"I see no reason why you would not be, so in until it is proven otherwise I will treat it as being so," Jessica replied.
Sextia waited for the others to finish introducing themselves before she began answering Jessica's questions. "In response to your first question, I honestly don't know. As for the Reliquary? Well Bralix is, as I said, a primitive world; however, there are a handful of pockets of 'civilization'. Most notably Jinra." She typed a few keys and the holo-display changed to project an image of a small city. "Jinra was founded by the survivors of the battle in orbit. They carved out a position on one of the southern continents and dug in. Over the millennia they utilized what technology they had and made something of this gods forsaken rock. Jinra is home to the planet's only Starport and is a technologically adequate, if antiquated, local. The city has a supply of vessels capable of travelling the void, but they do not have the information or materials to build something that could traverse the Warp. According to all intel, and common sense, the Reliquary is located somewhere within Jinra." With a smirk Sextia added, "Just look for the building that looks the most important. It's probably there somewhere." "As for anything being left of the fleet? I would say I doubt it. They've been pillaged countless times over the past few millennia, I can't imagine there's anything worthwhile left. That said, there are still active scavenger parties going through them; and once every couple of centuries they do find something not entirely useless." With a shrug she said, "If you have the time and want to loot them yourselves I suppose you could, but don't expect to find anything." "Outside of Jinra, the world is basically feral. This is where you'll find the nomadic warrior tribes. They hunt big game and hold ritualistic tournaments every now and then. There's not much interaction between the tribes and Jinra, occasionally a tribe will find something that the city wants and they'll engage in trade. But for the most part the tribes distrust the people from the city and the people of Jinra find the tribes barbaric and beneath them." "As for Astartes... I know the Word Bearers have made several trips to Jinra in the past, and it was in fact the Sons of Lorgar who discovered Bralix and the remains of the fleet in the first place. I would expect Jinra to have a familiarity with Astartes, but I can't speak about the tribes outside the city."
"I have no further questions, this discussion has given me all I needed to know and more. I am ready to go planetside as soon as we attend to the last few pieces of shipboard business."
"Thank you, but this begs one more question: why is Jinra the only civilized area? Surely there should be other pockets of organized agrarianism: unless only Jinra's technological prowess allows them to utilize agriculture for some reason, such as hyper-developed fungi that destroy all non-native plantlife? Or does Jinra use its possession of orbital superiority to wipe them out before they could become rivals? Once that is answered I believe I have all the data I require..." Jessica stated.
Lola had done the rare thing of shutting up for a bit, as she began to think. Warrior tribes are generally not very sociable to outsiders, but most of the time there is an exception. Lola wracked her brain trying to think about what she knew about the tribes outside the settlement. Partly thinking about how to make contact with them or what exactly would send them over the edge into acting completely stupid.
(This first half is a reply to the intros) "I am First Sergeant Cassandra, although I suppose I am not a First anything anymore." Cassandra states. "Where I come from we have no second names." (This is a reply to Omegah2o's last post) "I don't think this changes anything," Cassandra says. "Although if there is a history of contact with them perhaps there is some record on board we can view to know how they have been approached in the past." She looks around the room again, recalling the day the offworlders had come to her tribe. "It would be best if we could avoid wasting too many bodies on cowing them."
Jessica inclined her head, still in its helmet: "We are here to recruit, not conquer. This makes every casualty we cause a minor but not-quite-insignificant setback," she acknowledged.
With a sigh Sextia continued, "Jinra isn't the only civilized center on Bralix. I said there were pockets of them and that Jinra was the most notable. Most of the others are nothing more that small communities of a few hundred people or so. Jinra is the only place where there are people that number in the thousands." "As for contact with the locals, I'm afraid that our information on Bralix's dealings with the Word Bearers is quite limited. From what we gather Jinra seems to be on good enough terms with them, but how the nomadic tribes regard them is unknown." Her eyes scanned the room before adding, "If there's nothing else, then you are dismissed."
With that word Jessica Stood, bowed, and turned on heel to go speak to Heretek Locus, acting under the gods-given assumption that the others would follow.
Cassandra stood up from the table as well. Her immediate need to go and try and find out some more about the tribes on this planet along with getting her gear sorted out.
If not for any other reason than having nothing better to do, Lola opted to leave the room so she could visit the inferior model of a heretek.
As the group exits the briefing room they encounter six Astartes seemingly waiting for them in the corridor. While they let the three human members pass, on stops their Space Marine companion. "Oy, Jess!" He calls out. "Hold up a minute will ya?"
"Everyone hold up a minute!" Jessica calls out to the new group, then turns to the rest of the Space Marines. "Tal, Lain, Mal, Ry, Quin, Seargent Novak, meet the group I've been assigned to go on a litle recruiting and supply trip to the backwater the ship's aproaching with. Their names are Cassandra, Lola, and Varis. Everyone else, meet Talom, Allain, Mal, Rygell, Quintus, and Seargent Novak." Jessica said, introducing everyone. "Now, Tal, this recruiting mission is on something of a time crunch. I hate to be brusque but what do you need?"
"Good to meet you all." Talom said to the rest of the group before turning his attention back to Jessica. "Nothin' too much Luv. We heard you was headed off on a little excursion. So me and the lads thought we'd drop by and say goodbye. See if you fancied anything from the 'gift shop' we're about to go through and if you wanted us to bring you back something." He nodded his head in the way of Novak's direction, "Novy here's in need of some new gauntlets and we figured we'd see if any of our loyalist friends' be willin' to part with some. You know them Emperor lovers always try to drive a hard price, but Allain's got a knack of getting 'em to drop their price yeah?" Allain snorted a chuckle and tapped his heavy bolter with a slight grin.
Jessica smiled, though of course you couldn't see that under her Corvus pattern helm*. "Actually, Tal, there is something I'm needing from the 'Gift Shop'," she lifted up one boot and tapped the sole. "The electromagnet coils in this old pair of boots finally gave out a few days ago, won't magnatize at all. I'm sure I could get them fixed eventualy, but it would be far more fun to just slap on and stencil a pair from Pappa Smurf's boys or whoever you're going off to kick the asses of..." She declared with obvious glee. *(Also stolen from an Imperial Power Armor Suit.)
"We'll keep our eyes open luv." Talom answered with a smile before clapping his hands together. "Well you said you were in a hurry yeah? So we won't keep you. Nice to meet you all! Take care of our girl 'ere. Women Space Marines, as you can imagine, are a little hard to come by." As the group of Astartes passed each one gave a nod of acknowledgement to the newly formed team and then patted Jessica on the shoulder pad as they moved by. The walk down to the mechanicum section of the ship was a relatively short one, and when the group arrived they found themselves in a massive chamber cluttered with equipment. Things ranging from simple lasguns all the way to dreadnought sarcophagi were all around the room in various states of repair or assembly. Servitors moved about to and fro delivering tools and providing support to the limited number of tech-adepts in the room. Heretek Locus was located on a second story platform near the far wall examining something on his desktop. 'He' if it could still be called male, was almost completely machine. If one were to look up the schematics on his body one would find less than seven percent of the form was still organic. And if one were to ask how 'he' felt about that, 'he' would respond, "Unacceptable. Organic reductions still necessary." Four mechatendrils protruded from their spinal housing on 'his' back, each one outfitted for a different purpose. Its 'face' was essentially a metal skull from with computerized noises emerged forming his speech. Several servitors, as well as a servo-skull hovered around him performing menial tasks as the group approached him. With what could be considered annoyance he produced a dataslate and said. "Your timing is delayed by one seven three seconds. Unsatisfactory. Is maintenance required?"
"Possibly, but not at the present time, I am awaiting my return to the ship and the potential availability of a replacement component before requisitioning a maintenance cycle," Jessica said, taking the proffered data-slate. She immediately began to peruse the contents...
(After an OOC consult with the GM...) "Lesse, scrap metals, low-quality armaments, assorted Bionics, and Cybernetics... About what I expected. Lola, you have a look at this, see if you can ascertain what will be our best bargaining positions and what the Captain most wants-slash-can afford to part with." Jessica said, handing the data state to the Heritech without turning around.
Varis clears his throat. "With all due respect, Comander, I think I should be the one working out our bargaining position, as I am the one best suited to the cut-and-thrust of trade negotiations... Though Lola will still be useful in calculating exactly what I could trade with."
