Ahzek Toth - Administratum Overseer and Sage
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
The Assault
Magnus ordered "Tightlipped" Tommy to start assembling and arming the troops, so that they could mount an assault on the Ursus Maximus cult as quickly as possible, hopefully before they could organize. In an effort to avoid combat, Ahzek took two guards and headed to the bridge, to warn Captain Lundgren about the Mechanicum insurrection, and drop out of the warp. After an hour, around 800 soldiers were armed and ready to go, some with lascannons in case the experimental combat servitor showed up, and the assault began.
Initially, they met little serious resistance; a group of heavy gunners blocked the way at one point, but Solidius snuck around and killed them all before they managed to fire a shot. Before long, though, their voxes started emitting a high-pitched squeal. Gizmoticus took some measurements and confirmed that there were a trio of large jammers spread throughout the ship, blocking their comm network. One was in the Mechanicum quarters, straight ahead, but the other two were in the cargo bay and the reactor.
The "battle" in the Mechanicum quarters was more like a slaughter, as the guardsmen outnumbered the treacherous tech-priests more than ten to one. However, it soon became clear that the majority of the enemy were not in the quarters, and must have moved to other areas of the ship; in addition, the experimental combat servitor was gone. Meanwhile, Ahzek had almost made it to the bridge when he heard the sound of lasgun fire coming from up ahead, and rounded a corner to see a pair of tech-priests shooting into the bridge.
After passing Cowardice, Ahzek and his escort snuck up and opened fire; though they failed to kill either in the initial surprise volley, both were taken out with zero casualties. The bridge was a bloodbath, with dozens of corpses strewn around, several seemingly torn apart by a chain weapon. Many controls, including the "warp translation lever", were scorched. Ahzek announced himself, and, from behind the command podium, Captain Lundgren grunted out that he was wounded, and his last surviving guard was dying from a skull wound.
Lundgren was covered head-to-toe in blood, but it wasn't his; his augmetic chain teeth were just messy. Ahzek got to work, grabbing his surgery kit off his servitor, and examined the man's wounds; in addition to the laser burn to the skull, the man had also sustained two shots to a now-collapsed lung. With practiced ease, he stabilized the soldier, and moved to start treating Lundgren's wounded leg, but the Captain waved him off.
Meanwhile, Magnus ordered a half-dozen small squads off to secure various important sites on the ship, while he and Solidius would split the rest of the troops and head to the reactor chamber and cargo bay, respectively. Gizmoticus would go with Magnus, to repair any possibly sabotaged systems. Soldius' men found and destroyed the jammer in the cargo bay without any serious opposition.
Magnus' group diverted to the gellar field generators before heading to the reactor, worried that the cultists would try to destroy them, and found the chamber to be full of corpses, apparently rent apart by a chainsword. As Magnus and the soliders, and then Gizmoticus, moved in, they blinked and were unable to open their eyes. Gizmoticus was violently slammed into the floor, headfirst, and the others regained their sight.
Standing atop the moaning Gizmoticus was the Thousand Sons space marine, Al-Rayyed Ad-Hib, clad in his blue and gold power armour and wielding a pair of chainaxes. Magnus informed the space marine that Gizmoticus was loyal, and the marine helped him up and concentrated for a moment as the tech-priest's wound sewed itself shut. Al-Rayyed had found the Ursus Maximus cultists trying to sabotage the gellar fields. As they were important, he would stay there and continue to defend them. Magnus thanked him, and asked to speak once this was over.
They arrived at the reactor chamber, which sat at the end of a hallway, with no other entrances. Eighteen cultists milled around, with no heavy weapons, so a frontal assault would be guaranteed to work, but they couldn't risk a stray shot blowing the reactor core. Instead, they threw in several smoke grenades and charged in, using only combat knives and rifle butts to take out the last of the traitorous tech priests.
Gizmoticus identified one of the corpses as Adept Brakkus' second in command, and hacked his cyberbrain, discovering that they didn't have any more contingency plans. A rough head count of the dead suggested that there were still probably a handful of surviving Ursus Maximus cultists.
What Now?
The rest of the squads that Magnus had sent out checked in, and the party regrouped to assess the damage. Both the astropath and navigator had been killed, meaning they now had no way of contacting the rest of the fleet, and the bridge was destroyed, but everything else was fine, though the servitor was still unaccounted for. Figuring that their options were now either "wait until the psychic attack hit them and die" or "drop out of the warp and be dead in the water". They chose the latter, and Gizmoticus dropped them out of the warp.
Back in realspace, the Rogue Sniper was now stuck in an unknown binary star system, their only hope that the rest of the fleet would notice their absence and investigate. Gizmoticus got to repairing the damage to the bridge, but found his progress slowed as Magnus ordered he be guarded by twenty men at all times. Ahzek was able to tell that they were in the Wiglorium system by looking at star charts, and recalled that it had one habitable planet that wasn't desirable enough to have been colonized.
After three quiet days, a ship dropped out of the warp: the Restless Spirit, who had apparently decided to investigate largely due to Lt. Grisfield's urging. Magnus urged them to send a message via astropath to Terra outlining the Emperor of the Word Bearer's treachery, but their astropath informed him that the warp was tumultuous, and no messages were getting through. Several hours later, the Sweet Gratitude dropped back into realspace as well, and a meeting was held with the astropaths and navigators.
They discussed how to avoid the psychic attack: time and space were different in the warp, so they couldn't be sure exactly when or where the attack was supposed to take place. The tactic they decided on to avoid the threat was to wait here for 5 months, after which they would resume their travel through the warp.
Downtime
The soldiers took shore leave on the habitable planet, an arid world with giant worms, and morale improved. Staff were shuffled around the fleet, with Lt. Grisfield and a squad of technicians ending up on the Rogue Spear. Magnus managed to track down the last surviving cultists and the combat servitor (with 13 degrees of success on Search), and after some complaining, it was not incinerated, but given to Gizmoticus to tinker with.
Magnus managed to find and speak with brother Al-Rayyed Ad-Hib, appraised him of the situation, and asked if he would be able to use his psychic powers to substitute for their deceased astropath. The space marine replied that he couldn't, but was caught off guard by Magnus asking his thoughts given that Chaplain Erebus had masterminded the cult, meaning that at least part of the Word Bearers Legion were traitors as well.
Al-Rayyed stated that he had not much interactions with the Word Bearers. Magnus asked how he could be sure that the Thousand Sons, or, indeed, any space marines could be trusted, given how many traitors seemed to be amongst their ranks. In a show of trust, Al-Rayyed elaborated on his mission: he was returning to Prospero, the homeworld of the Thousand Sons, after a 75-year assignment training psychic recruits of the World Eaters Legion. Though they had declared for Horus, he had never met with their leader, Angron, and could not say if they were all traitors.
The fourth ship, the Soul Hunter, never showed up, and was presumed lost.
Planet 2318
After the 5 months were up, the fleet made preparations to depart. The navigators noted that the warp was different now in some fundamental way, as though the colours of that alternate reality had flipped. The journey to Planet 2318 was uneventful, and all three ships arrived to find the world intact, with only three ships, military models but without weapons, at the spaceport.
Magnus voxed the planet, and the other end responded with classical music for a minute before a man began to talk in a slow, musical dialect, announcing himself to be a representative of the planet Lyrecia. Magnus informed him that they were the 231st Expeditionary Fleet of the Empire, here to find out why the planet had ceased communications with Terra. After an hour on hold, the man on the other end returned, and regrettably informed them that the "High Maestro" (the planetary governor, surely) was busy right now, but they could schedule an appointment for a week later.
Sick of the constant delays, Magnus, citing the power and authority they were bestowed with by the Emperor, Intimidated the man, who was sufficiently cowed, and responded that he would set up an appointment in a noticeably less musical voice. They were put back on hold, the classical music began again, and (after a successful Will roll?!) they cut the connection.
Ahzek observed Lyrecia with the ship's sensors, and discovered that it looked to be a Paradise World, with tech level on par with the Empire. There were 18 population centers, all clustered into one quadrant of the planet.
Notes:
The GM has clearly been playing too much 5e; at one point, he asked for someone's "Passive Perception". This is truly heresy.
With no Mechanicum detachment, the Expeditionary Fleet now effectively has no vehicles. Hopefully, we don't need them.
A brief discussion upon entering the Lyrecia System:
GM: "You see the system, with a single planet with 3 moons"
Player 1: "Wait, you said there were 16 planets."
Player 2: "My notes say population 22 million, and there are 7 moons."
Player 3: "I have 7.67 million and something about teleporting deer."
GM: "You know what, that sounds like something I said."
The combination of Emperor's Children activity and music requiring Will rolls is setting off red flags.
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