The vast towering temple stretches out four hundred meters over the stern of the vestal and throbs with raw power from the mighty engines below it. Around three sides the stained-glass windows reach sixty meters up to the ornate gothic arches of the ceiling. Behind the windows the heavy armour plating of the hull is brightly lit and painted to give extra dimensions of colour and vibrancy to the glorious scenes depicted in the glass. The air hear is rich with incense and full of the bright, choral sounds from the many cherubim that circle the rafters and the deep, sonorous, tones from the large choir of Ecclesiastical Adepts.

The vast towering temple stretches out four hundred meters over the stern of the vestal and throbs with raw power from the mighty engines below it. Around three sides many of the stained-glass windows are smashed or damaged and the heavy armour plating of the hull behind them is dull, scorched and pitted. Some of the ornate gothic arches of the ceiling  sixty meters above are damaged, especially in the vicinity of the perfectly round five meter hole cut by the Eldar when they gained access here from their ship, now clamped on the outside of the Lament. The air hear is heavy with incense, cordite and burnt promethean, choral sounds praising the emperor may still be heard faintly behind the screams of men and rattle of gunfire but the cherubim mostly lie in ruins on the floor.

The Eldar had latched their damaged ship to the hull of the pious lament in the rear where turreted weapons could not target them, the had attached a sealing tube to the hull and cut a large hole through and hundreds of corsairs had dropped through. The temple is defended only by unprepared Ministorum priests and acolytes but they put up a brave fight and managed to contain the invasion for lone enough for troopers to arrive though it cost them dearly an few remain to tell of it. The troopers, under the direction of the First Officer, have prevented the Eldar from breaking out of their bridge head as all the exits to temple are forward into the ship so right now both sides are intrenched but the Eldar do seem to be setting up some sort of heavy-duty device out of sight towards the rear of the Temple.

Close behind the temple in the main body of the ship is triage station seven, here is a scene of total chaos, the corridor blocked by wounded people and their helpers with no sign of any of his medical staff at all, these people have arrived at the back of a que with no one to tell them what to do or where to go. In the station itself all of the medical staff are working desperately to stabilise wounded people and prevent their imitate death, many hygrine protocols have gone out of the window as people will die if the medics pause and the corpses of those who haven’t made it lie everywhere.
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The captain moves through the crowd at the head of a relief column of troops heading to the temple. As they hit the wall of wounded she orders a dozen troops to move off to assist organising the wounded and triaging them, those who can wait further away, those beyond help be left, those needing immediate help are attempted to be seen by a medicae staff member if possible.

The captain herself moves into the Cathedral, shield held up as she moves towards the XO to get a sit-rep and figure out what to do from there.

By the time the Captain arrives in the Temple things have reached a stalemate with the xenos holding the rear end of the vast space and the ship's troops holding the forward, fortunately access to the rest of the ship  was in the hands of the friendly forces but they could do little to dislodge the Eldar as they received withering fire whenever they tried to make a move. These Eldar were not the silver clad elites that had tried to take the bridge, these were corsairs, each clad differently and with their own selection of xeno weaponry, even so the average human trooper was totally outmatched and it was only superiour numbers that was keeping things in check.

Apart from getting rid of these invaders there were two problems facing the defenders, one was the machinery that they had bought in through the hole in the ceiling, the Eldar were constructing something in the back of the hall out of sight and who knew what that was for. The other problem was the hole itself, currently sealed off by the alien ship, if it pulled away or was removed by any means the Temple would decompress in seconds and anyone in here would be sucked out into space or, if they did manage to hold on to something, be left breathing vacuum.
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"We need a combat repair team down here for when that hole get opened and we need to cross over to them." She tells the nearest commander of the armsmen. "We need storm elements up here and weapons teams to provide covering fire" she adds heft the shield she has and the laspistol, blind firing some shots towards the eldar from cover then dropping back down "Perhaps get a rhino or chimera up here, Emmaline  or Megara's might would do it."

Hadrian jogged up and gave her a nod of greeting, "Lord-Captain." He has Thunder Hammer in hand and it was...smeared in blood and other bits. He looked like he had been in combat himself, from the look of his clothing if nothing else. "Let me know later if you want a report on what I dealt with or I'll run it up the chain."

He peeked in to the Temple and frowned. "Hm. That looks...dangerous." He looked back to the Captain. "They apparently set up some kind of...gateway...where I was, that they could pass through. I wonder if that's what they're building back there. I don't know how many are on your ship right now, or where."

"I've heard stories of the Aeldari appearing as if from thin air and assumed it was some sort of teleportation technology. A couple of grenade launchers would be handy right now." She says popping up to fire another burst at the xenos.

"Are there any boarding troops with shields around here? We can storm the enemy hopefully at least break their lines, have the armsmen provide cover fire, get some grenades into their cover. We also need someone up there" at this she points the barrel of the gun at the boarding tube "That needs to be sealable incase they pull out suddenly. If we get the chance we could counterboard, but first we need to clear this"

After administration of two ampoules of 2-acetoxybenzoic acid and the recitation of the Efficacious Prayer of the Emperor's Succor ("Take wing, agony!"), Gregory is ready to fight again, for the most part. After getting as many of his men together as he can, he heads over to Searlait's location. As he listens to a brief of the situation along the way, he resists the urge to curse out loud; he could have been shooting xenos and collecting trophies all this while!

Regardless, he is here now, and the xenos will assuredly taste the wrath of his storm bolter this time...

"Reporting for duty, ma'am! I brought everyone from the auspex fin that I could get to help out. UNless Otherwise DIRected, I will begin coordinating and directing operations against  the intruders."
This message was last edited by the player at 12:29, Mon 27 Mar 2023.

Gregory makes some calls and before long troops start to turn up in large numbers, officers comandeer nearby passageways where they can organise and prepare the men and by the time one of the rhinos trundles onto the scene there are plenty of troopers for a full scale assault, with more arriving all of the time.

Apart from the several hundred troops already holding the Eldar at bay there are 150 Breachers on hand, 200 men from the assault Company and the whole of the first company of regulars under Colonel, Bottrell, which is 500 men. Meanwhile, in the hall of St Gothren the two thousand men of the  2nd Reserve battalion are forming up under Colonel Kinrade. And the rhino of course.

The estimated enemy strength is between 150 and 250.
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Hadrian waited as patiently as he could. He saw things were forming up quite nicely. Perhaps even overpoweringly - but then again, with the xenos, who knew. He rolled his head around on his neck a bit, loosening up once more when he saw things might be nearing readiness.

He hefted the thunder hammer and looked their captain. He asked quietly, "Permission to join in and smash some Eldar, Lord-Captain?"

Gregory would like nothing more than to order airstrikes and artillery to soften up the enemy position, but it's a little hard to call airstrikes indoors and if the enemy is taking the risk of constructing something in the middle of the battlefield when they could have done it elsewhere, it means it's important enough that they do NOT want to allow them to complete it.

As a result, they have to resort to plan B; the forlorn hope. Current troops outnumber the enemy at least 3 to 1 and they have one Rhino at their disposal; with at least half a dozen times that number in the Reserve Battalion. If they stage a multi-sided attack on the enemy position, there is a good chance of getting enough people in position to keep the enemy off balance until they can literally drown them in blood. Gregory would rather not throw lives away, of course, but if they allow the xenos to do whatever it is they're doing, they might end up being dead anyway.

As the Rhino comes up, Gregory returns to Searlait and briefly states his intentions, as well as asking if she or anyone else wants to join him on the Rhino in.

"Alright, we have enough troops here to force a break across, I want four shields on the rhino and two heavy flamer teams, Asgard and Kennak, you can go in with them or follow using the rhino as moving cover. I want 30 breachers to move with the rhino. Two teams of 30 prepare to follow up once we make an opening, everyone else lay down covering fire, full las, auto and frag grenades from launchers. Any questions?" she tells the others, draining the last of the las-cell before replacing and holstering it.

"Sounds great to me, ma'am. I'll go in just behind the Rhino for local C&C and keep the bastards' heads down."

Gregory begins relaying the Captain's orders to the armsmen and directing them to where they should be so that Searlait doesn't have to do everything herself. Once they're done, he notifies her so she can satisfy herself with the disposition of the troops.

 Tesla was caught up in the effort to ensure that the ship would be ready to deal with the potential decompression as he came in at the rear of the reinforcement column, but the tall, robed tech-priest is quick once disconnected from his duties to offer "It may be possible to inconvenience their efforts ahead of an assault. Eldar sensoria are considerably more sensitive than those of humans. Please provide me with a thirty-second countdown to your assault." and move to one of the smaller sub-shrines, where he can commune with the machine-spirit of the ship in relative safety, interfacing with the local network through his own extensive suite of tools to let him reach the maximum possible number of subsystems.

 ---

 Okay, so we're in the Imperial Shrine. Good sound system in here. Like, really good. Probably fantastic lighting too. Jak is going to wait until the assault starts and then every single vox-caster in the Eldar positions and every spotlight, limelight and strobe light which will bear on them is going to go fucking nuts. Volume cranked up to 11, lights flashing to the tune of any one of the dozen or so different pieces of music he's going to put on.
 Eat human culture, pointy ears!

23:42, Today: Jak Tesla rolled 22 -- 7 degrees of success using the Warhammer Test system with a target number of 96.  Setting up a rave.

Hadrian gave a nod to the Lord-Captain but as he started to turn away, a fierce grin split his face for a moment. He moved up behind the rhino, putting away his thunder hammer for the moment. He drew a lasgun - not his first choice of weapon, of course, and he wanted to be ready to charge in once they were close enough - but to start with, he was going to see if he could do a bit of shooting before he had to switch weapons.

"Will do, Enginseer. Also, if I might recommend a catechism for the laud hailers..."

After his submission, Gregory makes to arm up; riot foam for the grenade launcher and a shield if he can get one; he's not interested in becoming a target backstop again...

"Might I request the 8th catechism of hated of the Xenos be played, and if you can have engineering teams ready to seal that breach once we get the upper hand" Once she gets a response she will take her spot behind the rhino as the last of the assault team boards. Once they are ready she sends the notice to all unit commanders to open fire or advance as ordered once the music and lights start then tells Jak that the assault is ready and at his earliest convenience to commence the assault. She will advance behind the Rhino, the strange pistol in her hand and shield up to protect herself and firing once in range.

OOC: Lights/sounds start --> Covering teams open fire with las/auto/stubber/grenades to keep the xenos down as much as possible --> rhino/assault team Alpha move across 'no man's land' --> once sufficient pressure is off the 'no mans' two assault teams move across at other points in a pincer also being covered with fire. Alpha heads for the construction project to stomp some xenos.

 "Sealing the breach is going to be troublesome in the event of the Xenos departing, by virtue of its location and size. Plan for extensive personnel loss should the Xenos vessel break the seal." Jak answers with the absolutely flat, monotone presentation of someone who isn't standing in the area to be decompressed, even though he absolutely, definitely is.

 He's still sending orders though, one of which being for the mustering of a number of extra-large 'salvation pods' (inflatable mylar-style survival bubbles someone might reasonably hope to extend their survival in the event of a breach) to be brought up (uninflated) in the hope that one or more will prove large enough to form a partial block if the area does decompress. He also prepares to increase power to the gravity plating to attempt to ameliorate 'overboard' casualties as he does so.

 ---

My understanding is that it is a very, very big hole that is in the roof. I don't actually see a good way of sealing it without the chamber we're in being decompressed... Although... Scratch that, I have a thought.

 Giant mylar bubbles. If one big enough gets lodged, that might slow atmosphere loss long enough for us to evacuate and patch the hole.

++Acknowledged, Engineseer. There's likely a... clamping mechanism holding the vessel in place. If we can dislodge those... perhaps the decompression can be... used to accelerate the de-coupling?++ the Navigator replied from the Bridge with laboured, pained breath.

Gregory opens the assault with a round of suppressive fire intended to drive any raiders in their path into cover. The others will back him up after the first volley, but it's the spirit of the thing.

OOC:
12:58, Today: Gregory Asgard rolled 94 -- 4 degrees of failure using the Warhammer Test system with a target number of 50.  Suppressive Fire BS Test, -20 for SF, +10 for Weapon Mastery.

No hits but everyone in the kill zone still has to make a -20 WP test or get Pinned.

The far end of the temple lights up with a brilliant intensity that shows every detail to the attacking forces and the 8th catechism of hated of the Xenos blares loudly from speakers and surviving cherubs at that end, to the Eldar it must be absolutely deafening.

More by coincidence that design the mighty crash of the Pious Laments broadside erupts and the whole ship shifts eight inches to port, the troops stager, a few of them fall, but ahead many of the Eldar are exposed in hiding places including thoes high up in the ornate masonry of the temple and some of them fall. Several hundred weapons of various types open fire on anything that might be a target.

As it trundles forward the rhino's engines can hardly be heard over the gunfire and the glorious imperial anthem, incomming fire is sparse and mostly off target, though there are a few casualties, fortunately at the triage station evacuations and extra staff have cleared the backlog of the wounded buy now.

A bunch of about twenty Eldar with jump packs or some xeno equivalent make a break of the hole in the ceiling but only two of them make it, the rest crashing into the pews or the advancing troops who make short work of finishing them off

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Gregory looks for anyone who looks like a commander, anyone with a fancy hat or wielding a more elaborate home than the others. Once he finds one, he'll give it a burst from the storm bolter.

OOC:
21:25, Today: Gregory Asgard rolled 11 -- 7 degrees of success using the Warhammer Test system with a target number of 90.  Full Auto Burst. +10 for short range (>45m), -10 for long range (>180m). Either way, he scores 4 hits, doubled each because of Storm, but he can use the DoS to replace a damage die roll if it's lower.

Any hits are 1d10+7X Pen 4 Tearing (roll 2 dice for damage, drop lowest).
This message was last edited by the player at 13:29, Fri 31 Mar 2023.

 The catechisms and lights flaring over the Xeno forces are an incomprehensible cacophony, but where Imperial forces advance, the flaring notes of the Eighth rise out of the background snarl of disruptive, agonising sound and the lighting redirects in order to provide a halo-effect backing and outlining the advancing forces - not so much outlining them as targets and more making them almost unbearably backlit to even look at.

 Meanwhile, Jak orders several of the salvation pods to be inflated and rolled around the chamber in the hope that they'll be sucked out first if the xenos ship should disengage.

 He also very pointedly mag-clamps himself to his position and instructs all senior members of the cult to do likewise while prioritising individuals who have to be able to move around for rescue by anything around that can fly - such as Servo-skulls and cherubs.

 Low-pressure and vacuum equipment is, of course, already expected to have been put into use.

Ducking behind the rhino she taps her commbead and relays orders before moving back to the firing line, sending a line of aching red that hits a xenos and evaporates it before the beam lances off into the next in a chain reaction.

"Move forward, clear them out! A week's extra pay to any squad who can take one alive!" She shouts out to the assault team.

Hadrian kept behind the rhino as it moved forward. Since it was mostly a firefight, he had swapped his weapons, pulling the lasgun out. He fired a few times, but it wasn't that powerful of a weapon and he wasn't a crackshot with it. But he did what he could to help, and at least provide some cover fire if nothing else.

The Captains words are lost in the gun fire and loud music but the assault pushes forward. As the gap closes a large group of xenos break out on the left flank, (starboard), and rush into close quarter fighting with the troops on that side. Unhindered by dazzling lights and disorienting noise, their skills and weaponry are vastly superior to the troopers there who are falling in droves.
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++Melee fighters on the left flank, Cap'n, Chaplain, I think this is your time to shine.++

Since Gregory is not a stellar duelist by any measure of the word, his aim is to isolate the xeno group and keep the enemy from reinforcing them while the Captain, the honor guard and the ship's confessor take them out. To that end, he switches to his grenade launcher and drops a canister of riot foam into the rear of the group turning their own men into walls.

OOC:
09:43, Today: Gregory Asgard rolled 59 -- 1 degree of success using the Warhammer Test system with a target number of 70.  Single shot grenade launcher, +10 for Weapon Mastery.

After a quick message is sent Searlait holsters her pistol and taps Hadrian on the shoulder "Lets shine, guards with me!" she yells to those of the team geared towards melee, takes her spear and counter-charges the Xenos.

Hadrian looked over the Captain and gave a nod, letting the lasgun fall from his hands. He swung the thunder hammer off of his back and followed after, angling to get in to the fray with the xenos scum intruders.

Searlait, Hadrian, Sabrynn and a squad of close combat specialists mash into the breakaway group of Eldar and make short work of them. Meanwhile Gregory follows the rhino and the rest of the troops into the heart of the remaining Exenos at the back of the Temple, dealing death and destruction as they go.

Suddenly the fight seems to be over, there are a few remaining Eldar to mop up and none of them surrender but the emergency is over.

As this goes on there is a slight disorientation while the Pious Lament performs some sort of tight cork screw manoeuvre and a great crash as the port broadside fires, shifting the whole ship eight inches to starboard.
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As more reinforcements stream in, Gregory directs them to reinforce and secure the temple and the big xeno breach in the hull. After ordering a quick reorganization of forces to rotate out anyone who's unfit for fighting, Gregory examines their options. He's not sure if the Captain wants to press on into the enemy vessel, so he sticks to the facts as he briefs the Lady-Captain on the tactical situation.

"Take some alive if you can, preferable commanders!" she orders some of the passing troops after she immolates one of the xenos. Taking a moment to receive a quick update from Asgard she looks up to the hole in the Temple "It'll be too hard to get up their as it is, we need to seal the breech and if we can cripple the engines of that vessel, if we can load the gun-cutters with void capable sappers we may be able to leave them dead in the water, or just strafe them with our void-craft."

 Jak is - unsurprisingly - not involved directly in the battle, rather he's devoting himself more or less entirely to handling theocratic matters as the fight develops. There are three teams with undeployed Salvation Pods scattered around the rear of the conflict zone in short order, ready to make use of them in the event of the xeno vessel disengaging. He's handling the aural-optical offensive of course, and he's also directing repair teams and marshalling the cult response to the attempt to cut through to the Engineerium below them.

 As the fighting starts to die down (and after his broad-band announcement over the ships Vox of 'Brace for fire' that comes a second or so before the batteries discharge) he moves out of his nook and starts to head towards the former Xenos position, several tech-militia falling in behind him as he makes a bee-line for the location where the filthy aliens were trying to build some arcane device.

After the fighting was over, unless the captain wanted otherwise, Hadrian started looking for the wounded on their side, tending to them and making sure that anyone that could be saved was saved. He called in for help if there were a lot as well.

Gregory does his best to do as he's told, but keeping the Captain and the Confessor safe is his top priority at the moment. He rotates the wounded off as quickly as possible, noting with distaste the cruel weapons used by the raiders and remembering how similar they were to the arms they were forced to destroy after successful interceptions. He privately resolves to try and keep them as reminders of the enemy and trophies of their victory over the xeno.