover." The navigator enters the weapons complex and fires off a salvo of macrobattery fire at Thorned Courtesan. Novalaz takes advantage of the proximity of the enemy and shatters their armor with the salvo of cannon fire. He does 18 hull integrity damage to the Thorned Courtesan.

Under vicious fire from Vektross and the archeocannons captain Bolog orders his crew to create some space between the Thorned Courtesan and the Equinox. Captain Bolog tries to send a vox transmission to captain Desilco of the Equinox but for reasons unknown to them (and well known to you) their vox-casting systems are partly scrambled and their outgoing messages are too corrupted to be understood. The Thorned Courtesan does pull off an amazing change in bearing as it prepares to circle around and send forth another volley of battery fire.

It is now your turns.

Tristan turns to Desilco again, "We've got our cannons penetrating their asses and I'm not about to let them change that" adjusting the ships bearing (rolls 41 against 80) he coolly maintains the ship's superior positioning and lets the assault continue unabated.

Hig focuses for a second to send a telepathic message to the enemy ship, but fails to achieve concentration.

The crew of the Equinox sets up Novalaz for another brutal close range macrobattery salvo assault but the navigator is unable to reproduce his previous success even with the inspiring leadership of Desilco. Though one threatening shot finds its way through the voidshield of the Thorned Courtesan it has no effect on her armor.

Still incapable of sending or receiving vox-communications the Thorned Courtesan creates even more distance between her and her hunter.

It is now your turns.

After a short nap Karitoss wakes up with a pleasant demeanor, seeing that the battle is nearly won. "So it's true, you can indeed sleep off anything." He deactivates the hymn-casters, for there could be no sweeter sound than hearing the surrender of your defeated enemies.

Novalaz continues firing off salvos of macrocannon fire and continues to miss with the great majority of the shots. The navigator's frustration is quite audible and can even be heard in the restrooms more than three blocks away.

Finally, Desilco takes some form of pity on his cowering enemies and tasks GRONK with hailing them and demanding their surrender. When captain Bolog responds to vox-communication you can all hear loud yelling the background. Multiple different very angry sounding voices are screaming inanities at each other and you can swear by the emperor that someone might be getting murdered over there. Captain Bolog addresses Desilco and the councilors "Capitan Desilco! Wha' are your demaunds, anytin but da ship, anytin, anytin pless!"

"Wha about Dakka-Dakka?"

"Is ... is ... is than an ORK!!"

"Yeh be gud ork too! Got swupah kolektion uv teef. Anywhosit cap'n got "deee-mounds". E' wants ur shiny bits and teef. No teef ... aND EVURYWHEN GETS IT."

The orkish babble clearly has some effect on captain Bology because after GRONK is done with his intimidation all communications with the Thorned Courtesan become blocked off and the vessel starts taking off. The Thorned Courtesan gives it her very best to move at flank speed but her crew could not keep up with the demand it put on her engines. In a sudden burst of plasma the voidship's plasma drives are completely wrecked and the ship has a speed of 1.

The Thorned Courtesan slows to a near stop. Combat is over. All participants gain 100 xp.

Desilco raises his hand and finger and waves it in the air following the ups and downs in the music like a music conductors baton. While doing so he voxes to those manning the new guns

"We should keep the fire from the batteries as one large field of fire so as to best pierce their defences"

He then looks over and says to Tristan and says "get us outside their range where we can use our superior speed and range to whittle them down"

[I give however fires the concerted blast a +10 fas rogue trader buff]

Karitoss re-enters the bridge. "Another triumph to our name." he declares, gazing through the viewport at the crippled ship. "A fantastic display, wouldn't you agree, gronk?"
He turns to the councilors. "Let's head on over and see if we can't help out the poor fleshbags with their engine trouble. And perhaps obtain a new hull."

"Lord Captain, they have already surrendered. We should grant them the chance for quarter."

Desilco taps his fingers on his chair contemplating for a moment. He then clears his throat and says

"No we will not be going over to help them. We will bring the Equinox behind them and demand their captain come to our ship for a meeting... I'm thinking a nice dinner of whatever the cook served last week it was certainly a personal favorite of mine. If they do not agree we shall bombard them and ask again"

Tristan looks a little disappointed as the engines wind down and the thrill of battle quickly dissipates. "Sorry Captain, they just made it too easy for me. How could I refuse such a warm invitation to that juicy raider ass? It's okay, now we get to the next best part: hearing them whine."

"Oy metalboy Kareeetoss, my name be GRONK!!!!  and why dese punee humies talk da ork talk.  We need dere teef. Show 'em how a true orkie fightz."

Then to the Lord Captain, "Cappy, I have fud for eatzing. My squig be growin' soon. Go get it, Gobsnark" (He is trying to trick away his minder.)

"Gronk you are not too fight with them should they come to parley. Unless of course they pick a fight then you can show them "how da orkz fightz""

Desilco then addresses the rest of the council

"Lets get the ship into position first and see what their response is."

Gobsnark yells as loudly as possible "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! You no trick me! I minderz you till da end o' time!"

The Equinox pulls up close to the Thorned Courtesan and sends a vox-transmission inquiring to the possibility and conditions of parley. You have to wait an hour before any response is given. Finally, someone answers your queries "Ey, you be the ones who shot us up right? Well we ad it with all dis captain busyness. We dun taken powa into our hands. First we offed da creep with the third eye and then we had a grand old time lynching captain Bollocks and his "adveesors". So we 'ope you understand tha' this ain't any of your busyness, good day sirs." The transmission line is closed.

"My apologies GRONK, I will remember the appropriate volume to speak your name at."
Karitoss remembers his Lord Captain understands the subtleties of language as well as GRONK does.
"Desilco, what do you think of clearing out the defeated enemies from their vessel and claiming it for our own?"

"Cappan! Put GRONK back on da line. He'll show dem punee humies to give us da teef and da shinee bitz. We can nok em to peeses."

Desilco stands up and walks down from his chair with his power sword in one hand and examining the sharpness of the blade. Once he reaches the bottom he looks at Karitoss and asks him

"Is there any way we could place a precise shot on their ship to destroy their atmospheric control or depressurization their ship without much damage? I understand the scan of the vessel was successful."

One of the voidsmen on the bridge answers Desilco's question: "Our apologies sir, we cannot accurately cause depressurization without a high possibility of causing other more serious damages to the vessel."

"Perhaps it is time we raid the enemy vessel?"

"YAAAAH!!! Send over me an GobSmack. We kan bop dem humies for ya."

"Hm, a damn shame" Desilco continues examining the blade before he looks up from it and says to everyone

"We did not come here for a new ship and this would only act as a liability to our cause having our men split between the two. Therefore we'll destroy them and scavenge what resources we can from the wreckage."

Desilco turns back to his chair and slowly walks up to it

"Send a message to the scum on board the ship that we will destroy them in fifteen standard minutes once we get to a safe distance. We can scavenge amongst the fleeing ships for some people to interrogate for information. Once we're done we'll kill the remaining men. We'll see to it they get the fate they deserve for their crime of attempted thievery"

"BUt sir, if we keel dem, we dont get no shiny bitz!" and suddenly a moment of realization washes across GRONK's face. "AND NO TEEF!!!!1!!!"

"Of course lord-captain. With your permission, I'll run one last scan as we pull away for the coup de grace."

[I won't be posting anymore tonight/this morning because it is 5:45 AM, you are free to roleplay (encouraged and bonus xp is dispensed) but there won't be any progression of events until 12 or 13 hours from now.]

Desilco takes his seat back in his chair and says "lets see it done. And someone send for a bottle of wine to celebrate the victory and see to it all the men get a good meal today as well"

He then pulls out his dataslate and starts to write something in it (A note of the events) but looks up at GRONK and says "oh and GRONK I wouldn't concern yourself with not getting a good fight. I think we've only just begun"

"I just hope we get da shinies Cap'n. Mor shinies and mor teef meen mor squigs an hapee snotlings for diiner"

"Sir, we have an absolute advantage in terms of boarding currently. We can easily wipe out their crew."

As crew of the Equinox prepares to launch a boarding attack on soon to be prize Tristan runs an exceptionally thorough scan on the enemy ship. He notices an interior living quarter of the Thorned Courtesan is built in a different manner than the rest of the ship. Upon a rigorous analysis of the dimensions of those quarters he understands that the Thorned Courtesan sports a barracks. Tristan knows this has serious implications for the boarding action that is about to commence and so he conveys this information to the lord-captain and his other councilors.

"In that case, maybe we should fire another volley to further reduce their numbers."

[We weren't preparing for boarding more like preparing for their annihilation]

"As these scans show it'd be too much effort to try and take the ship. If anyone is feeling particularly heroic today and can take the ship by themselves then by all means go to their ship. I will not commit our resources to such a risky endeavor"

[Vote on Roll20 on whether to fire a volley, attempt a boarding action, or continue onwards.]