++Dark Imperium++

[EmperorsChampion]

The clouds parted away from the Aquila landing craft made its way to the surface of the planet Romna IV, its large mountains with lush green pine forests and snow capped tips became largely visible to Inquisitor Aratus as he view them from the small port hole in the side of the craft, it gave him a slight feeling of ease knowing some parts of the imperium wasn't plagued by war. But none the less he knew even this planet had seen its fair share of hard times, even its men and women sent to bear arms against the demons and other unholy creations that attacked their beloved Imperium.

The Aquila landing craft was used to transport important individuals, Inquisitor Aratus being one of those. Though he had nearly just achieved the rank as Inquisitor he made sure that he would travel as one saw fit in his eyes. The troop hold of the Aquila seemed cramped now that his men took up nearly all of the space provided. Their large sizes hidden behind robes in different colors, hoods draped over their faces, shadowing them from the eyes of everyone else.

"Inquisitor Aratus, we are nearing the space port soon. I am making contact with the tower as we speak." The pilot radioed into the com net. The Inquisitor nodded to himself slightly as he looked back outside to the planet. The mountains dipped into a valley where the space port was hidden and well protected by anti-aircraft weapons and just the sear size of the mountains protected it from a land attack from any direction, only the planet's people know the routs of the mountains and man made cave systems that allowed transportation to the space port and back with ease.

The landing craft soon came hovering over the one of the smaller landing pads, the Aquila lander set down in the middle of a circular pad with the symbol of the Imperium etched into the metal, the twin headed eagle. Exaust parted from the engines as they slowly wined down. Vapor and steam rose from the craft from the heat of the re-entry to the atmosphere. Aratus released the restraints from his seat and stood up. Pulling his hood over his head he waited for the bay door to open.

Hissing could be heard from outside the craft as the belly of the Aquila lander started to slide down itself. Light filled the troop hold and a rush of cold mountain air filled Aratus's nostrils, a cleaner air then he was use to the recycled air aboard the ships of the Imperial Navy that left a stale stench that he could never completely get use to. The floor stopped moving as it touched the ground and four masive robed figures stood around him on all sides. Their features hidden, but their size was towering compaired to the Inquisitor as they moved from the landing craft, the Inquisitor himself was dressed in fine red robes, trimmed with gold and lettering in high gothic, the robes opened at the chest, showing a shimmering golden chest plate, echted with designs of angels and centered in his chest the Inquisitorial symbol shined proudly. Hanging at his hip a sheathed blade, most likely his personal power sword, on his other side hung a large holstered pistol, wires ran from the pistol grip to a small pack on his back. The one thing that set him apart from the rest of his wear was a large scaly beat that hung across his right shoulder, obviously a lizard of some sort. Half of the beast's skull was replaced with a bionic sensor and other machines that attuned the beast to Aratus's mind.

The four robed figures each dressed in a diferent colored set of robes, the first one that walked to the left of Aratus displayed yellow robes, stiched across where his large shoulders was a dull marking of a black fist, but wear had nearly destroyed the marking, or as if it was done on purpose. Another one, to Aratus's right displayed a green robe, most of the robe was made up with scales and tough leather from some sort of masive scaled beast. To the rear of Aratus's right walked a man in a deep dark red, across the back was a scratched out bird with a tear drop of blood in the center, next to him a black robe, worn and torn, skulls hung on chains from loops on the shoulders.

"Now we await our meeting." Aratus said softly to himself as he gazed across the way at a group of people coming to great him. "I must win these men over to fight with me." He said.

"Are you not an Inquisitor, my lord?" The large man to his left said, his face hidden by the shadow of his hood. "You have the Emperor's will as your voice."

"I understand that. But I want warriors to fight with me that will not falter or retreat. Or have no will to fight. I would rather have a small force of men that are willing to fight than a force ten times in number that do not." Aratus said, with a slight smile in his words.

"My lord, did you call before hand? To set something up with these people?" The warrior to his right said.

"Why, do you not think I can walk onto a planet and take control of their military?" Aratus said to him.

"Do you sir?" He said back to Aratus.

"I guess we will find out now, wont we?" Aratus said back to him with a grin on his face. "I will have things to offer them that they cant refuse."

[NecromundianLord]

The metal landing pad had a thick sheet of ice glazing over it that internal heaters struggled valiantly to melt, sometimes causing a persons foot or a vehicles tread to crunch through the inch or two of crust and soak in the water beneath. That wasn't a problem for Bolschavek, standing there in the flurry of a ‘light’ blizzards gale, Commissar leathers whipping about in the wind around his legs. An ever increasing roar accompanied the winds ravaging teeth, the sound of approaching engines straining against the turbulence. Without looking up at the descending craft, the tons of adamintium steel that most would have moved far away from, lest a gust carry the ship across them and smear them into a slush to freeze there across the growing drifts of snow. Men in heavy winter garb move about insuring that the majority of the snow is kept from the main landing zones with small flamers built for the purpose, turning it all into water to rapidly freeze...the ice was much easier to deal with than the snow would be for the people of the planet.

The Aquila landing craft buffers him furiously with the backwash pressure of the engines, the iconic black trench coat's tails blasting about behind him like the wings of some great abyssal beast looming behind the Commissar, a beast firmly leashed to the unflinching man. Thumbing the leather holster for his bolt pistol, leaving the weapon free and easy to access, his grimly etched face turns into the back draft, heat cutting across the ridge of his prominent nose to wash across the flat plains of a face that was all thick bone and muscle, Bolschavek would have been plain had he a trace of fat, as it was he was simply ugly.

The Inquisitor and his guards were, impressive, at least in appearance, it was the guards the man paid a keen attention to, while schooling his features into an icy mask that was directed towards the Inquisitor. "Inquisitor Aratus..." a harsh, brutal voice, rasping softly thanks to a partially hidden scar that ran across his throat. A leather gloved hand is offered towards the man "Commissar Bolschavek, of the Romnavites 99th" the extended arm offers a glimpse of a sheathed blade at the man's hip, the scabbard wasn't designed for the usual chainsword, and the hilt would be strangely familier to a man who wielded a power sword. This man alone appeared to be all the greating that the high and mighty had been granted, for as the group of people out on the landing grids come closer, its evident they aren't heading for the Aquila, but to a recently landed troop transport. Among those people small shapes could be seen, children bundled against the cold, and even as the Commissar offered his hand, troopers come piling out towards the bundles, towards the women and men of their families...the Romnavites demanded their own prices, prices that were paid for in their peoples blood, but prices the Imperium paid for certain services.

The Inquisitor was being judged, his reactions to the snub being gauged, though he knew it not, he was already in audience with some of the most fierce, dirty, and loyal fighters that the ranks of the Imperial Guard had to offer, that audience was most unforgiving.

[EmperorsChampion]

The Inquisitor made his way to the commissar, the wind catching his robes and blowing them about. His four warriors flanking each side of him were giants compaired to the men around them. Their features still hidden and unknown to those besides the Inquisitior.

"Commissar, it is nice to meet you." Aratus said to him, taking his hand shake, the Inquisitor's hood still shadowed over his eyes, only showing a slight part of his lower face. The Inquisitor could feel his hand, the slight crushing feeling that would of normaly happened if his hand was still flesh and bone.

"I was sent to greet you, now what is your buisness with the people of this world?" The Commissar said, his words firm and his eyes staring straight to where Aratus's eyes would be.

Aratus released his hand and gazed him him for a moment. "I need your men, this has nothing to do with the people of this planet. Unless you want it to concern them. Commissar I am here because I have heard of your regiment's engagments and they happen to be the ones I am looking for."

"My men...then you are dealing with the People of this planet, sir. You want the best." There wasn't anything to suggest it was a question, perhaps an accusation if the man's cold tones were to be taken that way.

"I know what you have fought, that is why I want your men. If it came down to it I could bring the fiery death of a thousand flames to the planet and end it all in one swift blow." He said back to him, reminding the Commissar that he was a Inquisitor of the holy Imperium and was not to be halted by one's words.

The cruel smile that spreads over the Commissar's face could chill a mountain's fiery blood "I know what you can do Inquisitor...Lieutenant!" The bellowed word roars into the night air, a battlefield voice politely couched in the common tongue.

Beasts erupt from the snow drifts surrounding the party, with saber-fangs and jet-black eyes gleaming, thick white pelts shaking off the clumps of snow that so easily camouflaged them. One of them was standing not a body’s length away from the Inquisitor when it erupts from the blizzard’s cold grip, the beast’s eyes just as cold as those of the woman that wore it.

The four warriors around the Inquisitor seemed to snap to life from their state of idleness. Throwing off their robes, revealing their true selves. Each one of the eight foot tall warriors were encased in a thick suit of power armor, their armor painted in the same fasion that reflected their robes, but more worn and battered from countless battles. They were space marines.

Each one of the marines drew their weapons in a blink of an eye. Brother Sergeant Hexile of the Imperial Fists drew a bolt pistol that found itself staring at the Commissar, his left hand was encased around a might power fist that crackled to life with energy. The marine to his right Brother Sicarius, a Salamander unslung his flame thrower and the pilot light egnighted in a small flame, waiting to be used at a pull of the trigger. Behind him the Blood Raven Faunus revealed his pair of claws that jumped to life with a spark of lighting emiting around the large blades that protruded from the knuckles of his fists. Standing aside of the Blood raven the Mortifactors brother Castor quickly drew his bolter to his eye and sighted in what at first glance was a monster from the snow.

The commissar is careful to Not touch the bolt pistol at his side as he calmly speaks "Inquisitor, I suggest you have your men stand down, no one here wants to kill men such as these."

The ‘beast’ closest to the party, only a body’s distance away from the Inquisitor himself, throws back its head, the saber-teeth whisking a hairsbreadth in front of the dark-haired woman’s face. Her eyes were as cold as the beasts had been “what did you say this time Commissar?” It would only take seconds for the insignia emblazoned on her crude, but effective, chest-plate to register. The snarling irritation in her voice was clear as day.

“This…fine…man has need of your Winter Born.” The marines were ringed by five other beast-people, an array of weaponry half-pointed at the party, a number of something Most peculiar for simple guard, amongst the numerous dagger-like blades that could be spotted, each had a sheathed curved short-sword, emblazoned with glyphs of the machine gods and far more primal things, each with the hilt that distinctly mark the weapon as a power blade.

"Castor, Hexile, Faunus and Sicarius. Stand down." The Inquisitor put forward. His eyes glaring at the Commissar, then switched to the female guardsmen.

"My lord, they bear arms against us. It would be-" Castor said to the Inquisitor but was cut short.

"I said stand down Brothe Castor. I understand what you are trying to say. But now is not the time nor place for this."

The marines lowered their weapons, but still held them ready to protect their leader. Each one of the towering marines glared down the guardsmen, taking not of their weapons, and their distance. They knew full well that these guardsmen would stand no chance against the four of them, but they didnt know how many there was, not to mention they would be an easy target out in the open.

"Lieutenant is it? Take me to where the Commissar wants to show me. And lets hope the rest of your encounters are more...lets say friendly. I do not wish to have any of your men slain out of a pure accident." Aratus said to the female.

[NecromundianLord]

Turning to the Inquisitor, her head bows a short mantra lost to the gale that she seems oblivious to. "We don’t have to travel at all unless you require rest Inquisitor” her voice remains a banshee’s harsh scream or something just lower in volume than that, though perhaps it was muffled by the blizzard. Raising her left fist into the air, the others lower their weapons, standing as still as statues there in the harsh weather. Each of the visible troopers had the same combat uniforms, save for small differences like insignia upon their chest-plates. Metal plates press down over thick fur coats, fringes of which make a collar around their heads, with accessory plates at the elbows, flanges hanging down in front of the groin and rear, and both shin and thigh guards pressing around the thick thermal pants. The pants blouse into fur rimmed combat boots, while the ice cat’s hide billows like a massive cloak behind them, clasped at their throats by the cat’s fore claws, its saber toothed head resting over their bare heads, some of which are shaved clean, others letting their hair grow down to frame their faces. All of them have strong features, hard carved lines that are only slightly finer in the women’s faces than in the men’s, enough that the gender difference is evident, especially in the lips and curve of the chin.

The Lieutenant crouches to pull a helmet, a bit thinner looking than standard helmets, from the snow, pressing the face-mask to her lips. A moment later, at a distance scarcely visible through the blizzard, a seventh guard stands, the long barreled rifle in her hands lowering from where it had been aimed at Faunus’s unprotected head. “Winter Born, your Emperor is calling you back to war!” Lieutenant Karshavi, her name scrawled in the local tongue upon her helmet (opposite the side of the helmet that holds the old markings for Lieutenant instead of the common Imperial Guard one that rests over her chest), raises her voice even higher to say this, raising by an octave to crack across the field.

The response is immediate, from every throat save the Commissar’s, a single word roars “HAGEL!” chanted into the night sky, the word ripping from throats intentionally discordant, in tones designed to shake apart a man’s skull.

Commissar Bolschavek takes a single step forward, flinty gaze unwavering despite the presence of the Marines “there never truly was a question of whether or not they would do their duty.” The tone was suggestive, suggesting that the Inquisitor had better have understood that, and perhaps that the man thought he had…otherwise there may well have been a bloodbath here today that would be frozen and melted time and again before traces of its happening disappeared.

[EmperorsChampion]

The Inquisitor and his escort of four space marines made their way towards the command post of the space port, just a long walk through the knee high snow they treaded. Sicarius look to his right, eyeballing one of the guardsmen. Sicarius's skin was dark and scars ran across his face in every which direction. On the right side of his head a tribal tattoo of some sort spun around the temple of his head and arched down to his neck. His head shaved clean, on the top of his head ran more tribal tattoos, in words unknown to anyknow but him.

Brother Sergeant Hexile walked infront and to the left of the Inquisitor. His motions were strong and walked with a purpose, though it didn't match his armor, worn and beated the paint chipping and the symbols of his chapter nearly scratched off but a faint reminder of what was left. His left eye was replaced with a bionic augmentation. His hair, high and tight and black made him nearly look just like any "normal" space marine, or at least the ones the people thought of in the stories and myths. A broken blade hung on the right side of his hip, next to his pistol holster.

Behind Hexile walked the marine from the Mortifactors, Castor. His hair black and long, matted and messy. His eyes gleamed in a bloody red tint, his face was clean and free from scars, besides his neck where it looked as if it had been purposly cut. His armor was a worn black and bone color, skulls adorned his thick armor plated shoulder pads, and similar skulls hung on chains from his belt.

Walking next to Castor, Brother Faunus of the Blood Ravens strode with his pair of lighting claws still alive with power. His dark red armor had seen better days. His head shaved but his eyes were the more striking feature on him. They seemed to glow with a light blue, which contrasted the rest of him.

As the group of the Inquisitor's and the guardsmen made their way into the command post of the space port the Inquisitor walked forward in the middle of the entrence hall. The ceiling arched in long pilars to the very top. The floor was a old worn marble tiles. In the very center was what looked to be their unit symbol for the regiment. Paintings and statue busts were displayed around showing famous ship captains and pilots from the planet. None of which the Inquisitor knew, but to these people they were something. At least the Inquisitor knew they kept ties with the ones sent to war, which bothered him about the rest of the Imperium. The beast on the Inquisitor's shoulder climbed off and glared at the female Leutenant and hissed. Aratus quick said something, a word that was bearly repeatable, but the animal halted.

Sicarius looked down at the reptile near his foot and gave a slight grin. His yellow eyes watched it and then looked back up and glared back around at the inside of the command post. This is where the naval fleet based at this planet was command at. Inquisitor Aratus would need both the support of the navy here and the Imperial Guard to sustain his opperations needed. Just at least a few ships he could use, he only had came here with one cruiser.

"Ma'am, I have some options for you and your men. If you would care to listen carefully to what I have to offer, maybe soon could be on our way." Aratus noted to her, turning in her direction, pulling down his hood, revealing his long hair that dropped just below his ears, blonde and his eyes a dark blue. His face was clean much unlike most of the other Inquisitors of the Imperium, most likely because he was new to the rank. But an Inquisitor none the less.

Hard eyes keep a careful watch on her own men, while their energy from the blizzard may have appeared to be gone, locked away behind stone-like faces, she knew the battle passion was stirring in them. Even inside her voice was a snarling, angry thing "options Inquisitor?" The man's pretty face didn't so much as register, it was the face of an Inquisitor and there for above any earthy values.

"Of course...Your people will waste no supplies on an operation that I wish to wage." He said to her, his voice offering and much unlike any Inquisitor before. "I will grant your men new weapons, gear and food. What ever you wish to have, I can aquire. But I need to know soon. Also...Do you wish to know what you would be fighting?" He added.

[NecromundianLord]

During the load up into the three transports that’d haul the squad and their new attachments up to the awaiting vessel, Lieutenant Karshavi’s high pitched voice cracks out across the roar of the blizzard, which had only worsened since they had been inside. Despite the screaming and tongue lashing from their officer, the troops seemed to be in good spirits, only slightly edgy with the thought they would be grounded before they could lift off. Ground crews work furiously with their hand held flamers to insure that the snow drifts don’t just roll over the top of the vehicles while the troops are quickly broken up and sent to the ships. “Brother Faunus…” the whip-cord voice, the wail of an enraged banshee, doesn’t diminish when addressing the Marine “you’ll be ridding with us.” Commissar Bolshavek’s keen eyes were scanning the troops, gauging their reactions to the marines as they boarded, though he doesn’t so much as look at Faunus until after they are strapped into the seats aboard the Arvis class transports.
Blowing a few strands of dark hair out of her view, Karshavi is the last pair of boots to board, just as it should be. Before sitting to strap into the launch seat, recently bolted into the transport that was usually designated for cargo usage, she adjusts the polar cat cloak that is now tied and folded around her hips. Each of the troops had done the same, the garb was designed to give the legs a second covering for warmth and to provide a set of deep pockets when its folded as it is, the head of the great animals hanging down over their groin with the vaguely kilt-like assemblage longer in the back than in the front, though that’s taken up by the metal shin-guards that extend from the front of their boots. Running a hand down across the thick fur of the animal’s skull she murmurs a mantra to the Emperor while strapping herself in, glacial eyes fixed upon the hulk of the space marine across from her…she hadn’t wanted her men to be sitting across from this marine, she felt he was trigger happy even without a gun in his hands, those claws would suffice, as she’d seen time and again. Claws without power fields did enough damage, as every single Winter Born knew from their experience with the polar cats, and this squad knew it from experience with the very foe the Inquisitor was throwing them at again. This time they would make damn sure the body count was in their favor.
Two different symbols are emblazed upon the helms and chest armor of the troops that march onto the Arvis with the macabre Castor, a Sniper First Class whose cold eyes and demeanor do nothing to diminish her eerie beauty, her face showing the fine lines more akin to an Elder than to the humans around her, much like the Field Medico whose rounded face may have been pretty had half of it not been a mass of burn tissue with a glittering red bionic implanted into the mangled eye-socket. The last of the specialists was marked not by symbols, but by the thickness of his torso armor, grasped between his hands, especially along his back where most of the vox’s parts were stored, though the part one speaks through to broadcast is in the top of the front plate, tilted up at an angle to point at the wearer’s mouth. All three are silent, even the communications expert whose youthful face looks all the more young for the short beard and mustache that give him the appearance of a child trying to look more like a man.
Halen’s silence wasn’t due to the all too familiar appearance of the marines armor, it was because he was busy going over the com system, it was difficult to effect any last minute repairs if the damn thing was strapped to his body, but then the configuration made it easier for him to move and fight with the lasgun slung over his shoulder, or even more likely given their foe he’d be using the power sword at his hip. While sure fingers, scarred from the burns that made them sure around electrical components, move rapidly across the surface of the armor he glances at the skull incrusted marine, studying the armor for the weakness’s that he knew were there, mentally picturing where he’d put the single thrust he might get if the others acted at the same time to destroy the marine, not that they ever would, so far as they could tell the marine was completely loyal and that made him their ally in this fight. Out of the edges of his vision he could see Vladika pointedly ignoring the marine by starring at her hands, those hands that were forever stained red in the woman’s mind, and Erikson who hadn’t stopped staring at the marine since they boarded…he couldn’t decide if pity or envy would have been more appropriate in the lesser man who’d of felt either.
Sicarius gets lumped in with two of the troopers who hadn’t stopped cracking jokes since they got back out into the storm, at least while the Lieutenant wasn’t paying them their lashing, along with a grizzled, thick-bodied man who seemed older than all the others. These were the three men that had been leveling the deadly meltaguns at the Inquisitor’s party a paltry ten minutes before, weapons quite capable of turning the admantium armor around an entry point into slag while vaporizing whatever was directly hit along with the body inside. At a quip about one of the young women that had been out on this cold deck waiting for her soldier to march or be carried home, the gray beard puts a metal shod boot squarely between the male jokers buttocks sending Krashwits, or so his helmet was stenciled with, tumbling into the Arvis’s ramp. The woman, the gray Irien stenciled onto her helmet fading but the kill marks quite well tended, steps on Krashwits’s back as she climbs up inside, with a “now who said manners were dead in the Guard…what with Sergeant Jarlsbrak here throwing a bit of red carpet down for a lady and all.” Krashwits sputters and quickly gets up before the Sergeant could kick him again.
Jarlsbrak was grinning behind the mask of his icy face before his boot connected, it became a toothy physical thing after Krashwits hit the deck, the fact he was carrying high powered weaponry never entering the sergeant’s mind. What did enter his mind after they had all strapped in, was the same thing that the other troops were wondering about “Brother Sicarius, what do they mean?” Gesturing with a gloved finger at the man’s face, clearly he spoke of the tattoos, and the other guardsmen relax ever so slightly now that the question had been voiced but not by them…they didn’t know how the marine would react, and despite the weapons being on hand they had no desire to be involved in a scuffle with a space marine. They needed something other than the violence in front of them to think about, soon it would be time to do the duty they had been born into, soon it would be time to shed blood.