(Basically use tech to try and get the codes)
You sit down next to the Servitor and begin to repeat the diagnostic routines you know for Servitors. The Rite of the Empty Mind, the hymn of sleep and renewal, and the Rite of the unprocessed knowledge.
The Servitor however, is clearly more advanced than any you've worked for. It replies to the basic diagnostics, rattling off it's identification ("
Servitor 9F8F8"), current medical and mechanical status ("
Fully Operational"), and its purpose (
"Navigation and Mapping of Hive Designation Lozepath"), but it will not divulge its secrets to you, nor enter the Crypto-Rites that would allow you to access or reset its access codes.
Finally, after several moments of fruitless work, the Servitor's head turns towards you. "
Target Designated Profane. Please cease attempts to access this unit." Then, it simply stares through you, it's Machine Spirit dead to your presence, and your entreaties and diagnostics ignored entirely.
(OOC: 4 DoF. Effect: ???)
"Actually, perhaps we should discuss this matter of import somewhere of greater security. We would scarcely wish for blessed military intelligence to be slain by another sniper, no?" He said with faux cheer, waving a hand at the buildings surrounding them with lovely, sniper blocking walls and interiors. "Let's contact command after we get our precious trophy in cover."
Maybe after the Imperium magnanimously gave him a planet to rule, he'd handle the 'servitors' by putting bags over their heads. And bodies. Maybe just cut some arm holes in a big sack...Emperor, but that wouldn't do anything for the smell, would it?
(OOC: Try to get us into some cover.)
@Svend @xjax1 @Sir_Travelsalot @Kensai
Finding some cover is easy enough. A customs house, it's door easily pried open by rifle stocks and a little sweat, and the squad is able to scuttle across the plaza from cover to cover to reach it's doors. The walls are stout, the windows designed to be fired from, though the doors will be an issue, given how little effort it had taken to pry the plasteel open.
The lobby looks hastily abandoned, papers and scrolls and cold cups of caff scattered on tables, the receptacles for the financial-adepts ominously dark in the unlit room. A couple dark stains along a wall leading deeper in might well speak what had happened to them, but for now the lobby will serve.
A moment to relax, to intake breath.
Another minute. Then a few more. Sergeant Colm stands up to pace. Glances at his men, relaxing, at Brom and 9F. He considers, gives a glance at Cheri, and the vox mounted at her back.
"Alright, Sophon had the right idea." He says. "We're in cover, we're safe for the time being. I think it's about time we voxed command."
"What are we going to tell them?" Bellok asks. "We got a Servitor full of maps, the man who brought it here, and..."
"We took out two snipers getting it." Dormer says. "And all heroically risked ourselves in the process to do so, thank you very much."
Colm glances toward Celine-it'd all go to kark if the one who actually risked herself the most decided to contradict that story for her own glory...but it'd hardly endear her to everyone else either.
"Right." Colm says. "We got time to get our story straight, and make sure we all come out of this looking good, yes?"
(OOC: This is your chance to try and influence the narrative, and maybe gain some favor with command. The better story you give, the more chances you'll get for bonus equipment or favors in the final part)
"It is a valiant endeavour that you and your friend partook in for the God-Emperor's cause. While the rest of them are attending to the bounty of data you have brought, would you like to hold a short vigil over your friend, Mads you said? Her sacrifice should not go unremarked..." Celine asks Brom, the rush of combat settling into a melancholy. Such a brave and leal soul, to have risked a surely abominable fate at the hands of the heretics for the sake of His servants finding victory. And yet, who would remember her?
"...Oh." The young man says, the high of adrenaline bleeding away. "Mads...yes." His eyes fall, one flicking unconciously in the direction where his compatriot had fallen outside.
He goes to his knees. "Mads Aspak, Technomat of the Divine Servitor Cloister, inhabitant of Lozepath Mid Spires, daugther of Rorschah Mundi. I-we commend your soul to the Golden Throne, so that your sacrifice will not be forgotten..."
Over the course of the Vigil, he speaks to who Mads had been. A free-born technomat from the mid-hive, who had worked hard to collect scraps of sacred technological knowledge from the perpetually dying data-vaults of Lozepath in order to advance her family from lowly craftsmen and lay-teks into sacred service to the Spire Lord's own holdings. She'd managed to find a place working at the Servitor Repair cloister where she met Brom, a Helot working off his familial debt to the Spire Lord via menial work-which Brom insisted was both an honor and lucky, for the Servitor Cloister was blessed work indeed, and rewarding as well towards his debts. He and Mads had struck up a friendship over long hours of repair work and a shared loyalty to the Spire Lord who had elevated them both. She had had dreams of eventually perhaps running the Cloister, or perhaps even being selected for training by the interant Nomad techpriests who passed through the Hives on holy circuit every five years-she had even promised to take him on as an apprentice when his debts were paid.
When the revolution came, it had been Mads idea to steal 9F and flee for Imperial Lines as soon as possible, and Brom had agreed out of loyalty. Though they didn't have the codebook, Mads had been confident she could get 9F to release it's secrets, and that they would both be rewarded once they reached Imperial lines-perhaps she might well have recieved her apprenticeship to a Techpriest early, and Brom his full citizenship.
But instead, all she had gotten was a traitor's las-shot, and left Brom to attempt to salvage their scheme.
"She was brilliant. She always knew exactly what make and model the machines were, even if the other Technomats had long forgotten. That was the reason we took 9F....I thought we should've taken GH-6B, but she turns to me and says 'GH is a Kraghoc pattern Scribe Servant. It's common. 9F is a Cyrost Pattern Explorator. It's a rare model, with twice the memory of a standard design, and a triple passcoded mind-lock.' The knowledge to be a real Tech-Adept, and it's...it's gone now. She's with the Emperor..."
(OOC: Charm test successful, 5 DoS. This will give you a bonus to your test to sell this to command, as well as useful technical information if Celine wants to take her own attempt at 9F's codes.)
Smoop settled back into cover as the other penals of Colm's squad advanced and the spotter resorted to the better part of valour. She was a little safer, for now, and she might be able to concentrate on what she did best - if someone could only shut up that idiot who was screaming into her ear....
Oh, that was her.
Well, there wasn't much call for screaming any more, so she shut up and tried to breathe slower. The shaking in her fingers began to calm down enough for her to operate the Auspex again, although she could still feel her facial muscles twitching randomly, and her left foot kicked feebly at a rock every few seconds.
She put that all aside, took a slug of warm water from her canteen, and began to commune with the Auspex again.
(OOC: Scan the surroundings and keep watch for advancing enemy)
Near one of the windows, Smoop, fussing over her Auspex, realizes how poorly chosen those words might well be. A column of dots on her Auspex's appear, approaching from deeper in the hive, disappearing and then reappearing between sweeps. Smoop musters her courage, then takes a glance out the window.
A dozen men, two in the heavy flak of the traitor RMCSDF, ten in robes, flak vests, and rebreathers of the Hive Militia. They are making few attempts at stealth. One of the SDF men is observing the cooling corpse of Mads, more are glancing at the former snipers nests, as if looking for the men that the squad had killed or seen off. Their investigations are lazy, ill disciplined, but they are here in numbers, and they are searching.
And worse, behind them, a machine rumbles in the gloom, headlights and a turret mounted lamp providing light for the patrol. A turreted stubber, controlled from inside the vehicle trails a lazy arc back and force. Armored plates, gone to rust, but still likely more than enough for small arms cover the vehicle. A symbol of a downward facing sword and the words "Spire Lord's Justice" have been defaced with a torch, and black paint has been sprayed across the side spelling out "WE ARE DOOMED". The only possible military advantage regarding the vehicle is that the top hatch appears to be half open, a stream of lho or obcura smoke filtering out from it.
A Scarab Patrol Car. A light armored car used by Enforcers and police organizations across the Imperium, now appropriated by the Doomed Youth for service to the traitor militia. She was barely armed and inadequately armored in any military sense, with only a pair of twin-linked heavy stubbers in a remotely controlled turret, and armor that was rated only barely better than for resisting it's own weapons. Quad wheeled, instead of tracked, the wheels potentially vulnerable. Despite this, it was almost certainly nearly invulnerable to every weapon the two squads have, and so might as well be a Leman Russ battletank. Perhaps there was a chance with concentrated fire with overcharged lasguns and heavy stubbers on it's turret and wheels, or if some brave soul could get close enough to throw a grenade down it's hatch...
Well, it couldn't hurt their reputation, and there might well be useful supplies to salvage...but perhaps discretion was the better part of valor.
(OOC: Enemy squad plus a light armored car looking for you guys. They rolled very poorly for their Stealth and Smoop succeeded her awareness, so your own Stealth tests are going to get a +20 bonus (on top of a large bonus for hiding in a building). The choice lies with you whether you want to simply hide from them, or press your luck and attempt an ambush-or perhaps call for assistance from Command.)
