A slightly smaller Mess

At that point, laurence senses some kind of...warp activity. Directly above him.

Charles: not yet. I can tell something's wrong though, but I feel she's entitled to her privacy. *he puts down the book* this involves you doesn't it?

meanwhile, the pods continue to thunder towards the ships, adjusting their trajectory as the ships continue to sail

Laurence drops into a crouch, silver flowing over his skin in a split second. "Order the ships to fire, now!" He snaps at lyanna, while he looks warily upwards, the damage to his hand already repaired.

Jack: "... It does... can... can you help?"

The ships recognise the threat, and their flak guns begin to blare. Hurling tons of steel and explosives into the air

Lyanna grabs her pistol and jumps back as the tear in reality opens above, and they are hit with a blinding and deafening flash of warp energy

Charles: *puts down the book and stands up* Help with what exactly?

the pods are coming in too fast for the AA batteries to get a bead on them, and their armour is too thick for those that do hit to do any significant damage, as they close in with worrying speed

Laurence: "Natalia!" He shouts the name, even as he rushes forwards, his eyes closed to the blinding light, seeing instead with his mind.

Jack: "You're a telepath."

The two ships are truly gigantic, sisters, both of them near identical. Named for saints, the first is named Katherine, the second, Celestine.

A moment later, from above, ten astartes descend, jump packs roaring, vox-grills screaming, their bodies crackling with warp energy as light glints off of their lighting claws, lunging down at the inquisitor with terrifying ferocity.

Charles: I don't pry into my own people's minds, jack. I'd rather hear you say it.

the pods split into two groups, half heading to each ship. Once they are too close for the AA guns to have any real effect, their velocity slows surprisingly quickly, as they hit home against the upper decks of the ships, disgorging their fell cargo onto the doomed vessels.
Chosen astartes, armed with the best tools of war available to the IV legion, burst forth, guns blazing, boarding shields raised. Worse, each ship is also soon prey to a kharybdis pod, which in turn disgorges a far more deadly cargo. A contemptor pattern dreadnought, looming large over the astartes it now fights alongside.

Laurence leaps at the first of them, claws of his own digging into its armour.

Natalia, the woman who was sitting reading in her dress, reaches for her wrist, as Tyren's cannon whines and begins to spin.

There are marines aboard, but faced with astartes, they quickly panic, attempting to retreat below decks. As the kharybdis pod slams down onto Katherine's deck, her great main guns let off a rolling broadside towards the mainland.

Jack: "Can... can you fix me?"

the chaos marine barely flinches as it in turn, swipes for him, as another two descend upon laurence. The rest turn and head right for tyren and the others, jump packs roaring.

Charles:...What's wrong, Jack? Tell me.

the astartes continue to advance, implacably, it not taking long for the decks to be cleared, before they spread out. one team on each ship heads to the bridge, headed by the dreadnoughts, while the rest head for the turrets.

Laurence roars, his open mouth revealing sharp, serrated teeth. He turns his arms out, fingers buried in the marine's chest, and hauls with all his strength. His muscles bunch and strain, visibly growing as he pulls. Then, the armour cracks, and the bone beneath it. The marines torso is torn, a bloody tent opened, his organs bared to the world.

Jack: "I can't... feel." He looks up from the floor, into Charles' face.

The ships marines set barricades, and defend them jealously. The guns are defended especially fervourously. Secondary batteries are turned against the borders, a single gigantic shell able to penetrate power armour and pass through the deck beneath.

the astartes, presumably with a grin under his helm, despite these greivous wounds, takes another swing for laurence, as the other two slice at him at the same time from each side

Charles pauses, then puts a hand on Jack's shoulder. "It's okay. Take your time."

As the astartes continue to advance, mostly unimpeded by this resistence, the pods once more take to the air. The kharibdyses (kharibdi? idk) begin to bombard the defenders with their anti personell missile launchers, as the dreadclaws move towards them. Once the pods are hovering directly above the defenders, they activate their retro-thrusters, incinerating the otherwise dug in and well defended marines instantly.

Laurence grabs the marines wrist with one hand, and plunges his other into its chest cavity, curling his fingers around its spine, he lifts it, and slams the raptor into one of his comrades.

Tyren seizes the to come at him by his head, crushing it in his powerfist.

Jack: "it's... I just don't... Anne told me, that she loves me. And I don't understand."

While hovering, the dread claws and kharbodi are subject to the full fury of the anti aircraft armaments.

as he does this, the third warp talon plunges his lightning claws into laurence's back, the warp energy from within causing utter agony to flow through his veins

the others are too fast for the dreadnought's grasp, dodging and flying around, one diving in and clawing at the machinery in the weaker rear armour of the walker as his focus is one another of their number

Charles: What don't you understand?

due to how low the pods are, the majority of the AA guns are unable to so much as fire upon them at that angle, while those few shots that do find a mark find themselves doing minimal damage to the heavy armour of the pods. Regardless, the defenders continue to die in droves as the astartes advance.

Tyren swings the power blade on his cannon, not firing it for fear of collateral damage. "LYANNA." Even his vox casted voice portrays his anxiety.

Laurence reaches behind himself with gritted teeth, seizing hold of the power claw, but the hand which grips the raptor by the wrist, is far from human.

Jack: "Why I don't feel anything for her... I should, shouldn't I?"

The escort ships, large in their own right, but nothing in comparison to their charges, mill around uncertainly.

The crashes imperial forces quickly find the local vox frequency. And a gruff voice replies. "I take it you're the fuckers who crashed on my bloody glacier."

Sounds of relief echo in the background as a woman responds “More of a landing, but 718th are ready to fight. Where do you need us?”

at which point the warp talon on tyren's back's head explodes, as a shot from lyanna's archaotech pistol punches through his helmet and into his skull.

The chaos marine does not show any sign of pain from the grip, as he slashes with his other claw at laurence's chest.

Charles: clearly you feel something. Otherwise you wouldn't care enough to get me to 'fix' you.

the astartes, spearheaded by the dreadnought, begin to reach the bridge.

The voice laughs good naturedly "Don't have a fucking clue, but head for the rig near you. We'll call up the chain."

“Afffirmative, we’ll send elements of the armoured company to the rig and await further orders”
There’s a degree of pride to her voice, the fear and uncertainty that was plaguing the regiment would soon be replaced by determination and duty.
Within minutes a squadron of Leman Russ tank and a platoons worth of chimera was readied and trundled off toward the promethium rig.

The claw is halted in its arc, by a shimmering haze of air. Katerina has her right arm stretched out towards it, fingers clawed in an unnatural arthritic pose. Her hand trembles as she holds it at bay.

Laurence drags the warp talon closer to him. Pushing the blades further into his chest, while tightening his grip. ceramite begins to crack, and bone crumbles under the unrelenting pressure of the pawlike hand.

Tyren steps to stand beside Lyanna, his cannon spinning, twitching left and right.

Jack: "I don't feel. I just... know."

Over the shipwide announcement system, the captain of the Katherine makes a statement, with the sounds of battle in the background. "Gentlemen... Sailors in service to the emperor. It has been an honour... abandon ship."

The rig looms heavy on the horizon as they grow closer. A mucky brown smudge on the stark white of the snowfields. Periodically, a flame jets from one of skeletal spires.

Katerina hears the whirring of a jump pack as another warp talon lunges on her, tackling her to the ground, perparing to slice her stomach open

at which point three of the talons confront the dreadnought, claws crackling, red eyes glowing.

Charles: you know what?

at that point the dreadnought aboard the katherine kicks open the door, soulburners blasting into the hapless crew

The tracked vehicles power through the snow, their mighty engines forcing the less than friendly terrain down as they trundle onward. Surprisingly the mood is fairly chipper inside the Chimera, the men happy to be seeing some action after so long trapped inside a dropship.

Katrina's armour takes the brunt of the fall, but her head cracks against the floor as she falls. Blinking away spots in her vision, she holds up her hands, encasing the warp talons claws in the same shimmering psychic barriers. Holding it back, though only barely.

As katrina's focus shifts from protecting Laurence to herself, he seizes the traitor he is brawling with's other hand. Dispensing with the formalities of holding it at bay, or softening it up by crushing it, he simply tears it off, hurling away the offending limb in a gush of almost black red ichor. The other limb is simply crushed to uselessness.

Tyren glares back, with eye lenses red, and just as menacing. There is a click, and a gentle hissing sound, as a pair of pilot lights ignite. Then the fury of two heavy flamers are unleashed at point blank range.

Jack: "That people are supposed to feel things." He looks around Charles office, turning his back. "I always thought it made me better than you people."

The Katherine's captain raises his laspistol, and fires once before the flames engulf him. He dies screaming. All of the Katherine's gun turrets have been taken by the boarders, all but one. The furthest rear turret is still held by her marines, thanks to covering fire from the secondary guns. The turret is being cranked around, and down to its lowest elevation.

As they draw closer to the rig, its true size becomes apparent. Sunk into the glacier, in a circular hole some three miles in diameter, and a half mile deep. The truck which scouted them earlier is sat idling at the lip of the crater.

The small armoured convoy eventually come to a halt nearby, with a soft ‘crunch’ a chimera’s hatch hits the snow and the platoon’s command staff step out into the open air. Suddenly exposed to the frigid airs harsh bite the trio faulter for a moment, getting used to the temperature before they march over to the stationary truck.

The pintle mount is covered in the frozen and grizzly remains of the infantryman who climbed aboard. The spray of blood from his demise spread in a wide stripe all along the back of the truckbed. It lends the vehicle a savage appearance. The rear hatch pops open with a hiss of air, and a clang. As first the pressure seal is broken, then it slams against the rear deck. A man in white cold weather gear jumps down into the snow. A fur edged hood pulled up tight, his face obscured by goggles and a thick beard. He has a shotgun cradled in the crooks of his elbows, the mitten of his right hand has the trigger finger separate from the other three. "Guess you'd be wanting to come down..."

“Aye we do.” An older man sporting the typical peaked cap of an officer replies.

The trio stand out considerably in their olive drab greatcoats and typical cadian attire. The officer looks old for a platoon commander, his face carries deep wrinkles and numerous augments, his beard is well kept and has obviously been trimmed recently. The vox officer by comparison is younger, missing the augments of his superior and the scars of a veteran guardsman his face instead being covered by light stubble and the communications equipment within his helmet.

the talons simply jet forwards, harmlessly through tyren's flame, protected by their power armour and mutations as they latch onto the top of his chassis with their claws

The claws of the warp talon, able as they are to slice through reality itself, soon tear through katrina's psychic energy before it descends upon her, eyes glowing

Charles: not everyone does. And if you care enough to come to me, you must feel something. It's just buried.

Aboard the bridge now, the techmarine approaches the main controls and, mechatendrites latching on, begins to pump scrap-code into the ship itself. Soon, the ship's secondary guns ceasefire, before turning to target the few remaining defenders, as the iron warriors aboard the other ship likewise break into the bridge.

The man turns back to the truck, and makes two gestures at it, an open palm, then pointing towards a gentle slope, down into the crater. "I'll call ahead to the colonel, you'd best follow on, careful, the ramp's icy."

Tyren grabs one of them by the leg with his powerfist, thrashing it once, and twice against the floor, with force enough to crack the stone. His armour rends apart under their strikes, but is thick enough to prevent real damage.

Katrina's eyes, wide with terror, glow bright white, as a thin line of blood tracks down from her left nostril. Holding her hands up to protect herself, a great wave of force erupts from her, flinging the raptor like a discarded childs doll.

Laurence, seeing his protege's situation, turns around, heedless of the worsening of his wounds; he digs one set of claws into the marine's head, and the other into its chest, and tears skull from shoulders in a great spray of gore.

Jack: "I do feel things... Just... not for other people."

The Katherine's rear turret, now aiming at herself, attempts to fire. But with the machine spirits under the thrall of chaos, she refuses to fire her guns. The crew plead, and cajole, but the spirits refuse. The gunnery officer takes three good men, and descends into the bowels of the ship, giving the rest leave to abandon ship.

OOC: Fun Fact, warships guns are designed to be completely unable to depress and shoot into their hull, many also include a hard lock on the gun itself so it can’t fire into its own superstructure.


The officer gestures for his staff to return to the chimera before making the sign of the aquila amd nodding his head toward the man. Once they’re safely inside the convoy grinds forward and down the slope, the rumbling of their engines and the vibrations of their hulls makes their approach almost impossible to miss. The sound signaling their approach like a siren.

OOC: Also me n georgie had an argument about if the ship would use manual fire control or not, so the techno bullshittery has in fact stopped the guns firing. So.... yeah.
EDIT

As they begin to descend the ramp, they see the full extent of the facility before them. The rig itself is a miles high edifice of steel support structure, pipes, rooms, lifts, distillation towers and storage tanks. It evokes a hive city's skeleton in miniature, with many smaller spires reaching for the heavens beside the main one. Across the floor of the crater, there are smaller buildings, and a great many tunnels descending into the ice walls. The ramp itself has been made navigable by a thick layer of stone rubble spread across its surface.

They trundle on ever further downward churning the rubble road beneath their tracks.
Once several minutes have passed the convoy once again comes to a halt before the facility proper and its men disembark. A platoons worth of infantrymen now advance toward the buildings, although their weapons are down the standard issue Cadia pattern paranoia is obvious to see. The men examine the facility before them with experienced eyes, pointing out potenial ambush positions and firing lanes whilst maintaining a sense of decorum.
Leading them is a Commissar flanked by the command staff, they set the rapid pace at which the platoon advances and soon they stand waiting before the centre most building.

The centre-most building is a huge hangar like structure, twelve great doors across its front, each at least two dozen metres across, and twice as tall. The mighty beams of steel separating each guarded at the foot by a statue of a winged astartes, sword planted in the ground. Before it, where the regiment has assembled, is a stone cobbled plaza, with a statue at its centre, in the visage of the emperor, victorious in his great crusade regalia, sword aloft. Soot has marred the stone of all around them, save the emperor, who is fastidiously clean. Laid into the cobbles, between the statue and the hangar, is a silver aquilla, with a truly prodigious wingspan.

From a squat, long building to the left of the hangar, a small party of men emerge, all wearing the same heavy white coats with furred hoods as the man who directed them down, but down inside the crater, sheltered from the biting wind, their hoods are down, and the goggles are around their necks. There are a good two dozen men, all with rifles of varying make, save one. The presumed leader, who carries a pistol. They walk along the length of the assembled force, and the escort stands back, leaving the leader, and a rather large man with a long rifle across his back, and a heavy looking sabre at his hip, to cover the last half dozen metres alone.

"Welcome to Balteum gentlemen." The man addressing them appears to be some fifty years of age, and stout with it. His hairline is receding, and his hair itself is thinning. A hard, weathered face is softened with age, rosy cheeks and obviously a more abundant diet. He exudes a certain fatherly charisma, the sort more expected to be found in the local publican.

As the few remaining crew descend deeper into the ship, the astartes close in all around them. Meanwhile, the assault claws take to the sky again, this time heading for the escort ships

The other warp talon latches on to Tyren's hull and begins to rend and tear into it

The talon attacking Katrina's jump pack flares, as it pushes against her attempt at retaliation. The instant before its claws make contact, the heretic astartes' head and helmet burst apart, a shot from Lyanna's archaotech pistol blowing them to bits

Charles: then why are you doing this if you don't feel anything for her?

Upon coming to a stop most of the men make the aquila and bow their heads in prayer, clearly relieved to be on friendly ground. Striding forward the platoon commander stops just infront of him and salutes. Standing so close now his gaunt and weathered features are easy to make out, his left eye has been replaced by an ungainly looking augment while his remaining eye looks as if half of the iris has been removed, leaving a jagged ring of violet. His cheeks and jaw bear numerous scars all of varying depth and intensity.
“The 718th are happy to be here, we have our transport and the rest of our company several kilometres out. Just give the word and I’ll have them come.”

The escort ships have turned tail and are fleeing, but their anti aircraft batteries are more than functional, and disgorge a hail of flack shells at anything that comes remotely close.

Tyren uses the battered warp talon in his fist as a weapon, beating its compatriot with its increasingly broken-bodied comrade.

with the risk of its claws removed, Katrina pushes it off her to the side with a push of her mind, and stands, drawing a pair of the silver needles she carries.

Jack: "I dont know... Thats why i came. Tell me why"

the pods are numerous, armoured, and capable of dodging. although more than one is felled, and others take damage, they are able to hover above the decks of each ship, at which point their hatches open. They each drop a single beacon like object, before leaving once more.

Lyanna: You okay?

Charles: Because you DO feel something for her. It's just so buried, so alien to you that you don't recognise it, or know how to process it.

The crews of the escorts frantically attempt to pitch the beacons over the side, or destroy them with small arms fire.

Staying one step ahead of the astartes chasing them, sprinting through the narrow maintenance passageways, passing comrades, friends, preparing barricades to hold back the enemy for but a few extra seconds. The gunnery officer and his chosen men race towards the ship's magazine, the krak grenade at the officer's belt seems to weigh a thousand tons.

Katarina hurls one of her needles at the warp talon still clinging to tyren, punching it through its neckseal, and into its head, lifting it away a foot or so, before gravity takes force, as the needle imparts its force into the top of the creatures helmet. "Quite satisfactory."

Laurence rolls his shoulders. Or rather, the beast who now stands in his place. By his feet, the tattered remains of his shirt and breeches lie, and more to his sorrow, however unexpressed, another pair of his best leather boots. A growl rumbles in his throat.

Tyren drops the shattered remains of the warp talon, before lifting a foot, and stomping its chest in, to confirm the kill. The ragged steel of the fresh rents in his carapace, and splattering of blood across his chest lend him a savage air.

Jack: "So tell me how. I don't want to feel like this anymore."

The stout man offers a hand, clad in a warm leather glove. "That'll be best i think. Damn traitors could come knocking any day now."

moments later, each of the beacons is hit, dead on, with a heavy lance strike from above, tearing through it and the ship beneath

the astartes start catching up with worrying speed, simply smashing through walls and bulkheads as they advance

For now it seems, the warp talons are dead.

Charles: I can't answer that. Everyone does it in their own way. If I went into your mind, changed how you think, how you feel, then you wouldn't be you anymore.

Almost all of the escorts are destroyed, only three escaping. A cruiser and two destroyers, those at the back of the formation who fled first, steaming with all speed back to home port. The rest are sunk quickly, the ravenous waves devouring them in rapid succession.

At the last chokepoint, the rest of the gun crew turn and level their carbines with the rest of the magazine's defenders, calling encouragement to their officer. With a second of pause, he continues on into the magazine, pulling the grenade from his belt.

Laurence: "Katarina... Gather everyone. It is time to head south." he then crouches next to the talon he first tore apart, running a claw through the blood, and raising it to his nose.

Jack seems to consider this for a moment, then nods, slightly, ever so slightly. "I'll talk to her."

An instant later, the bulkhead is booted down, and a single, huge, power armoured figure enters, bolter in one hand, lightning claw in the other. Witin seconds, he has blasted through several defenders, creating a hole in their defence, and barged past the rest, firing at the officer as he does, leaving the rest for his squadmates to eliminate

Lyanna: south?!

Charles: are you going to be alright?

The officer, in defiance, pulls the pin from the grenade, and roars, in parade ground fashion. "FOR THE EMPEROR!" The room around them is packed tight with shells for the great cannon above. Held in racks, ready to be fed into the autoloader, they reach taller than even the astartes, stacked vertically.

Laurence: "Yes, south. To the glacier." He speaks quickly and dismissively, with a growl inherent to his speech, such transformed.

As he was preparing to leap back into the vent from whence he came, he turns back to charles, with a frown upon his face. "Why do you care so much?"

At that moment, the astartes shoots the officer dead. As he falls, the marine tosses his gun to one side and lunges, grabbing the grenade from the dead man, and rolling up as he hits the floor, his armoured body shielding the room from the blast, he himself safe from its explosion due to his armour

Lyanna:...we're beseiged. Surrounded. Trapped. How the fuck do we get there?

Charles: Every man, woman and, as of about a day ago, child, on this ship is my responsibility. I'd be bad at my job if I didn't care about the people who are my responsibility.

The krak grenade just short of obliterates his armour, only by ablation is the marine himself saved.

Laurence: "What do you know about Warp Talons, Lyanna?"

Jack: "... Hera said something of the like..." With that parting thought, he jumps up, catches the edge of the vent, and hauls himself up, all in a few seconds, and with barely a sound.

the marine straightens up. Back behind him, the other astartes are finishing up the rest of the defenders

Lyanna: a lot. You know what Else I know? that they were just keeping YOU busy, while the iron warriors did THAT! *she points to the fleet. for the sake of narrativeness, this is at the exact moment of the lance strikes.*

Charles goes back to his book.

Laurence entirely ignores her tirade. "Then you know that they were sent. They know I'm here. You're all not safe. So we are moving."

Lyanna:...they came out of the fucking warp, you can't physically relocate and expect them to not find you again!!

Laurence: "They can find me as many times as they please. You're the ones who're leaving."

Lyanna:...and you think they can't track us too because....?

Laurence: "STOP ARGUING WITH ME DAMN YOU!" Laurence rounds on lyanna, roaring the words more than shouting them. Standing past 9 foot tall, his head nearly scraping the ceiling, and with a mouth full of serrated canine teeth, even Katarina recoils from him.

Lyanna: I HAVE GAZED INTO THE DEPTHS OF THE EYE OF TERROR, AND YOU THINK ANY OF THIS FRIGHTENS ME LAURENCE?! *her eyes are almost burning at this point*

Laurences steps forwards, and reaches out with a clawed hand, as if to lift her from her feet, but catches himself as he sees Tyren start towards him, a single step from the ancient dreadnought. Lifting his foot from the bloody mess of the heretic beneath it, and dropping it back down to the floor again. Giblets and gore clinging to him, and dragging across the stones.

The furred beast steps back, crouching, and bending his neck down, to level his head with lyanna. "It should." He straightens back up. "Katarina. You know what to do, if she does not follow, leave her." With a snort, he turns towards the stairs.

"I have been to the homes of the traitor legions, where damned souls gather and reality itself buckles and decays. I have been to the dead worlds of the eldar, overrun with the ghosts of their race, and the daemons that seek to devour them. I have walked the ashen ground of Istvaan, Prospero, Olympia and Monarchia. I have DIED Laurence. None of this can scare me anymore. Not you. Not them. I am going fucking nowhere."