You decide to make a single BDA sweep and loop around the destroyed area instead of coming back for a second pass. Less chance of something you missed the first time setting up an ambush that way.

Tactics roll: Recon and Stealth. Success! Needed <44, got 15. Mission Complication is revealed: Unexpected Foe(s)

You have a sneaking suspicion that anything you left alive behind you on previous missions might be putting in an appearance at some point. You aren’t too concerned, given that you haven’t left much alive in the wake of previous missions. Still, you have this uncomfortable itch between your shoulder blades that you missed something, and it might try to bite you in the ass. If that something is a tyranid bioform, the ass-biting may indeed be quite literal.

Mission 5: Glass Line

Type: Recon

Primary Objective: Circumnavigate the destroyed section of the Hulk

Secondary Objective: Survive!

Tertiary Objective: Eliminate all targets of opportunity encountered.

Personal (Bonus) Objective: Hunter - Eliminate all foes of Elite or Master rank.

Mission Cohesion: 9 (5 from fellowship, 1 from ranks in the Command skill, 2 from Oath of the Astartes, 1 from Favored Son skill)

Squad Mode Activated: Tactical Spacing Engaged.

8 Cohesion remains.

You gather your kill-team and explain the mission parameters to them. Sweep around the destroyed sections of the Capitalis Congestus, asses the effect that the self-immolation protocol of the Rok Breka had on the surrounding sections of the hulk. Kill anything that gets in your way, make it back to base alive.

Losis and Hagrdict grasp the point of your mission at once but Gorlin scratches at the scars on his face in confusion.

“Reh. What’s the point. Nothing survived that blast. Emperor, we barely survived that blast.”

Losis shakes his head slowly, “if we had time to run from near the center of the blast zone to outside its edge, then a lesser xenos could easily have skittered out of the way, particularly if it was already near to the escape hatch.”

Hagrdict nods, “better that we be thorough than to assume we were the only survivors and be shot in the back.”

Gorlin shakes his head in disbelief, “mreh. The orks were caught on the bridge or eaten by the tyranids, and I do not thing those bugs have the brains to flee in terror they way they should at our approach.”

You give Gorlin a look that, could he see your face, would translate as ‘how are you that foolish?’

“The combat forms, absent any overriding commands from a synapse beast, would have reverted to instinctive behaviors. They may have be caught in the blast and eliminated. The Sinapse beasts themselves would have the thought-processes to recognise a threat that they could not overwhelm and look to survive. The genestealers, being infiltration/infestation bioforms, would certainly have understood the announcement, and their collective mind would have sent any of their numbers not already trapped running for the exits. Emperor knows the Ultramarines get enough training hunting down leftover organisms to know how resilient they are as a race.”

Gorlin cocks his head, considering your words. “RrRgh. So some of them may have made it out is what you are saying.”

“Or have been close enough to the edge of the blast to survive it anyway.”

“Heh. Heh-heh. Heh-heh-heh. Good. I have been looking to test my blade against something big for a while now.”

Your finger caress the hilt of the power sword at your side, “If we are unlucky enough, you just might get your wish.”

Hagrdict may not be entirely happy with you carrying that particular blade, but he hasn’t voiced any complaints about it yet.

Nine Hours Later…

Your kill team clears the airless wreck of an unknown Imperial merchant ship, a member of the ubiquitous and utterly mundane Vagabond-class, and encounter the curving, bone-like structures of an eldar ship.

You motion Gorlin to proceed with caution.

Nineteen Minutes Later…

You are growing restless at the ominous silence of the Eldar ship. You can’t tell if the gently curving corridors that you walk were part of the prow or stern, and you get the feeling that you have been walking in circles, going nowhere since you boarded the ship.

Impulsively, you signal Gorlin to break out of the search pattern and just make a set of random turns. He complies, and you find yourself standing in a circular, domed chamber some thirty meters across and fifteen meters high in the center, ringed with exits in every direction.

Footsteps echo form two of the hallways, though your autosenses are too confused by the echoes to track vectors. One pair of feet sounds like armored boots running fast, headed away. Another pair of armored boots is approaching with a steady measured tread. It is followed by another four pairs of armored feet, much larger and heavier.

As the fleeing footsteps fade, the other pairs of footsteps approach more closely.

You instinctively glance about: there isn’t a single scrap of cover in the entire room, aside from the dubious protection of the arches around the doors leading into the chamber itself. You spread your team out into the different doorways, still trying to make sense of the echoes in the chamber.

The footsteps echo for a bit longer, then shapes emerge from one of the hallways opposite you and your team.

The larger, heavy footsteps belong to a quartet of statuesque constructs. Each stands nearly three meters tall, crafted from a black-painted version of the bone-like material that the ship is made from. They have the same two legs and two arms configuration as a human, but their limbs are much too thin to be of anything but eldar construction. Their heads are a smooth pitcher shape, absent of any sensory apparatus that you can see. Gems stud the crest of their heads and the flanged protrusions from their backs. Each carries a large cannon easily in their hands.

The last set of footsteps belongs to a slight black-robed and -helmed figure striding easily in the center of the statue’s protective square. It is clearly an eldar, judging by the ease of its movements, the thinness of its frame, and the glowing, rune-, and gem-encrusted sword in its hands.

The formation of statues and eldar pauses when the eldar catches sight of you in one of the doorways. They make no move to attack but the statues do shift uneasily like bodyguards unhappy that their charge is standing in an open street with the threat of a sniper nearby.

The eldar turns its hooded head to stare directly at you. Its voice is flat, artificial, as if speaking through a mechanical translator.

“We hunt a servant of She Who Thirsts. Stand aside or be Unmade.”