Recovery

Battle Barge Valdrmóðr

Currently in orbit around planet Orpheous

Hald walked swiftly forth, his servitors ahead of him with a metal trolley covered with a sheet over it concealing what lay beneath. Blood Claws and Grey Hunters a like parted before him. For if Hald was walking the ship then whatever business he was conducting it was not worth getting in his way. The servitors stopped before a large metal bulkhead, then the Iron priest walked forward. Resting his armoured gauntlet upon a pad resting on the wall he punched a code into the screen just left of the pad. After a few seconds there was a hissing noise, followed by metal clanking as the bulkhead split in two, revealing the cargo bay that had been adapted to serve as Hald’s workshop whilst on the ship. The bay was cavernous, large view screens with various sets of telemetry and images flashing up on them adorned the walls, with a spread of work benchs ranging from some the size of an apothecary’s slab to some capable of taking a rhino or something of similar size on top of it. In the centre of the lab rested a small pedestal around 5 feet tall, flat topped with various implements produing from the sides of the pedestal before recoiling back and hanging over the top of it.

Walking into the bay the servitors took the trolley to the pedestal before stepping back and fetching various tools setting them upon the trolley. Hald, however stood at the entrance, his acute senses tingling at the obvious thing he had over looked. Glancing from surface to surface he meticulously recalled every item in the bay and it’s set place, in doing so he realised nothing had been moved yet something was out of place. Walking into the bay Hald turned to a panel pressing several switches and as he did the bay lit up fully illuminating the large red frame stood a several paces from the pedestal, that of the highly revered Thorvald the Relentless, one of the companies few dreadnoughts and a source of great irritation to Hald on many occasions.

“I believe I told you to wait until I arrived.” Hald sighed, Thorvald’s servos whirred as he walked closer to the pedestal.

“And I believed you said you had something of importance to show me.” Hald’s servo arm reached over towards the trolley, lifting the sheet to reveal a severed metallic skull, human like yet, elongated and emotionless.

“From what Ferrus has discovered this is a Necron, essentially a mechanical construct with military capabilities. However, this is not what we are interested in.” Hald paused, pressing several buttons causing several screens to change to blank blue that then changed, in some cases into a map, others into graph like telemetry.

“Then what are we interested in?” Thorvald leant forward slightly, attempting to get a better view of the skull.

“The Necrons are attempting to recover something and given their behaviour so far it’s safe to assume that it will be either a weapon or some other form of technology. On either count, it’s imperative that we can locate the dig site and attempt to recover the artefact or destroy it if nessecary.” Gesturing to the pedestal Hald continued. “This is a somewhat crudely modified sensor suite I’ve been repairing, with a few modifications that I recently applied, I believe we should be able to extract the required information from this skull and maybe more.” Turning to the servitors Hald nodded and the servitors obediently walked to the trolley carefully lifting the skull, placing it upon the pedestal, having done so they returned to their previous positions. Hald picked up a lead placing it into the spinal port of the Necron and at once the screens came alive, lines shot across charts, waves oscillated on scopes and the map slowly zoomed from one spot to another. Thorvald watched intently as all the machinery came alive, only taking his eyes away as he noticed the skull glowing.

“Hald? I believe your equipment maybe malfunctioning.” Hald turned back to the skull, before running to several screens, pressing sequences of buttons.

“This is nothing to do with my equipment, the skull itself is emanating a form of energy the likes of which we have never encountered.” Turning back to the skull, he could only watch as the light intensified, before the skull vanished, the lead plugged into the skull dropped to the floor. “That can’t be good.” Walking to the map screen the tracker had paused mid way through, but had stopped on a location - Dorviaus Rift. Turning to Thorvald he paused. “Take Graal and Henrik’s Long Fang packs and get down there as fast as possible.”

“Should I wait for Garrus’ approval on this matter?” Hald shook his head.

“Right now Garrus is captaining a Battle Barge for the first time in his life, the Battle leader needs as few distractions as possible. I’ll explain it all to him when the time is right.” Thorvald nodded and turned to leave the bay. “Oh and also.” Hald paused. “Take Jarick and his pack with you” Thorvald turned to face Hald, his confusion was apparent despite his lack of expressiveness given his being interred in a dreadnought.

“Are you sure thats wise?” Hald nodded.

“I fought alongside Jarick many a time while you were in your slumber, trust me if it was me going down there to aid Ferrus, I’d could think of no one better than them by my side.”