Behind Enemy Lines (RP thread)

[Wargamer]

"listen very carefully," McTavish growled. "You are a lucky bastard because right now you've happened upon the only insubordinate Stormtrooper in the Segmentum. I've got a kill on sight order for you lot, but right now I'd rather find somewhere to sleep off a hangover. So, you boys are going to lend us your ride and find something really interesting about a mile away to gawp at. In return, we'll make ourselves scarce."

Hidden beneath his helm, the sergeant grinned. "But if you'd rather hang around, then I will be more than happy to [REDACTED BY THE ORDO HERETICUS] with a bishop's mitre! And I'm the nice member of my squad - you don't want to be here when the other six get back!"

[Narric]

Hertius moved so that he was hidden by the Devilfish's port engine. He peered around the corner, watching from a distance what McTavish was doing.
"Fool is going to get himself killed" he thought to himself.

[The Man They Call Jayne]

The fight seeming to be over, Welxer moved towards the squad, his Heavy Bolter still levels on the Tau. He grinned at the Taus threat, if they moved to attack again, he would cut them down with a single burst.

"I think "the nice one" is over stating it a bit McTavish. Maybe "not the worst one". Still, it seems like there are still bodies upright. Most unlike you."

[Mabbz]

"You seem to have made a tactical error, human," said the shas'la, as the devilfish's cannon whirred once again, this time tracking Wexler's movements. Before it could fire though, the Techpriest darted over and gripped it with his servo arm. There was a torturous mechanical screech as he forced it to point away from his ally, culminating in the barrels buckling and bending, rendering the gun unusable.

"You were saying, Tau?"

The shas'ui spat out some more unintelligable xenos gibberish. "Shas'Ui'Cal'B said 'activate the green switch in the side of my helmet, then we can talk'"

[Wargamer]

"If you're having trouble hearing me, I can always cut a hole in your helmet with this," to emphasise the point he flicked the power field on and held it close enough to the Shas'ui's neck to begin searing the uniform. "I'm pretty sure I've made my offer clear; you can throw down your weapons and run away, or your friends can die and you, eventually, get to die with them. Now make your damn mind up, because the moment Steve the Ogryn wakes up he's going to decide for you. You ever seen someone have their arms ripped off?"

[Mabbz]

There was a brief exchange between the shas'la, followed by them moving out of cover, giving Wexler a clean line of sight with his heavy bolter. Three of them threw their carbines away, while the last pointed his squarely at McTavish. "You easily have enough firepower to kill us all now, and once you have released our sister I will dispose of my weapon. But until you release her, I will keep it ready as an assurance that you wont simply kill us all. Do not fear that I will betray you; if we wished to sacrifice one of our own to harm you, we would have fired already."

As the shas'la spoke, the side hatch of the devilfish opened and the pilot emerged. Hands raised, he moved over to join his comrades.

[Wargamer]

Slowly, with the power field still armed, McTavish moved the sword away. "Get gone before I suddenly feel the need to reaffirm my faith."
He nodded theatrically toward the Devilfish without turning from the Tau. "Someone give Steve a hand into our ride. Tell him it's bigger on the inside or something."

[Mabbz]

Once the shas'ui had moved out of arms reach of the Co'kar'ro'T'auk'cka, the final shas'la threw his weapon away. As the hurried out of sight around the back of the wreckage, McTavish heard the shas'ui shouting angrily at her comrades.

[Narric]

"We will not have much time, before their reinforcements arrive." Hertius commented as the group reformed next to the Devilfish.
"I would prefer to be away from here before they arrive." Motioning with his axe at the engines and the Devilfish as a whole, Hertius continued.
"I should be able to repair this Xenos machine so we can use it to escape. The armour could also do with som bolstering." Returning his gaze to the group.
"Whilst I am affecting this repair, I believe it would be best if one person tried to comprehend the flight controls, whilst another could locate the sensor feeds. getting this heretical craft functional, and making more are two different areas we need to address."

[The Man They Call Jayne]

Wexler looked up on top of the craft to the commanders cupola. With the crafts own weapon destroyed, the cupola would afford him a good vantage point to provide fire from.

[Mabbz]

"I volunteer to try to fly this thing," said Maria, looking between the various sergeants and the techpriest. "I have some technical experience, and anyway I think I would be more useful as a pilot than directly engaging the enemy."

She wasn't entirely sure who she should be taking orders from; probably Sergeant Wexler, since he was in the guard as opposed to Sergeant McTavish who was a stormtrooper. But then, don't stormtroopers technically outrank the ordinary guardsmen? And what about the Techpriest? Techpriests were a common sight on her homeworld of Raikan III, since Raikan II was a minor forge world and Raikan IV was the home of the Red Talons chapter. The Mechanicus often requisitioned guard regiments for their own purpose, so following the orders of a Techpriest was practically second nature to her.

In the end, she figured she'd just let her superiors work it out amongst themselves. If their orders conflicted, she could get them to sort the chain of command out. If not, then there wasn't really a problem anyway, was there?

[Wargamer]

McTavish, once satisfied they had time to repair and regroup, took some time to scavenge for replacement armour parts from his lost squad. He was aware, in a disconnected and heavily medicated way, that he was going to be in a lot of pain in a few hours. Still, that was a problem for later.

Once he was finished scrounging, he brought his spare armour, along with any food and water that he encountered back to the Devilfish, then resorted to reading litanies of restoration and safe passage from an extremely battered copy of the Imperial Primer.

[Mabbz]

Over the course of the next hour, Hertius worked on repairs. He got the thrusters up and running after a while, then spent another half hour patching up the hull while Maria tried to learn the controls through trial and error (nearly flipping the devilfish at least once by firing one thruster at maximum). She'd figured out the short range scanner fairly early (which conveniently showed the surviving pathfinders around the other side of the wreckage). As she was finally getting the hang of moving the 'fish around smoothly, there was a beep from the display. The display showed a large number of Tau forces moving in from the north.

"Get everyone in here!" she yelled up to Adam, who was relaxing in the cupola.

"What is it?" called Frank as he coaxed Steve into the confined space.

"Tau," reported Maria, remotely closing the hatches behind them. "Too many to fight, coming in from the north."

[The Man They Call Jayne]

Wexler turned to look at the incoming threat. He was forced to agree, the best thing they could do was to be somewhere else. Still, that didn[t mean he wasn't going to do nothing. He spun round in the cupola, wishing that the Tau were a little more bulky so he would have more room to move in this cramped hatch, and deployed his Heavy Bolters bi-pod to allow him to rest the weapon on the hull for extra stability. If any target came into range that he could damage, they would quickly regret it, and if he got lucky, he might be able to get a few shots in at a tanks engine pods.

[Narric]

Hertius made his way to the cockpit hatchway, and examined the map Maria had managed to pull up of the area.

"Considering the numbers, we would probably be best returning to our own frontline, even if we are traveling via Xenos machine" Hertius was stroking his cybernetic respirator like it was a beard. "Once we reach our lines, we ditch this for a reliable Chimera, and make our way west to gain access to that city."