Stockpile Update:

883 rounds of 0.75 caliber bolt ammunition. Suitable for bolters and bolt pistols. 140 rounds of 0.75 caliber Hellfire bolt ammunition. Suitable for bolters and bolt pistols.

Specialist rounds for special targets; Hellfire Ammunition bypasses all natural or organic armor, and liquefies the target from the inside out.

22x frag AP grenades, hand throwable. 13x krak AT grenades, hand throwable. 60x units of armor repair cement, for patching armor breaches in the field. Enough combat rations to feed your squad for sixteen weeks. 1x Godwyn-Pattern Bolter w/ fire-selector (Marcellus’ weapon) 1x Mk3 Bolt Pistol (Marcellus’ Weapon)

You put away your weapon cleaning kit as the Thunderhawk sweeps in to land at the void-hab. Though you will be leaving your Godwyn-pattern boltgun and Mk3 bolt pistol behind on for your next excursion, you feel comforted by the ritual act of cleaning your weapons. Satisfied with their care, you stow them away and perform a final check of your newly-requisitioned wargear.

The Ragefire plasma pistol sits easily at your hip, alongside the three small plasma flasks to reload it. You pat its handgrip, satisfied that it’s machine-spirit will behave so long as you do not overstress it. You know that you can overcharge the weapon to produce a truly ferocious shot, turning a fist-sized projectile into a seething skull-sized ball that explodes into a two-meter diameter sphere on impact. Doing so is not without cost or risk, as the so-called maximal setting consumes plasma ammunition at a voracious rate, and the irate machine-spirit of the pistol is wont to overheat and vent plasma uncontrollably and with little warning when abused.

The Stalker-pattern bolter, with its sleek silencer and integrated red-dot sight, is a semi-familiar weight at your back. You carried one on numerous occasions during your three centuries as a scout-sergeant won missions where stealth and precision were prized above weight of fire. This one hails from the Deathwatch armory of watchpost Iter Emensus and features a fire-selector allowing you to carry three magazines instead of the usual one. The first loaded magazine is charged with standard bolt shells, the second with the specialized stalker bolt shells that are totally silent, and the third is filled with the Hellfire shells you habitually carry. Four more magazines charged with standard bolt shells ride your combat harness, ready to hand. The stalker-pattern magazines carry only twenty-four shells to the Godwyn’s twenty-eight, but you have placed the extra bolts back into storage for later usage.

Lastly, you finger the ‘egg-carton’ of six spherical granads at your hip. You had requested a melta bomb, in case of an obstacle (or another monsterous Tyranid bioform) too tough for krak anti-tank grenades to handle. Your request was denied however, in light of the lack of demolitions experience present in your squad. In its place, you were given the ‘egg-carton’ of plasma grenades, along with a reminder that their blasts tend to linger on for a few seconds (anywhere between six and thirty) before dissipating. You are unsure how the unfamiliar weapons will perform, but they do displace the trio of frag anti-personnel grenades as well as the kraks on your belt.

Epistolary Tayib has his head bowed in meditation, and you take the moment to look him over more closely. His mark 5 ‘Heresy’ Power armor is battered and scarred, a mixture of carefully-preserved battle damage (the legacy of notable victories) and the crude-looking field repairs of long campaigns. A force-staff lays across his lap, its ram-skulled headcap resting on an empty seat. The master-crafted bolt pistol you recovered from the Khamsin rests on his hip, and the phoenix-emblazoned master-crafted force sword you found with it (that you had thought was a simple power sword) rests on the other. Tayib has requisitioned no other equipment that you can see, asinde form a small void-loxed stasis case at the small of his back. You aren’t sure what resides within it, only that it has been entrusted to Tayib to use as he deems fit.

The thunderhawk thumps down in the small shuttle bay of the void-hab, and an eerie silence greets you. Not the hiss of atmospheric life-sustainers re-pressurising the shuttle bay, not the mutter of a voice from the other side of the wall.

You ready your weapons, not sure what to expect.

Tayib falls in at your back, preparing for the unexpected. “Expecting company?”

“An Interrogator and a Mechwright. Support staff left behind to tend the void-hab until our return.”

“No one is here.”

“That is the problem.”

“Could something have killed them?”

“If something did, it would have left traces.”

“Lead the search Hunter.”

You lead Tayib into the common room. The briefing table is overturned in the corner. The chairs are stacked against the wall. The hatchways to the sleeping and storage rooms stand open, the contents a mixture of randomly strewn about and methodically re-sorted. Stabby sits idle in the corner, starved for power with is base-hub blocked by a fallen blanket. You pull the blanket aside and let the little CAT start charging again.

“Searched, but not fought in. The CAT was left behind, so the Mechwright left in a hurry at least.”

“No bullet holes, no spilled blood. They left here voluntarily and under their own power. Why leave the relative safety of this place? And to where?”

“Deeper into the Capitalis Congestus, most likely. If they had boarded a shuttle, they would have had more time to pack.”

“But why?”

“Inquisition infighting at a guess. The Interrogator mentioned that she had received a coded message indicating that the ordo Xenos Inquisitor she served was dead, and that another Inquisitor would be coming to take over the project of mapping the space hulk. The same message also included a warning that the person who had killed her Inquisitor was an Ordo Malleus Inquisitor out for vengeance.”

“Deserved?”

“Unknown.”

“What are your orders Hunter?”

“I don’t like the thought of leaving gear cached here, but I don’t see any other choice. Pick a spot and start stacking while I load the heavy bolter ammunition back on the Thunderhawk. No point in keeping it when we can’t use it. Once that is done we can head into the Capitalis Congestus itself.”

“Affirmative.”