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"Hmmm, this could get ugly. Busy area, bad place for a running firefight, and lots of places to run and hide. I wonder if the local Administratum would have a map of that building available -- it wouldn't show any hidden exits, of course, but at least we'd have an idea of the main entrances and general layout."

"Yes, and for all we know they're alerted now to the fact that we're on to them. We're going to have to hit hard and fast for this to work." He keyed his comm-bead back to the tactical channel. "Regulator, we have a lead. Bring the vehicles around, we'll be out shortly."

Outside, leaning on her shock maul, a telescope in one hand, looking downhill, the Regulator told the drivers to attend to it, "Ready to go as soon as everyone's on board," she said, hopping up into the back seat of one of the wide-wheeled vehicles, as the driver gunned the engine.

Mithras checked the charge in his lasgun and turned to face everyone. "We've found the location of where this auspex tower was transmiting information to, a built-up area in the city. It's on one of the major roads, so we're going to have to do this quick and clean if we want to catch the culprits. Grab what you need quickly and let's move out."

Slapping a fresh clip into his lasgun, Scar glared at the prisoner, and shoved him outside. Herding him into one of the vehicles, Scar sat down beside him and smiled. "Your employers will be joining you soon heretic. I won't be nearly as merciful with them." Banging on the side of the vehicle with his palm, he voxed the driver to get moving.

"Just a moment."

Mercurius returned to the shrine, again interfacing with it through his mechadendrites, and attempted to lock out the operator stations and the Mechanicus shrine so that only one fluent in the Mechanicus Tech secret tongue would be able to reactivate or access the auspex towers functions.

Ajax frowns to himself as a thought occurs...and then follows Mercurius into the Auspex tower again. "I don't claim to understand the mysteries you do, Mercurius, but would it be possible for the machine spirit in this tower to inform you of events from afar? It strikes me that its gaze must pierce a truly amazing scope, and it would be quite advantageous for it to be able to whisper in your ear somehow, as it were." He dresses his own speech up as much as possible, more for the benefit of the auspex tower's machine spirit (should it be listening in) than for his own comrade's.

Mercurius shook his head. "The voices with which the machine spirits speak fades over distance just as ours do, though every subtle difference in pitch and tone carries the meaning of easily a dozen of our spoken words. Here, in close proximity to the control lecterns, I can hear and speak through the data-net easily enough, but without a vox repeater to take with us, their voices would fade into unintelligible static even as we entered Spergen. A simple microbead would not do, they simply haven't the sensitivity to relay such data.

If we wish to retain the boon of their vision, then either I, or somebody who has been trained in map-reading and the operation of a portable surveyor or auspex, must remain and report to the others by standard vox."

It was easy enough to initiate a security mode in the machines, which caused them all to seemingly switch off, though a chuntering humm of moving parts in them indicated that their spirits still toiled. The heretek, meanwhile, sat down, sweating even on the cold hill, and tried to avoid eye contact with anyone, either the enforcers, or the clearly military crew with them.

Darien boards the same vehicle he'd so recently departed, reloading then securing his shotgun before leaning back to consider the best way to assault this new target.

Finally, he gives up that effort due to realizing he doesn't have any real feel for the ground where they'll be fighting and just closes his eyes to relax in the aftermath of the combat adrenaline.

Eyes suddenly popping back open, Darien hops out of the vehicle and jogs over to the prisoner before racking the slide on his shotgun and shoving the barrel to within an inch of the man's face.

"You! Were you scheduled to report in at any regular intervals, or otherwise give a signal that things were still going as planned? Answer me!"

The prisoner screamed, and shook his head, "No... No!"

Meanwhile, the enforcer gunned the engine of the first vehicle, "Okay. Ready to go."

Regulator Krine reached up, grabbed the heretek and tugged him from the seat, and shoved him toward the back of the second vehicle, where a small cage waited, under a brown cloth, which she opened, shoved him into, and locked, "Seats are for real people!" she sneered, and gave him a prod with the shock maul for good measure, which made him slump down unconcious inside the two food per side, square cage, one of two on the back of each vehicle, before resuming her place, and nodding for the driver to get the large offroad groundcar rolling.

Ajax hoists himself back up into the carrier, settling into his seat with a thin smile, "Sooner or later, someone's going to vox home and not get an answer, so let's get this done, yes?"

yes, relplied Eli with a particularly feral smile.

The vehicles bounced down the hill kicking up little clouds of grit, and through the streets of Spergen, crowds scattering out of their path on one boulevard as the driver took a short cut that almost, though not quite, resulted in a few of what the Arbities would call ‘incidental deaths.’ When they reached the road known as Procession Avenue they slowed and stopped, the enforcers disembarking, “I assume you want to try and sneak up,” she said, looking at Darien and Scar, whom she seemed to think of as the most militant members of the ‘witch hunters.’ It was much as its name suggested, a wide boulevard currently clear of traffic, with cafes and bars of one sort or another. Number seven; the streets of Spergen labelled above the names of the establishments, was on the right hand side of the road, seven along (an unusual setup of numbers favoured here) from the end of the road they’d stopped at; drawing some surprised attention from the locals, “I’ve ordered the rest of my men here; they’re probably down from the back entrance by now; though if you want to go in that way, we could be there in no time…”

The front of the establishment at number seven was an open fronted bar, with several gaudily clad patrons, mostly wearing long coats against the wind, chatting merrily, under a painted sign of a camoflage coloured snake biting a comically startled hound in long grass. Clearly, though, this establishment did most of its business at night.

"Actually, what I'd like you to do, is back this vehicle through the front wall, drop the ramp and let us take care of the rest. Anything that moves and isn't a Kinge, I want dead."

"That might seem a bit excess-" Mithras started, before seeing the look on Scar's face. The man seemed a little too eager for battle. "Well, if it works, it works. We should still send someone around the back to block off that entrance."

"Oh I agree, the Regulator said her men were already in place at the back. I do have a basic grasp of tactics Mithras. I just feel that when dealing with this particular type of heretic, the rich, lazy, bored noble, overwhelming shock and terror is the way to go. They fall because they don't realize the true horror, and it is our job to show it to them."

Darien shrugs his shoulders, then grins and says, "I have to admit, the plan has a certain charming simplicity. And as long as we can keep any runners from escaping, it should certainly be a surprise for anyone in the building. However, it would be terribly embarassing to try it and find out the walls are strong enough to not collapse when we run into them."

“Right. Front entrance, kill everything… Are you sure about that? You can’t release a corpse…” Regulator Krine asked, mounting up and “also, Kinge, the high planetary noble family? Huh. Rather you than me…” she said.

"I believe the plan was 'Kill everything that isn't a Kinge.' Though the Regulator has a point, Scar. Not everyone in the building is necessarily a heretic -- some of them might be stupid and misguided young nobles that the Imperium is probably better off without but nonetheless will have families that will raise a stink at them getting shot to bits. It's always easier to kill someone later than unkill them later, you know. We should at least give them the opportunity to surrender."

"Indeed. For all we know, all the people inside there think that this is merely a nightclub. Surely Kinge would not allow his illicit acts to be blatently shown to all these people?"

Crom readied his pistol, but put his hand to the side of his waist where it was hidden by his coat.

"Never the less, there is a good chance that even the innocent would not react kindly to our presence. No-one seems to like us very much."

"Very well... If they don't hit the floor, or immediately give signs of giving up, and are not a Kinge, they can be sorted out by the Emperor as their souls go to meet him. Although I still think that it's fairly likely that his circle are all heretics, and I will enjoy burning the confession from them. I'd say it's time we moved Regulator."

She nodded to the driver, and the two vehicles surged down the road, once again, scattering pedestrians in all directions. A brief burst of gunfire from the heavy stubber shattered the establishment's upper floor windows, and the two enforcer-vehicles pulled up to a halt outside, coralling the area.

Mithras jumped out of the car, lasgun at the ready, and advanced to the building's front door. "Someone come knock down this door!" he called out.