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Chapter 1: A Quiet Drink

Astropaths all over the subsector had reported a massive psychic disturbance emanating from the planet Xenon. The masters of the Ordo Xenos dispatched Inquisitor Maximillian Parris to investigate. Bringing along some of his most trusted operatives, Inquisitor Parris departed post-haste for the arid mining world.



Our Heroes:

Inquisitor Maximillian Parris, Ordo Xenos
Riding a jetbike gifted to him by the grateful Adeptus Custodes for services rendered, Inquisitor Parris wields a power sword and an Eldar shuriken catapult. He also carries a variety of grenades. The jetbike itself has a set of hurricane bolters installed in its prow. Like all Imperial Inquisitors, Maximillian is invested with absolute authority throughout the Imperium of Man.



Sergeant Len of the Adeptus Astartes Crimson Templars
Sergeant Len is a bio-engineered super soldier of the Space Marines. After the Inquisitor Parris lead the Crimson Templars to glorious victory against the filthy Tau of Epicurius VII, Sergeant Len, in a fit of romantic drama, swore to serve him as his bodyguard for a century and a day. Twenty-seven years later, Sergeant Len serves as the inquisitor's tactical commander. But, as a Son of Sanguinius, the Red Thirst grows day by day. How long can the erstwhile sergeant contain it? Sgt. Len is armed with a power sword, a plasma pistol, and grenades.



Adeptus Mechanicus Tech Priest Enginseer Tappet
As an inductee into the Martian Mysteries, Enginseer Tappet has mastered all of the necessary rituals to placate a machine's spirit when it has grown dyspeptic, and how to rouse a weapon's anger that it my smite the enemies of mankind. Enginseer Tappet is armed with a laspistol, an Omnissian axe, and a servo-arm.



Sister Lunzie, Order of the Cleansing Waters, Ordo Hospitaller, Adepta Sororitas
Sister Lunzie served many years ministering to the brave warriors of the Imperial Guard before the honour of saving the life of no less a personage than an Imperial Inquisitor became her happy duty. Praise the God-Emperor! Inquisitor Parris was so impressed that he made Sister Lunzie a permanent part of his organization. Sister Lunzie does not carry weapons, but her chirurgeon's tools can serve in a tight spot.



Frank Miller, Xenograft Subject
Captain Miller was a talented Imperial Guard officer who had the misfortune to be dismembered by a tyranid lictor on the deathworld Sorbitol VI. Locked within his brain were the codes needed to activate the exterminatus device to wipe out all life on the planet. Not one to be dissuaded by a man's death, no matter how messy or apparently final, Inquisitor Parris ordered Sister Lunzie and Enginseer Tappet to save the captain's life by any means necessary. By the simple expedient of surgically attaching his head (and any other bits that happened to by lying around) to a recently killed genestealer, Captain Miller's brain, and the vital codes it contained, were saved. Sorbitol VI was cleansed of all life (Praise the God Emperor!) and Inquisitor Parris found himself with a decidedly unorthodox new member for his warband. Frank Miller is armed with a chainsword, a grenade launcher, and a radium pistol.



Uncertain about what sort of reception he would receive on planet Xenon, Inquisitor Parris decides not to make contact with the planetary authorities right away upon arriving. No, he would play this one with subtlety, landing on the outskirts of a desolate mining town and infiltrating the locals with cunning and guile...

Roaring up the main drag of the mining town, riding his ten millennia old jetbike, clad in gleaming white armour emblazoned with the symbols of his office, holding aloft his mastercrafted power sword, Inquisitor Parris begins his investigation. Striding alongside him is Enginseer Tappet, blurting synthetic blips and crackles of static in the manner of his people. Meanwhile, Sergeant Len stealthily advances along the left flank, while Frank Miller and Sister Lunzie sneak along the right. The warband approaches Miner's Rest, a local tavern set up in a ruined building.





Hidden atop a nearby broken down mining facility, a lookout not only sees what he is meant to see. He also spots Sergeant Len, whose seven foot frame and scarlet power armour do little to aid him in his mission of stealth. The guard activates the silent alarm, alerting the denizens of Miner's Rest to the intrusion by the inquisitor and his retinue.



Out of the tavern pour a bunch of surly and heavily-armed miners. They appear to be a mixture of baseline humans and squat refugees from the core worlds, who were displaced by the tyranid hive fleets.



One of the miners, still holding his pick axe in one hand, nods in greeting to the inquisitor. Maximillian, in a gesture of cross-class bonhomie, asks what they have to drink in this place.

The miner replies, "Who's asking?"

"A thirsty inquisitor."

"we have cold beer," the miner replies, turning back into the tavern to pour the Imperial agents a round of cold ones.

However, as soon as he's in cover, the miner yells, in the general direction of the squats, "Did you hear what he just said about your ancestors? Don't let him leave here alive!" The miners dive for cover and start blasting with their motley assortment of weapons.



Inquisitor Parris flies up the street, his hurricane bolters blaring a staccato racket. As he passes by what he assumed to be a derelict armoured personnel carrier, its engine roars to life! Tappet the enginseer springs into action, swinging his axe at the front armour of the Rhino. The APC tries to run him down, but Tappet's bionic enhancements and his power armour's servos serve to halt the metal behemoth in its tracks.

The miners pelt the inquisitor's jetbike with a hail of bolter shells, autogun bullets, and plasma blasts. The jetbike is taking heavy damage! One of the squats pulls the pin from a krak grenade, preparing to finish the job. Parris opens up with his hurricane bolters, reducing the squat to a fine pink mist. Thus to all abhuman infidels!

Meanwhile, Sergeant Len's attempts at subterfuge have been entirely in vain. Everyone can see him, in his shiny red power armour. A squat armed with a plasma gun shoots him full in the chest, and Sergeant Len goes down.

At this casualty, Inquisitor Parris orders his warband to retreat and regroup. Enginseer Tappet is able to retrieve the wounded space marine with the aid of his servo arm. The others flee as they might.

Inquisitor Parris ponders this reversal. The miners had been extremely aggressive. What could possibly be going on around here that would make them respond to the presence of an Imperial inquisitor with such lethal force? Clearly something untoward was happening on the planet Xenon...

Love it. Great Rogue Trader style narrative game - will be looking forward to the next one!

Chapter 2: The Cult

The inquisitor and his loyal acolytes find a spot to go to ground.



While Sister Lunzie and Enginseer Tappet help Sergeant Len recover from the previous battle...



...Inquisitor Parris patrols from the air...



...and Frank Miller investigates the wreckage of a Rhino armoured personnel unit.



But unfriendly forms approach from the darkness that surrounds the warband's ad hoc encampment.







Frank Miller is overwhelmed before he can raise the alarm!



Genestealers, hideous monsters from beyond the galaxy, and their awful hybrid by-blows, come charging from the rusting ruins of a tectonic fragdrill. Among them are some of the miners they'd encountered earlier, though none of the squats from before are present. Sergeant Len is brought down by a veritable tide of chittering, clawed monstrosities.

"So, it's a genestealer cult, eh? Capture one or two of them for me, will you? We'll need to question them," says Inquisitor Parris rather casually.

The tech priest coolly smacks down a hybrid with his servo-claw.

"Desist. I. Arrest. You. In. The. Name. Of. The. Omnissiah. You. Will. Submit. To. Our. Questions." Enginseer Tappet applies binders to the hybrid creature. Three pairs of binders are necessary.



Inquisitor Parris wheels his jetbike around and rakes the fragdrill's platforms with bolts from his hurricane bolters and whirling blades from his shuriken catapult. Two hybrids are shredded and a third is severely wounded.



During a brief respite from the fighting, Sister Lunzie injects Enginseer Tappet with a stimm shot. The enginseer returns the favor by handing the sister hospitaller an arcane electromancy device. The inquisitor drops his jetbike down low and draws his ancient power sword. Together, the three remaining loyal servants of the Imperium meet the charge of the genestealers. Inquisitor Parris's sword lashes out and his bolters blaze. Sister Lunzie triggers the electromancy device, sending the nearby genestealers into uncontrollable convulsions, and her chirurgeon's tools bite deep into genestealer flesh. Tappet's omnissian axe rises and falls in a frenzy of destruction. Soon the trio are surrounded by a pile of genestealer corpses, their power armour bathed in the creatures' foul ichor. The cult's leader charges in swinging his power pick, but Sister Lunzie deftly jobs him with a hypo filled with a sedative, and takes him prisoner. The tattered remnants of the cultists flee, leaving two of their number to the tender mercies of the Imperial Inquisition.







The inquisitor puts the cult leader to the Question. At first all they can get out of him is his name, Mark Vorkosigan. He claims to be a loyal subject of the Emperor... the Four-Armed Emperor. Clearly the genestealer cultists have perverted the Imperial Truth on planet Xenon for their own purposes, putting their Genestealer Patriarch in the Emperor's rightful place. After rather more... insistent questioning, the Imperial agents are able to discover the cultist's future plans.

"You're too late!" spits Vorkosigan, "We already have what we need to spread from this world. We've captured a navigator, you see? Soon the Cult of the Four-Armed Emperor will be on every planet in the sector!"



"This bodes ill," intones Sister Lunzie, "We must prevent them from polluting any more worlds."

"Yes," says Inquisitor Parris, "We have to prevent them from getting the navigator into orbit. Let's go!"

"Oh," he says, "But first, execute these two for their vile blasphemy. Polluting the human gene pool is a crime for which we must mete out the swiftest punishment."

Chapter 3: The Magus

From their interrogation of the cultists, the Imperial agents had learned that the Cult of the Four-Armed Emperor had kidnapped a navigator and were planning to spread their heresies to other planets. They had also learned the time and place that the navigator was to be transferred to a vehicle, then to be driven to the spaceport. Inquisitor Parris knew that the navigator must be rescued if possible, or eliminated if rescue proved to be impossible.



The transfer was scheduled to take place at a dusty crosroads on the outskirts of an industrial district.

Enginseer Tappet hides behind an alchomite stack. Sergeant Len and Frank Miller take up positions within a ruined building...



...while Sister Lunzie hides the weed-infested ruins of another building. Inquisitor Parris waits some distance away, awaiting Sergeant Len's voxcast signal to arrive on his jetbike.



A sleek black limousine purrs to a stop opposite Sister Lunzie's position. Five cultists pile out, including one man with a shiny red coat and a sinister air of charisma about him. A genestealer hybrid carrying a sonic cannon begins scaling the nearby building, seeking a commanding position. The other cultists immediately spot Sister Lunzie, though the rest of the agents go unnoticed.

"You there! Girl!" calls the Magus, for such is what he is, "What are you doing here?"

"I'm, uh, gathering medicinal herbs," improvises the sister hospitaller.

"Well, gather them someplace else," the Magus growls. Two of the cultists approach Lunzie's position, their weapons raised.



At the end of the street, the party of hybrids and genestealers arrive with the captured navigator. His hands are shackled, and the cultists have hung a psy-jammer around his neck to inhibit his psychic powers. Hybrids and purestrain genestealers fan out to cover their advance toward the limo.



Sister Lunzie vaults over the ruined wall and lays about her with her chirurgeon's tool as her foes' grenades and webs miss her completely.



As the hybrid with the sonic cannon reaches the second floor of the building, Frank Miller revs up his chainsword and decapitates him with a single strike!



As the battle is joined in earnest, Sergeant Len uses the voxcaster built into his helmet, "Sergeant Len to Inquisitor Parris: The trap is sprung."



Enginseer Tappet strides from behind cover to intercept the party that's dragging the navigator along, but he's intercepted by three purestain genestealers!



Sergeant Len recklessly overcharges his plasma pistol, firing at the limo in the hopes of disabling it. Getting the navigator out on foot will be very difficult for the cultists.While he manages to damage the vehicle, it doesn't seem to be seriously impaired.



Inquisitor Maximillian Parris arrives on his jetbike, intent on stopping the xenos menace.



The cultists push the navigator into the limo and the magus joins him along with one of the hybrid acolytes. The limo driver pressing the firing stud, activating the twin rotor cannons, which blaze away at the oncoming jetbike. Inquisitor Parris lets loose with all seven barrels (his hurricane bolters and his shuriken catapult) against the limo. All of the weapons are completely ineffective against the armour of their respective opponents. Frank Miller's grenade launcher proves to be more effective; the limo is damaged by a krak grenade.



With its vital passengers on board, the limo driver slams the vehicle into gear and grinds around the corner, making a break for the spaceport. The enginseer breaks away from the genestealers and attempts to intercept the limo before it can get up to full speed.



A cultist fires both barrels of his shotgun, hitting Sergeant Len full in the chest, but the space marine's power armour is proof against such puny weapons. The cultist, desperate to prevent the erstwhile sergeant from inflicting any more damage upon the limo with his plasma pistol, hurls himself bodily at the adeptus astartes.



The inquisition agents give chase to the limo. That navigator represents their entire mission!



The inquisitor opens fire on the purestrains, hoping to stop them from bogging down the tech-priest, who now represents the agents' best hope of stopping the limousine!







Frank Miller lands another shot from his grenade launcher, but the limo keeps going!



Finally, Enginseer Tappet smashes in the engine of the limo with his axe and his servo-arm. The prometheum fuel ignites explosively!



The passengers are all badly injured in the explosion, but the two cultists drag the navigator from the wreckage and limp away on foot.



The other cultists charge the imperial agents, desperate to prevent the them from rescuing the navigator! Our heroes exact a heavy toll against the heretical xenos spawn, but Frank Miller is overwhelmed by the hybrid enemies.





The inquisitor, in desperation, rakes both the magus and the navigator with bolter rounds, wounding both of them terribly, but the magus, with an evil chuckle, escapes with his prisoner, disappearing into a tunnel and collapsing the entrance with an explosive device.



The agents take out their wrath on the remaining cultists, but their defeat is bitter. The Cult of the Four-Armed Emperor has won, and the whole sector will rue this day.