Tarron Damos:Fishing Expedition

Campaign: Trials and Tribulations of Tarron Damos
: As told by Corwyn Nilius, Astropath Transcendent
I'm in the middle of a fondue dinner with Kyla, a nubile astropath from the Drusus shrine world, when I get an emergency summons to head to the bridge. When I arrive I'm told that we've just received two astropathic distress messages, both in our sub-sector. One is to our galactic West and is from an Imperial fleet, and the other is to our galactic East and is from a starport. I make the suggestion that the distress signal from the starport might be a trap, and so we make the decision to go help the fleet.
It's a short 4 day journey, though I have terrible nightmares and I fear losing my sanity. Nonetheless I pull through and we translate back into realspace, only to see destruction and mayhem everywhere. There are a couple of light cruisers and six frigates that are hull-breached, and in many cases broken into parts. Using our ship's auspex systems we detect that there are a few hundred survivors aboard some of the starships. We split up into two teams. Nathan, Samson the missionary, and myself head to one of the light cruisers intent on rescuing survivors. RDM our Enginseer Prime, Liander the arch-militant, and Ohan (an Explorator) head to another cruiser in some small guncutters. We leave the Dark Elf alone aboard our starship the Argenteus Cornix (what were we thinking?!).
Nathan, Samson, and I put on void-suits and we make our way into the first light cruiser, eventually coming upon a locked chamber. We pass through the airlock and see roughly 50 survivors, mostly Imperial Navy officers. "Why are you here? It'll come back" one screams at us. Not exactly what I had expected as a greeting.
That's when the Dark Elf tells us that our long-range scanners are picking up something large heading our way. So we make haste, getting the survivors to done void-suits as we bring the guncutter as close as we can to the airlock. Nathan uses his grapnel to set up a line between the airlock door and the guncutter. We get a more urgent message now, stating that we better get the hell out of there. "Come children of the god-emperor, come hither" intones Samson, imploring the survivors to shimmy up the line as fast as they can.
On the way back to our starship, off to one side, we see a spot of utter blackness, as if something vast is blocking out the stars. "It's a Void Kraken" yells out Liander, our arch-militant, over the vox system. I have no idea what that is, but it sounds bad.
As soon as we get on-board we power up the warp drives, ready to translate into warpspace and get out of here. Suddenly the creature speeds up toward us. Liander went back one last time, disobeying orders from RDM, to rescue more survivors. Nathan makes the decision to stay in realspace long enough for us to swing our starship closer to Liander, and just before the beast is upon us Liander's guncutter makes it onboard.
Nathan gives the command to translate to warpspace, but then RDM counter-commands it and tells us we stay and fight. This borders on madness, and the crew has no desire to fight just for RDM's pride. They follow Nathan's orders, but just as the engineers are about to activate the warp drive RDM physically threatens them (his own crew!). That's when our plasma drives die.
Our maneuvering thrusters still work and the Dark Elf takes aim with our starship's sole weapon, hitting the large creature right in the maw. It barely seems to damage it, but it does slow it down long enough for us to get the plasma drives restarted.
Meanwhile I've been heading towards the engineering bay, with my 5-man specialist squad of astropaths with me. On their own, it seems that a bunch of Ork 'Boyz are also heading there, seemingly intent on stopping RDM.
I hear Nathan over the ship-wide vox system, calling upon RDM to use logic. The Omnissiah would not want him to risk so much archeotech! I finally get to the engineering bay, and I see that Nathan's impassioned plea has had no effect. Samson, our missionary, is facing down RDM who is now threatening to damage the plasma drives with his Omnissiah-Axe. This makes no sense -- because no one is listening to him he wishes for us all to die?
I turn around and head away, having seen enough to now be aware of RDM's presence. I reach our with the Dominate psychic ability to stop RDM, but I quickly see my mistake. RDM is now so much part-machine that he does not even have enough psyche for me to influence! I give a quick prayer to the God-Emperor for what this being has had to sacrifice.
"All command crew to the bridge" we hear from Faux Shot, our Captain, over the ship-wide vox system. Everyone stops in-fighting, and we all make our way back to the bridge except for Liander and Ohan (I learn later that Liander was busy moving bombs to the Teleportarium and Ohan was the sole reason our plasma drives were still operational). Faux Shot asks who is to blame for all this chaos, and everyone (and I mean everyone, even an Ork that was nearby) points to RDM. RDM protests, but Faux Shot calmly tells him that the next time he threatens to sabotage his ship it will be his last time.
Faux Shot then quickly starts giving out orders. He has a plan! He commands the Dark Elf to take control of the starship's weapon systems, Liander is to continue moving bombs to the Teleportarium, RDM and Samson (and some Orks) are to head back to the engineering bay and nurse the plasma drives (and the crew's morale), while I head off to the Astropathic Relay chamber. Using the chamber's unique qualities I use Chorus of the Righteous across the breadth of the starship, in an effort to focus the crew's efforst. I fear it didn't have much of an effect though.
The others have more success. We head straight towards the Void Kraken, and just as we near it the Void Kraken swings at our light cruiser with its tentacles. The Dark Elf hits the main tentacle with our starship's weapon, stunning it just enough that we don't get entangled. Nathan our void-master manages to swing us just under the Void Kraken, and as we pass it Fauxshot gives the order to use the Teleportarium to warp the plasma bombs right in-between the creature's eyes.
We feel the blast soon after. It's so strong that it shakes our entire vessel and I'm thrown to the ground.
After the celebrations we get to work rescuing the other survivors, carving up the gigantic beast, and looking for salvage. I manage to save one of the creature's tiny teeth, though still a full foot long in length, as a memento. When we eventually make it into a starport we commission the Void Kraken's head to be mounted on the front-underside of our starship -- a truly epic trophy for all to see!
Category:Log
Category:Campaign
Category:Tarron Damos