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OOC: Would you be willing to let another player join?

Description: Name Karick, Tall 6' 2", Blue eyes, Broad shoulders, equipped with auto pistol as well as a combat war axe he had created from a Ork boys concept of a weapon. While he wears his flak jacket and khaki pants.

Karick was born of a hive world that came under attack of orks and survived the attack and fought off a small wave of Orks before his family was butchered and he was rendered unconscious. So he has a hatred of orks, but is not loyal to anyone but himself, and relies only on himself, he was not in the initial wave of the Tau boarding action, he was requested to stay on the ship in case of a counter boarding action.

OOC: Sorry I haven't been able to add that player you asked me to sooner Owain. PC died so I had to switch to a netbook Finally finished configuring it to run way better than it did so I'll be able to do it now. I guess I could also do the above one as well to keep the game moving smoothly.


IC: Mael was rather board and walking around the room, waiting for the security to be disabled. Suddenly the sounds of gunfire echoed through the closed door. It flew open and two humans ran in followed by blue flashes of Tau pulse weapons. Mael was ready to strike and silence these two intruders, but he recognized them. They were recent additions to the crew. He might have seen them once or twice, they however weren't comfortable being around the xenos yet. But, they guessed he must be friendly otherwise he wouldn't still be with the crew, unless this was the Eldar's trick.

Such paranoia towrds the Eldar was common, Mael had learnt to live with it and in turn be slightly suspicious himself, least the Monkiegh panic and fire their weapons wildly at him.

One of them looked slightly stronger than the other, he had an axe in his hand and a pistol in the other. Mael had heard his name mentioned a few times; Karick. He was hired after his apparent encounter with the Orks, leading to the weapons he prefered to carry. The only armour he wore was a Flak jacket. The other was wearing dirty ripped clothing, as if he lived on the street. Mal noticed the odd angles the clothes sat at suggesting that he wore armour underneath, Flak armour. A small sparkle of light came from his neck, Mael noticd he was wearing various jewels, if he died Mael wanted to be near the corpse so as to loot it first.

He had a knife in each hand, a bit over half the length of each arm. Mael noticed he had a pistol in a holster. Though he didn't have it out, either he was worried about making a hole in the hull of the ship or simply didn't like to shoot. He was a little shorter than the first and didn't look as strong. He probably preferred to close in quickly with the enemy and delivery death with the knives.

It wouldn't be long before the Tau chasing them would open the door, perhaps they had reinforcements on the way to secure their treasures. Either way Mael as disappointed that all his effort spent avoiding detection was wasted. That didn't matter now, the enemy woud have to be held off and once the security was disabled they coud grab the artifact and be on their way. Or they could grab it anyway and take their chances with the cutting lasers in the walls.

A flickering glance around the room gave him the layout and the cover. Leaping for the crates he saw that actually these were not cover, but a deathtrap, boxes of grenades and guns, hiding behind these would be suicide if a spare round hit them. Grabbing a handful of the frags he clipped them quickly to his belt and then picked up both knives and slammed against the wall, his teeth showing as he grinned wildly at Mael and Karick.

"Sime soo mek death or be dead..." On speaking he revealed the cleft in his tongue, split like a snake's, the two tips twitching independantly as the combat stims sped through his system, making his blood boil and his eyes wide.

"Come soo me... come quick on wings of fire..."

"What are you blabbering bout you druged out little ape?" asked Mael, obviously not quite catching what he had just said. The door opened. "No matter, we have no time unless you too can maintain an adequate conversation while fighting these near sighted marksmen, if you could call them that. *sigh* I honestly don't get why they insist on using ranged weaons when their very genetic make up fights against it. Do they really feel too high and mighty for the elegant dance of melee?" said Mael, while he was taking several Fire Warriors had ran into the room.

The first was cut down quickly by Mael as he spoke, his power sword easily slicing through the warrior. The remaining two were taken down by the still nameless warrior with the knives. As he ran for the second one, he sliced clean through the first's neck. The warrior dropped his weapon and his hands were rised to feel his neck. Blue-coloured blood was flowing out, choking on his blood the warrior tried to scoop it back into his neck as if it would keep him living. The second was shocked by the horror of his two friends being cut down and turned to flee. The nameless crew member tackled him and repeatively stabed him with the knives, a sadistic laughter acompanied the sound of knives crashing through the Fire Warriors armour and the spraying of his blood. The first hit probably killed him, passing through the top of the helmet, the rest was probably the effects of the combat drugs.

Mael's kill was less spectacular, as the blade of the power sword cauterized the wounds, leaving no bleeding. The warrior's head had detached from it's body and span through the air. The body fired it's gun once as it tripped, it's running no longer being directed by the warrior's brain, the shot hit the warrior's lifeless corse in the chest, leaving a smoking hole in the chest of the headless corpse, laying on it's back.

The head bounced twice and stopped at the feet of the Fire Warrior that attempted to run. Meanwhile Karick had been reloading and checking his gun. But soon more would likely show up. Time was against the Rouge Trader's crew. When the combat drugs wear off it is likey that the nameless warrior would lose conciousness and become an additional weight. That is if he hadn't taken too much of the drug which would result in a messy death as his heart, and main arteries explode leaving a corpse that appears to be crying blood, in addition to it also coming out of the ears and mouth. Mael knew humans could become addicted to the drug, sometimes it could even make them as insane as a warrior of Khorne. He would have to keep a close eye on the human, just in case he fell to the power of the blood god while in combat. But then again he had to do that to all humans he encountered, until he could trust them. The chance to take out an Eldar, who mostly looked down on them, sometimes too much for them to resist.

(OOC: Um, no, I'm on a cocktail of stims that will speed up reactions and make me a bit quicker on reflex, but I'm not a sadistic butcher. I appreciate that you're building your own story here, but you're putting too much of my character into your posts, which you don't know yet)

With a whispered prayer on his lips the first had gone down, blood pouring out, and with a spring he was onto the next, looking for all the world like the charge of a kroot warrior, but without the graceful finish, as the second kill took him down too, the body of the Tau on top of him. Shoving it off and wiping the Tau blood from his face, he smiled sadly.

"Gone to grace are they."

Spinning around he resumed his place against the wall, not wanting to re-enter the long corridor outside, a death trap for a close combat orientated warrior. The drugs would wear off in about twenty minutes, when he would become almost useless in combat, but if it wasn't over by then, there would be a lot more trouble than he could handle anyway.

OOC: Sorry about that. I guess I just saw them as something similar to the drugs that the Eversor Assassins take, which basically does that. I guess it can just be how Mael saw the combat unfold, him assuming the warrior as brutish.

OOC: No worries, everyone has different styles of playing these games, I like to have control of myself. More than happy for you to think I'm brutish (I am), but not a sadistic psycho. I've got depth

OOC; Love the character development here.

IC; As Karick sliced the neck of the next tau entering the room he notices the crew member Mael, one of a very few Eldar he had ever seen in his life, amazed at his grace with his weapon in combat he had always wished to ask where he had learned that style of combat. Karick saw the other member of the crew who he was unfamiliar with role the dead Tau off of him, always shocking to see just how affective that human could be.

Karick had seen the next wave of Tau down the corridor before they had entered this room so as he checked is auto pistol and holstered it, he sighed in relief to see just how sharp his axe was. As Karick mentioned the news of the next wave of reinforcements to his comrades the bright blue flash of the Tau guns came screaming into the room as he saw the other human just step aside into cover, he looked around for Mael, and to his very little surprise he had no idea where he was. Karick knew that the eldar was in the room but didn't give it a second thought, as the first of the Firewarriors stepped through the doorway in a sweeping motion Karick came from just below the knee completely removing the leg of the xenos. No sooner had the Tau cried out in pain the Firewarrior behind him found himself with the head of an axe the size of his entire torso embedded in his chest.

Henrik jumped to the nearest control panel, now more and more tau troops were pooring through the door and onto the bridge. Henrik searched frantically for a button to close the main door of the bridge. Moving from control panel to control panel, weaving around the small group of fighters, into he finally found the main door control. Shouting in joy he smashed his hand down on the button and whirled around to see the large, steel doors slam shut.

Panting, Henrik turned around to see a battle scarred Kroot shaper standing less then two feet infront of him. Henrik had time to gasp in suprise before the kroot shaper lent forward and head butted Henrik, who went flying across the bridge with blood pouring from his nose.

OOC: I'm going to issue an executive order here; I specifically didn't want to have enemy Kroot onboard because there's no reliable info I could find on Kroot fighting each other; from what I can tell Henrik and the errant Youngbloods have just run into each other.

Lyas hastily stepped in between Kharror and Erik; the heat of the battle had gotten to them. "Peace, friends! We have been granted a moment's respite." He sheathed his rapier and crossed his arms as he inspected the panels Henrik had been fooling with.

"It seems that you've inadvertently knocked out the security system... good. Mael should be able to carry out his part of the mission, now. Let's rally Kharror's kin and prepare to disembark before things get any hairier. I'll go ahead and set the plasma generators to overload in a few hours' time; we should have plenty of time to get back to the Perina, after which we can enter orbit and resupply unmolested.

As Karick and his comrades finished the rest of the second security team, he waves over to Mael to let him know that the security systems are down, however he suspected that the eldar already knew. With the security system down Karick knew that the way to the artifact would be clear to go and collect it, he also knew full well that it was not part of his mission to collect it so he told the Mael that he could provide cover from the end of the corridor.

As the team moved towards the vault Karick sensed something on a psychic level, he knew he was a slight pyrotechnic, although when using his abilities is basically debilitating which drains him, he knew that Mael was probably the only one of the crew who knew almost completely that he had psychic powers of minimal abilities. Now comes the time of the mission that Karick hated most, he always felt as though there was this high probability of failure right before the mission was completed and it always got on his nerves. Maybe it was that time of the mission or maybe it was something on a psychic level that was disturbing him.

As soon Mael was aware of the security system's deactivation he quickly and carefully opened the case holding the Artifact with his power sword. He had no time to carefully open it so as not to leave any traces of tampering. He grabbed the artifact, but wasn't exactly sure of what it was. Perhaps it was an ancient wepon, maybe even a power source or some ancient religious symbol of some long lost civilisation. There was no time to think about it, he quickly searched through the crates and found a few med packs. Their hard metal case would be perfect for protecting the treasure, he made sure to keep a fair few as well for the crew.

The inside of the case was covered with soft foam to protect the more delicate devices inside the med pack, he tipped it out and put the artifact inside. It just managed to fit inside the case, it was a little bit bigger than both of his fists put next to each other.

"Lyas I've got the artifact, plus some medical supplies, it's time to leave this ship. But, should we leave it with a bang or quietly?" asked Mael over the vox. He marked the case with his power sword carefully with some Eldar word.

As the warrior with the axe dealt with the first two aliens, Fieval leapt over him and against the opposite wall, a blast of plasma singing his heels as he did so. The fire warrior, thinking he had killed something, entered the room too quickly and a long knife handle sprouted suddenly from his face plate. As quickly as the throwing knife had left his hand, another was in it, but no more warriors appeared.

Behind him he heard the case opening, though he could not sense the Eldar. No worries. Maybe time for more... no, heavy feeling in his nose. Putting his hand to his face he felt sticky blood. The stims were burning out and his body was paying for it. Time to get back to the ship before his legs became leaden and he needed a few hours rest to even be able to stand without shaking.

Carefully retrieving his knife and cleansing it of the alien's blood, Fieval ghosted away towards the pod he'd arrived in. The killing time was over, back to base again.

The battle for the most part was over, endless streams of the Tau lay strewn around the bridge of the ship. The messy close quarter combat being their bane and downfall. The stench, a smell which Erik had come to know all to well over his years fighting for the captain, it was the unmistakable smell of death. He scanned the room for signs of life, and his eyes quickly fell on a fire warrior crawling his way to the now closed bridge doors.

Erik sauntered toward him and unholstered his knife, with a sigh. Hearing the footsteps the fire warrior crawled with ever increasing speed in some foolish hope of escape. He stepped on the warrior's body, kicking him in the stomach causing him to flip over onto his back.
"Rest now." Erik mumbled before rather unceremoniously plunging the knife deep into the warriors chest. He drew it out quickly and wiping the blade off on his pants leg he re-holstered it and peered around the room once again.

Suddenly the vox sprang into life as the Mael communicated that he had recovered a treasure of importance and with a grin spreading across his face Lyas rubbed his hands together and said quickly," Erik you know what to do?"

Erik nodded and turning on his heels walked right up to one of the near by control panels. It was a most beautiful piece of technology and he was rather unhappy about what he would have to do next. As you see, control panel delta-4569 was the ships security camera control center, and having lived a relatively long life in service of the Tau's greater good. Its service ended at the end of the butt of a rifle as its internal systems were damaged heavily by the blows which were struck upon it.

"There,"Erik said with a look of disgust on his face, he hated being a lackey,"so we getting out of here or what?"

Lyas nodded, satisfied. "Right, then. Back to the shuttles. We'll debrief in four hours."

Once the Artifact was secure the team moved out back to the shuttle that Mael had arrived on. As they were moving out Karick thought to himself about picking up a trophy on the way out, a nice little habit of his, weapons, tech, stuff people value, on the way to the shuttle he noticed a firewarriors ceremonial knife which he very casually bent down and tucked into his belt to be placed with his other collector items, and off to the shuttle the group of them went.

Mael had ran ahead of the others and arrived at the shuttle first. Inside he found a team of three Tau engineers examining the shuttle. Their eyes lit up in horror when they saw the annoyed Eldar standing in the doorway. One ran down the hallway and was killed by a single shot from Mael's Shuriken Pistol. The second dropped a tool on his foot, it landed with a loud thud. The last seemed to be soiling himself. He was imediately grabbed by Mael and thrown out of the shuttle, he landed on his head with a sickening cracking sound. The last Tau started hopping down the halway, but was quickly hit in the back of the head as Mael had thrown the tool at him. He tripped and started crawling away from the Eldar who was wlking towards him. Mael was soon standing in front and the Tau was backing up into the wall.

Tears were flowing down the Tau's face. "Stand up" said Mael solemly, he had a plan. The Tau slowly rose to his feet. "D-Don't kill me?" begged the Tau. "On one condition" replied Mael. "A-A-Anything!" replied the Tau, Mael could hear how desperate the engineer sounded; it was perfect. "If anyone asks, this was a Dark Eldar raid" said Mael. "O-ok.. Is that it?" asked the Tau. "No. I want you to take this gift from the Eldar race. It represents a glowing and bright future" said Mael, he handed the Engineer a round object roughly the size of his fist. The engineer looked at it in awe. "Just remember, you are safe now, the Eldr have saved you" said Mael. Then entire time he had been talking to the Tau he hadn't broken eye contact. The Tau wiped away his tears, and ran off to find the other Tau.

"Everyone! The Dark Eldar who attacked us have been driven back by the Eldar, we have been saved and have recieved a gift from their leader! He said it signifies a bright future, they have forseen the Greater Good coming to join the universe together" echoed the Tau's joyful voice down the hallway. Mael laughed loudly. "Everyone, do not kill anymore Tau. It's extremely important, if you kill any it will completely undo the illusion I have made" he said over the vox.

He laughed loudly again and stepped into the shuttle, it hadn't been tampered with. He was glad he was able to fool the Tau so easily, not being a Farseer made it extremely difficult without extreme damage to their mind first. The Tau probably excepted it as it was a good alternative to death, that would have made it easier. Mael continued to laugh, the object he had given the Tau was infact a Plasma Grenade; set to detonate remotely with the others he had hidden in the crates of grenades before leaving. He had made sure to wait until after the two humans looked at the crates, just in case it would back fire.

Fieval watched the Eldar from a darkened alcove. He had decided not to kill the Tau in the shuttle, being unarmed non combatents, deciding to wait until others came, but the Eldar obviously had no time... or simply didn't care. No matter, what was done was done and he wanted back in the shuttle. Standing at the entrance to the shuttle he hissed

"Permissun to enter the ssip, sir"

He knew the Eldar had come alone and may plan to leave alone, but there was plenty of room for other crew members. Fieval was tired and didn't want to walk back to his own shuttle, but was unwilling to barge in with the cold calculating alien without invitation.

Kharrors kroot assembled within the hanger. Their seemed alot less now. Many were cradling their dead brethren between them and Kharror looked incredibly mournful. They entered their respective shuttles, and blasted off back to the Rogue traders ship. Too many had died.

Henrik entered the Hanger with Lyas. The short journey through the ship had been strange, many Tau had muttered there thanks and had looked up at Henrik and Lyas with hopeful eyes.

Henrik didnt like the mind tricks the Eldar used, he would rather have fought his way out then be followed by the blood stained thankful Tau.

He entered the shuttle and secured the harness. He sighed, the battle had only just began.

"It's fine, you may enter. I have to wait for Karick anyway" said Mael. The shuttle was ready for launch and as soon as Karick arrived he woud return to the ship. Mael was sitting the way he usually did, legs up on a nearby ledge. He looked at a small screen near the contro panel which allowed him to see behind the shuttle. Nothing was realy happening outside, no one had come to the aid of the Tau ship. Nothing but darkness and stars, Lyas' ship was drifting around somewhere.

As Karick approached the shuttle that he could only assume Mael had arrived on he picked up the pace and double timed it into the passenger area of the shuttle, strapped himself in and started to get ready for the return to the ship, as he looked around he saw Mael and Fieval nod at him as he looked around the ship in a welcoming but abrupt manner of body language, he knew they weren't friends but he would have liked it if they were. Then he thought to himself if he wanted another ork invasion incident where all his friends where lost, but he decided not to dwell on it much gave him burning headaches when he did.

Mael closed the door as Karick entered the shuttle. "Lyas, I'm heading back to the ship now. Shuttle 3 launching" said Mael over the vox, with the artifact off the ship the others could freely leave without hesitation. Mael didn't like the artifact, it was metalic, smooth, cold to the touch and had ancient symbols spread over it's rectangular surface. It left him with an uneasy feeling whenever he saw it. The sooner they sold it off the better, but Mael feared that Lyas might have plans for it.

The shuttle arrived back at the Rouge Trader's ship. They left the cramped shuttle, glad to be off the Tau ship. A maintenance Servitor moved towards the ship and began it's work. Mael was sitting in the bridge in his usual spot watching out the window. The artifact was in it's box on Lyas' chair. All there was to do now was wait for everyone to return.

As the shuttle landed back on the ship, Karrick had seen Mael head off towards the bridge and he had lost sight of his other comrade, whatever the case he needed to drop off the few meaningless trophies he had collected from the random Tau on the ship. When he entered his room and placed everything where he thought it should be, he had placed his axe down in its rack and was no looking at it with dullness in his eyes, maybe next run out of the ship he would find a more suitable weapon which was how he worked, never spent too long on one weapon. As he snapped back to reality he realized that he would probably be required on the Bridge soon.

When he left the room and b-lined it for the bridge and arrived he noticed that Mael was still there just waiting, seemed like something that was out of a mosaic in a museum back on his homeworld. Nothing seemed out of place for him, he walked over to a stack of crates and climbed onto one of the bigger ones.

"Your weapon choice is pretty ironic" said Mael, still looking out the window. There was no more exposions in the distance, the Tau ship floated slowly beside them as if it were a dead fish. Bored of staring at it, Mael turned away from the window. He saw the box and shuddered at the thought of the artifact.

"For some reason I just needed a change of pace, if you would" said Karrick in response to the Eldar, the Tau knife that was resting in its sheath had been the only weapon that Karrick had wanted to bring to the bridge, as he turned his head to look at the artifact he wondered just what was in the box. "So what do you think this will run for on the market?" asked "Karrick studying the outside of the box from a distance.

The Combat drugs had leeched from his system and he had fallen into a deep sleep by the time the shuttle docked with the Rogue Trader ship. He barely moved as the servitor picked him up and carried him back to his quarters. He'd picked up the Servitor a year earlier, when he'd woken up in a bar with no knowledge of how he'd got there. It had cost a fair bit and had no uses outside of carrying him around onboard the ship, but it was worth having around.

He'd be out for a fair few more hours, but he was very little use outside of combat anyway. His attention wandered faster than a Hevan Scuttlebug, so people tended to leave him out of anything which did not involve battles or intrigue.

"Depends on how stupid the person we sell it to is" laughed Mael. He started to clean his power sword. "So are those Tau knives even good for combat? I thought they were simply just a ceremonial thing. Just like the Imperium's Aquilla on everything. But, I was commenting on the axe. If you really want a change of pace you need to get a powered weapon. But, it was a Tau ship after all" said Mael, he had finished cleaning the sword and looked over the Shuriken Pistol and Catapult. His weapons were always with him, no matter what.

"One thing I know, is that I hate that artifact. Just a feeling about it, but it seems ominous" said Mael.

"These blades have no use but decoration on my wall, it is simply a personal thing that i do, and yes my need of a powered weapon is dire, i have been looking for one for quite some time, but i have yet to find someone with it that i could persuade to let me keep it, if you know what i mean." As Karrick laughed in reply at Maels remark, he could tell that the Eldar was honest in his words and he felt as though he could get to know this Eldar alittle in hopes to be a friend in one day.