Gizmoticus Gearmus - Tech-Priest of Mars and Leader of Mechanicum Forces
Cmdr. Magnus Valerius - Leader of Ground Forces and Former Arbitrator
Lt. Solidius Anguis - Undercover Vindicaire Temple Assassin
Under Way
The last day of resupply went smoothly, and the 231st loaded up onto their small fleet, with the party on their flagship, the Rogue Sniper. The fleet jumped into the warp without problems, and the party assembled with the other higher-ups for the traditional post-translation dinner. Two seats, reserved for the Navigator and brother Al-Rayyed Ad-Hib, were empty, as the former was still busy setting the course, and the latter apparently preferred to keep to himself.
Chef Bronck was clearly still upset over Daniel's disappearance, and it showed in the overdone, bland fare he prepared. Over the dull droning of his augmetic chain-teeth, Fleet Captain Lundgren made polite conversation with Ahzek, who shortly made a fool of himself by trying to discuss astropathy (which was prescribed knowledge) with the Sniper's Astropath Dave Ismane. Solidius inquired as to the whereabouts of the space marine, and Lundgren replied that he'd not seen him since they'd came aboard on the shuttle.
Magnus tried to converse with Lundgren, but the captain was too busy shovelling food into his roaring maw. Eventually, the Navigator showed up, but ate only a tiny portion before retiring to her chambers, clearly exhausted from the warp translation. Ahzke tried to talk to her, but she ignored him; Magnus yelled at him afterwards for needlessly antagonizing one of the most important and notoriously ill-tempered people on the ship.
Killing Time
With six months to go, the party decided to try to do some research into their destination, and to ensure morale stayed high. Magnus was surprised to find that his aide, Lt Grisfield, had been assigned to train new recruits aboard the Restless Spirit, and assigned his duties to "Tight-Lipped" Tommy, who checked around and found that morale was okay. Solidius checked that the ship had been properly resupplied, and found (after about 20 minutes real-time) that it had.
Gizmoticus asked Adept Brakkus how things were going, and was told that he was doing a great job again. He went to check in on the tech-priests under his command anyway, and found that they all sported the symbol of a bear on their robes, marking them as belonging to the Ursus Maximus faction. During his inspection, three projects in particular caught his eye: a new model of combat servitor, a hoverbike, and a belt.
Ahzek tried to recall what else he knew about Planet 2813, but only remembered only that its system had 16 habitable worlds, and all shared the same species of deer; strange, yes, noteworthy, sure, but not useful. At Magnus' behest, he then checked the ground forces' orders to find out why Lt Grisfield had been reassigned, and discovered that they had been edited by someone, who had then tried to cover their tracks. In addition to Grisfield's reassignment, he discovered that the all the Mechanicum aboard the Rogue Sniper were members of the Ursus Maximus faction.
It's Not Paranoia If You're Right
Gizmoticus examined the digital signatures and determined that Adept Brakkus was who had modified the orders. Upon learning this, Magnus immediately suggested the mass execution of all Ursus Maximus members to stop "the imminent coup" (despite the fact that this would leave them vastly understaffed), but cooler heads prevailed, and the party settled on capturing and interrogating Brakkus before starting wider purges.
Gizmoticus returned to the Mechanicum section of the ship to more closely examine the prototypes, but was interrupted by Adept Brakkus, who claimed they were all simply being returned to Planet 2813 from Mars, and were broken. Brakkus then informed him that they were having a meeting in A/V Room 5 that night to discuss their works, and asked if he'd ever thought of joining a faction. He tried to lay on the charm, though it was entirely ineffective, as Gizmoticus was too Clueless to pick up on anything.
Gizmoticus said he'd definitely show up, and then went back to examining the belt, though Brakkus insisted on watching. Unfortunately, he was unable to fix it, and Brakkus told him not to feel bad, as they hadn't been able to get it working either. He passed Gizmoticus a badge bearing the symbol of the Ursus Maximus faction (a bear), then went back to his other duties. Gizmoticus returned to the party, and they concocted a plan to raid the meeting in case the Mechanicum tried anything.
Magnus conscripted Grisfield's squad, who hadn't been reassigned, and requisitioned armour and weapons for all of them, even convincing the quartermaster not to report this or to talk to any Mechanicum. Gizmoticus then smuggled the equipment into the Mechanicum area, while Ahzek and Magnus performed a "surprise inspection" of the area. With the Mechanicum distracted, Solidius and the rest of the squad snuck in to a workshop close to A/V Room 5, and successfully Camouflaged themselves in a dumpster, then settled in to wait for several hours.
Ahzek was allowed to continue his "inspection" with only a junior adept of the Mechanicum escorting him, and writing down all the code violations he found, while Magnus broke off and joined the rest of the squad in the dumpster. Gizmoticus headed to A/V Room 5, where he found the members of the Ursus Maximus "relaxed, for Mechanicum", and looking at a projection of schematics which he recognized as depicting an interplanetary vox system; the doors were locked behind him. Being quite the Engineer himself, Gizmoticus contributed some ideas and suggested several modifications, further earning the respect of the others.
Traitors
While the rest of the tech-priests continued their discussion, Gizmoticus checked to see if his built-in vox was being jammed, and found that it wasn't, though it was being monitored by somebody, so he wouldn't be able to call in backup without giving himself away. The discussion moved on to the custom combat servitor he'd found earlier, but Gizmoticus wasn't able to think of anything to contribute, and Adept Brakkus showed him up.
After another hour of discussion, Brakkus took the floor, and announced that they had a new potential member of the faction, as he turned to look at Gizmoticus. When pressed as to what their goals were, Brakkus said that they were simply devoted to research and development of new technology, which some members of the Mechanicum disagreed with. The conversation then turned to the faction's religious belief; they were of the opinion that the Emperor of Mankind was not the Omnissiah, though they were not sure who or what was.
Adept Brakkus then asked what Gizmoticus knew of Horus' rebellion, and told him that there were those on Mars, including the Fabricator General, who disapproved of the status quo under the Emperor, and had communicated with Horus. The Mechanicum didn't generally care about the goings-on of the Empire, but Horus had voiced support for opening the Vaults of Mars, to retrieve the ancient technological wonders that had been locked away.
Despite his Curious nature, Gizmoticus wasn't won over to their side, and asked for time to think it over. Brakkus said he could take some time, but his eye-LEDs turned red as he added that it would be better if he decided quickly. With that, the meeting was over, and the tech-priests exited, careful to avoid Ahzek, who was still inspecting the hallway outside. On the way back to his quarters, Gizmoticus detoured to the workshop where the squad were hiding, and loudly announced that he was leaving for the night.
Now that it was the ship's night-cycle, the squad had no problem sneaking out of the Mechanicum sector and regrouped in the officer's quarters, where Gizmoticus relayed the intentions of the Ursus Maximus. Magnus announced that he was going to rally the men and execute every tech-priest on the ship that night, but the others were able to convince him that it would be a better idea to interrogate Adept Brakkus first and find out what the traitors' plans were.
Interrogation
Adept Brakkus was arrested for treason and brought to the brig without issue; he asked that they not hurt his men, and seemed disappointed with Gizmoticus, who he denounced as a friend of the "fleshbags". Magnus tried to Interrogate Brakkus, but the Adept had a literal iron will from an implant in his brain. After getting nothing but profanity from his mind-reading device, Gizmoticus "hacked Brakkus' brain" to disconnect all of his implants, while Ahzek concocted and administered a truth serum, which resulted in a far more pliant prisoner.
In monotone, Brakkus outlined their plans. Just before arriving at Planet 2318, the fleet would be attacked by a psychic event which would cause the Gellar Field, which allow ships to travel through the Warp at FTL speeds without being destroyed, to fail aboard the Rogue Sniper, and outright destroy the other three ships. With the Field down, something he called a daemonhost would be implanted into the combat servitor, which would then kill the rest of the crew, resulting in the Ursus Maximus seizing control of the ship.
Brakkus didn't know what exactly the "psychic event" would entail, as clearly it was out of his wheelhouse. Even so, Magnus proposed that they drop out of the Warp and either go around or delay their journey to avoid it. This would be a problem, as communications between ships were extremely unreliable while in the Warp, meaning that the rest of the fleet would likely only see that the Rogue Sniper had dropped out of FTL, and nothing more.
Notes:
One of the players noted that the GM likes to use bears/bear iconography, in some form or another, in all of his games. The GM replied that he liked to use running themes between his games. Which bears apparently are.
There was some disagreement over how damaging various weapons would be to the ship's hull and systems. The GM ultimately ruled that bolt, plasma, and melta weapons, as well as grenades, would be too damaging, which meant we're going to be restricted to lasguns. Solidius is unhappy.
A quote from Ahzek, before the "raid" on the Mechanicum meeting: "Before we go into battle, I just want to know. A medical bay... there is one?"
Magnus' Paranoia actually contributed to the argument against mass executions, because he couldn't trust his own men not to be involved.
There was a possibility of Adept Brakkus having a cranial explosive implant, so Gizmoticus wore armour while hacking his brain. Fortunately, this was an unnecessary precaution.
MVP went to Gizmoticus Gearmus.
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