DragonRage

"I? I only asked the Avenger itself to assist us, and should it prove reluctant, for the God-Emperor to intercede with it on our behalf. Judging by the enthusiastic response of this vessel's mighty machine-spirit, the Emperor likely did not have to act. You are a lucky man, doctor, as is your crew. The Avenger must care for you greatly to give such a response, even with its own existence on the line," The warrior nun smiles, gently patting a nearby bulkhead, "I would strongly suggest a full maintenance overhaul, high grade fuel, and if you have any available upgrades to this vessel's systems to express your gratitude for its actions. All machine-spirits that serve humanity deserve honor and respect, but ones this enthusiastically helpful are rare. As the only ordained clergy on this vessel, I strongly recommend that you repay the Avenger's diligence and service to the best of your abilities. Now, unless you have anything I might assist you with in the repairs, I believe I should join the assault on that cannon. Being the best-qualified of our group to repair a starship's reactor is not the same as being qualified to repair a starship's reactor, and even with the machine-spirit's aid, projects this large and complex are a bit out of my comfort zone."

"I hear you, Harry," Sister Rachel reports in over her voxcaster, "I am with Aquila at the hull breach, and we are in grave straits. The ship's reactor is badly damaged, there is a huge cannon pointed right at it, and we have no backup. I thought I was a bit overdue for a last stand. I am attempting to assist in repairs while Aquila distracts the cannon crew, but he has no backup and I am not a tech priest, and I've never worked on a system this big before. Reinforcements would be greatly appreciated, as would an actual tech priest to help repair the reactor."

"Emperor preserve us, the reactor's been damaged," Rachel observes with horror, "If that cannon hits us again, the ship will be destroyed, but it might go be anyway with this much damage. Friend Aquila, please do what you can to reach and destroy that cannon. Of the two of us, I am by far the most qualified to help keep the Avenger from exploding. may the God-Emperor and this vessel's machine spirit guide my hands, for if they do not we will all likely die." Assuming Aquila goes along with this she approaches the reactor and the frantic doctor on the consoles. Rachel has never served on a starship before, but she has worked on power sources. Wounded Astartes and inquisitors don't always take off their powered armor before seeking medical attention, even if that armor has a reactor breach, and she's done maintenance on her own armor's power supply before. "Please, honorable machine spirit, I know not what litanies you are accustomed to," She calls out to the Avenger itself as she heads for the reactor controls, "But you and your crew are in grave danger, under attack by horrible xenos and their artillery! As you depend on us, we depend on you, for if either fails, we shall all surely be destroyed. Please, give us a sign, great machine! Guide our hands, that we might bring you back to good repair and smite these xenos from the face of Holy Terra!" A bit hammy, maybe, but all strong machine-spirits are total drama queens, and eat up that sort of thing. It's like dealing with nobles, except with actual gratitude when you do things the spirit likes.

"The ship's under attack! Get ready to repel boarders!" Sister Rachel shouts, stowing her sword in favor of her flamethrower, "The ship's power supply is compromised, which means we're either about to fall out of the sky and die, or have hostile company! We need to find where they breached, and kick them off the ship so repairs can be made! Failing that, we need to protect the medical bays. Xenos scum always go after the wounded."

This is going to end exceptionally well, or exceptionally badly.

I have a character! Deck:

"As far as they're concerned, it isn't about beating me. It's about beating me at a children's card game," Tor analyzes, "If they did it any other way, it wouldn't count. Or something. That's how their leader feels at least, and he tends to run a tight ship."

Sister Rachel, spooked by the large amount of close quarters combat with things easily capable of eviscerating her without the support she's used to, decides something has to be done to help fix that. She takes her Nemesis Force Sword and communes with its machine-spirit. She isn't expecting much, as the spirits of Astartes weapons are always prima donna drama queens who refuse to work with anyone who doesn't meet their exacting standards. However, to her surprise the ancient sword seems to have gotten over her not being a Space Marine and agreed to cooperate. Emperor yeah! Resting the sword, which would be a light shortsword for a Space Marine but is a bulky claymore for an ordinary mortal, Rachel goes and tracks Aquila down. "Hail, friend Aquila! I have appeased the machine-spirit of this mighty blade, and it has agreed to serve me! However, I fear I've gotten a bit rusty. It's been a while since I last wielded a sword. Perhaps you might be willing to assist me in honing my skills once again?"

Kyra chooses to reveal her presence at this time. "Well done, Jill. I'm glad I didn't have to step in. However, we aren't done here yet. There isn't anything stopping those trash pirates from returning once we leave. Either they don't escape, or we make it clear to them that attempting to take their anger out on these people would not be wise."

"I'd say we have to get that card before the (sigh) Card Emperors do, though I'm fairly certain they couldn't get to it if they tried," Tor states, "But whoever owns that flying fortress might be misusing the thing. It's probably counterfeited too, if it's as powerful as it sounds. Do we know anything about what we can expect inside? Or if anything might try to keep us from getting in?"

Izumi Nakamura

"If we went to the Imperium as we are now, and attempted to bring about meaningful change, we would all die," Sister Rachel states, "Even assuming we could convince the Imperium of our good intentions, which I believe is possible, the moment the forces of chaos thought we might have a chance of succeeding they would dispatch servants against us that we have no hope of defeating. All of us together might best a single traitor Astartes, I think, with... fifty percent casualties. Acceptable losses by any metric considering the damage a chaos Space Marine can do. Traitor marines usually deploy in squads of five, frequently led by a Terminator, Techmarine, or sorcerer to add extra punch to their formation. If they truly wish for us to die ignominiously, it might even be a Techmarine sorcerer in Terminator Armor. Our numbers, skills, power, and wargear are utterly insufficient for this task. Perhaps one day... No, I dare not allow myself that measure of hope. Too often have I seen it snatched from me so that chaos may laugh at my folly."

"My world is terrible," Sister Rachel confirms, "Most of the gods that are not in any way evil were killed and in most cases eaten by the chaos gods. And most of those that remain are of the Eldar, who are so self-centered that they value a single life of their own kind over billions of human civilians. The only god worthy of anything more than cautious respect for the danger they and their followers pose is the God-Emperor of Mankind. I have utmost faith in his divinity and benevolence, but all too often do his avowwed servants disguise their own corrupt intentions under layers of carefully-chosen dogma. There is also the Omnissiah of the Adeptus Mechanicus, but they still haven't come to an agreement as to whether the Omnissiah and the God-Emperor are the same being, or whether the Omnissiah is willing or even able to intercede on their behalf. And the events of the Horus Heresy long ago have shackled the God-Emperor to his Golden Throne, a shadow of what he once was. "The details have been lost, or in some cases deliberately covered up, but if the Emperor still possessed the full measure of his power and vitality I am certain he would have left the Imperial Palace at least once in the ten thousand years since his son Horus betrayed him. The God-Emperor's loyal sons are scattered, dead, or in stasis to ward off death from mortal wounds. His traitorous sons, who followed Horus into chaos worship, are still nearly all active. Horus at least is assuredly dead, and Mortarion hasn't done anything since the Heresy. But no, there is little hope, and if there was it would only bring us closer to ruin. Tzeentch is the god of hope, after all, and to hope too ardently is to give him a direct vox-line to your soul." Based on looks, Sister Rachel couldn't be older than twenty-five, but her words seem to be aging her as she speaks. "I could not even speak of these things where I still in the Imperium, without falling to Nurgle or being assassinated for treason and heresy, but the Imperium is falling apart. The Primarchs are gone, the Mechanicus barely understands the technology it maintains for us, even mass-produced small arms from ancient times are irreplaceable assets, the greatest among the Astartes and Guardsmen die far faster than they can be replaced, and the damn bugs and fungus-beasts scavenge from the corpses of our shattered worlds, carving up the Imperium's remains like a First Founding roast! And who would help us? The Eldar? Those self-centered assholes see humans as lower than animals! The Tau? They're being mind controlled by leaders they call Ethereals, and trying to brainwash as many humans as they can get to serve on suicide squads! And the Necrons are literal soul-eating abominations! "Perhaps... Perhaps if the Salamanders Chapter were to find the rest of the lost relics of Vulkan, and their Primarch were to return to us, the Imperium might rally. Even one of the Emperor's sons might turn the tide, especially Vulkan, the brightest and most moral of the loyal survivors. Or knowing how life goes, he would soon be forced to lay down his life for the preservation of the Imperium, and then we would be left even worse off than before. Worse yet, the Salamanders have been brought to the brink of annihilation a dozen times, and no one else has the expertise to handle Vulkan's treasures. That is the only path that avoids the extinction of humanity that I can see, and it hangs by a thread so tenuous that we might only be allowed it so that one malevolent piece of trash or another can enjoy our despair when that thread snaps. Oh, humanity will not go easily or swiftly into death. We will make the xenos, and the heretic, and the abominations of the warp pay for every inch of ground, every life we spend, but that is a price they can afford to pay. "No, the only hope that the Imperium has now is that humanity exists in other universes, free of all that would drive us to ruin in our own. Even when we fall, humanity will endure, our executioners none the wiser."

"You haven't seen the most common evidence of the warp, and it's statistically incredibly unlikely that you'd only meet people both lucky and skilled enough to avoid that fate," Sister Rachel reasons. "And these PDF people have been trying to train psykers. They'd be far more wary of daemons and spontaneous cranial detonation if there was any chance of them happening without deliberate malicious intent. And that means... There's no warp. The warp is a unique feature of my own universe. Praise the Emperor, there's no warp! Hahaha!" Grinning widely, the armored nun flicks the safeties on her inferno pistols, "I don't have to constantly keep an eye on you lot in case you start screaming about how you feel the warp overtaking you and it is a good pain! I won't have to execute any of you to keep you from killing us all by mistake! No chaos cultists, no warp storms, no asshole space elves... The only enemies of humanity are ones that die when they are killed! Unless this is the Paradise that awaits the faithful after death. Considering the state of the Imperium, it wouldn't surprise me as much as I wish it would that heaven is enemies that stay dead."

"You haven't seen evidence of the Warp, Frigus? But that's... It would mean..." Sister Rachel trails off, mumbling to herself, eyes drifting toward the ceiling, before snapping back to Frigus. "Everyone, I have a very important question for any of you who have experience with witches, sorcerers, and other sorts of supernatural being. Have any of them ever been in danger of cranial explosions as a side effect of using their abilities? Not because they made a mistake and conjured fire inside their own skull or something of that nature, but just because the source of their powers wasn't feeling cooperative today?"

"Of course ya didn't! You ain't got any bits they could use in there!" Tiffany exclaims, her accent thickening a bit. Behind her, her SCVs start jacking her bent midsection up while others swarm over it with welding torches and replacement struts. "Ah'm glad Ah ain't dead, but Ah saved hundreds a lives, and Ah ain't sorry for that at all."

"Ah didn't know what half them words you said mean without looking them up, gear rat," Tiffany protests, annoyed, "But Ah'd like to see you do a better job getting off planet with a head wound and a buncha scrap while getting attacked by Zerg."

"Tzeentch is one of the four so-called gods of chaos, each more loathsome than the last, who dwell in the Warp, source of all psychic powers. Tzeentch exists for change. Even when things are working well, if they have stood still for long he will attempt to alter them. And before you think that this doesn't sound so bad in your ignorance, that includes the workings and forms of his followers' own bodies and minds. Not for improvement, but for change's sake alone. Democracies are inherently dynamic, and so both feed him and give him extra ways to insert his cultists into the government's inner workings. Introduce not changes until you are certain they will be a boon to mankind, lest you indulge his needlessly-complex machinations. "Since none of you have apparently been educated on the dangers of the warp, I suppose I ought to explain the others. Khorne exists for violence. Not war, not justice, but endless, bloody rage and slaughter. To lose oneself in the thrill of battle is to give oneself to him, and to fight until all else is left in ruin. Or you die. It's usually the second one, because bloodthirsty fury doesn't lend itself to tactics or caution. Forget not why you fight, or his rage will consume you forever. "Slaanesh exists for pleasure, and of course takes it to as grotesque extremes as the others do their favored concept. Twisted, slavering addicts desperate to feel ever-greater 'highs' are its followers, to the point that they crave pain and suffering as much as anything else. Overindulge not in the things you enjoy, for moderation shall protect your soul. "Nurgle exists for decay, and to keep things the way they are. That means no bathing, shaving, washing, curing diseases, or anything else that might prolong or improve one's life. Of course, if you please him, you'll live through all that in constant plagued misery. Things won't get better and unless you already had lost all hope, they will get worse. Abandon not hope, or he will accept you into his twisted family. And then rot some of your extremities and organs off. "Fortunately, unless you do something especially heroic or likely to improve the quality of life for a lot of people, the chaos gods aren't going to bother with personally ruining your life. So don't be a pervert, a coward, a bloodthirsty maniac, or a populist and you should be fine. The higher profile your exploits get, the more careful you have to be to avoid anything that might invite them into your soul. Oh, and be incredibly careful when using psychic powers. If you screw up, you'll open a portal into the warp, and then a daemon servant of one of the chaos gods will erupt from your head and start killing everything."

"Indoctrinated? Hah! Of course I'm indoctrinated! The Imperium of Man is many things. Subtle is not one of them," Sister Rachel admits, "My first memories are of being beaten by the drill-Abbots of my Schola Progenium, first for failing to memorize scripture to his satisfaction, and then for failing to defend myself from his attacks with my own staff. My entire life has been naught but prayer, study, and service on the field of battle. Because as you say, the future is grim. Mankind is beset by enemies on all sides, who would enslave or slay us to the last, and for all our cunning, faith, and might, we are losing a long, slow battle of attrition against numberless foes. I bind myself to the Imperium by choice now, for there is no other option save death and damnation. A totalitarian regime is not the only way to run a government, I suppose. As long as you acknowledge that democracies will inevitably transform into a Tzeentchian cult and attempt to destroy all that the pure hold dear, despots inevitably fall to Khorne's rage, feudal systems are incredibly inefficient, and even the Tau admit that communism doesn't work."

"Hey! It's not like Ah had a choice," Tiffany grumbles, "Ah'm a tactical advisor, not an engineer. If Ah'd had a professional to wire up my core and code my control software for this ship, Ah woulda had them do it insteada tryin' it myself. Ah should be good for raw materials. Ah'm not getting any high density crystalline minerals, but my SCVs are finding enough ores and organic material in the ground to fix me up." Freya is able to shift the soil covering the rest of Tiffany's superstructure with some effort, and more SCVs and spider drones immediately swarm over the uncovered areas, some welding patches over damaged sections of armor while others start constructing a massive jack under the thinnest part of her spaceframe.

"I cannot disagree, young one," Lexiel smiles at the kid, leaving off the card game as more pressing matters present themselves, "If everyone treated others with kindness, fairness, and respect, I could retire. My skills would no longer be needed. I cannot speak for the angels you have met in the past, but if angels they truly were, I am certain they would have helped you if they could. It seems that you have gone through great hardship, but you have weathered those trials and escaped, yes? That shows that you are strong. In your mind, your spirit, and your heart. From a tiny spark, a great blaze can flare. "Eh? Afterlife?" Lexiel turns toward the newcomer, a friendly smile on her face. "No, you're still among the living. I'm the kind of angel that smites the unjust, not the kind that deals with taking people to their eternal rest. And you seem to have been chosen to aid in the battle against a great enemy, same as most of us here. There is a great force that seems to be gathering heroes to fight beings of great power and malice. These creatures have gone by many names, but the most common are Eldrazi, or Trespassers. They wish to consume all. Good, evil, angel, demon, it makes no difference. If it exists, they can and will destroy it. No world is safe. But they can be beaten. For all their power, they bleed like anything else. So don't worry, you're in good company. Our enemies are mighty, but our allies are too. "From Prague, you said? A beautiful city; I remember it fondly, from my last visit to Earth. They had some fascinating clocks."

"I couldn't say for sure if Twitch would still be alive if he wasn't so alert to potential dangers," Sister Rachel admits, "But it's my considered opinion as a Sister Hospitaller that he wouldn't have needed to survive three heart attacks if he'd been able to relax more. Chronic stress might not kill as quickly as a bolter or an unsanctioned psyker, but it kills all the same. Of course, knowing that doesn't automatically help you de-stress, but to not inform you of the danger would violate my oaths. I- Wait, wait, wait. You have alternatives to totalitarianism. And they haven't collapsed into anarchy, genestealers, Tau-funded insurgents, or Tzeentchian cultists yet? Emperor lend us speed, we need to get word to your home universe right away! Those ticking time bombs are one daemon away from destroying everything you hold dear!"

"That is a very good question, and one people tend to disagree on greatly," Lexiel admits, "But if nothing else, the wings and halo make me more qualified to give an answer than most. Justice can be a lot of things, which complicates the issue. But, render it down to its most basic parts... Justice is when everyone receives fair and equal treatment, both under the law and not. Repay good with good, misdeeds with deterrence, so that everyone gets their due. It's not always easy to know what is just, but everyone owes it to themselves and their peers to try. The only people who don't benefit from justice are those who have gathered profit from the suffering of others."

"I knew a guy a lot like you, Nader, back when I was serving with the Guard," Sister Rachel, having finished up applying first aid to the wounded, sits down next to Nader, her powered armor creaking as she leans against the bulkheads, "He thought if he gave us his real name, the orks could find him easier, so we just called him Twitch. Best demolitions tech I ever worked with. His traps saved hundreds of lives when a bunch of chaos cultists snuck through our lines and tried to hit the hospital tents, when everyone else thought our wounded were in a safe position. He also only avoided maiming dozens of allies because his friends were handy with a tranq dart and good at talking him down when he had an episode. "Point is, he was an excellent Guardsman and a true hero of the Imperium. He had twelve traitor Astartes kills to his name. The angels of the God-Emperor, if fallen into ruin, and though human he removed twelve of them from the world personally. Twelve! But I greatly doubt his life held much happiness. He saw enemies around every corner, in every place, and even at times under the skins of his closest friends. When I met him, he looked half again his actual age. We have not known each other for long, but I have seen you to be a skilled and stalwart defender of humanity in the face of great danger, and a path where enemies lurk in every shadow... I do not think that is a path you wish to see the end of. "And for the record, if you have not a power weapon or melta, as I do, taking an armored vehicle on in melee combat is a spectacularly terrible idea. You won't harm it, and it will almost certainly harm you. Everyone dies someday, but to meet the God-Emperor before he calls you is a great sin. It deprives him of the service you might have given humanity before your death."

"An angle? If I was one, I'd definitely be obtuse," Lexiel jokes, "But you're right. I don't think anyone here is an angle. I'm (sigh) an Archangel. I think I'm supposed to introduce myself by telling people to 'fear not' or something, but being distant like that isn't my style. Why? You need some justice done, kid? I'm always up for smiting the forces of evil. Or the forces of petty crime, if there's nothing worse around. Or if you got a more complex problem than 'hit that mean guy', I bet we can work something out."