"This is beautiful work," Talan said to Mireya, as she started a ritual of emergency access on a blast door identical to the one the Orks had attempted to get past. He held the weapon up to the light.

It was a Tau pulse carbine, but not like any those xenos possessed. Black and in-laid with gold script and images of the Mechanicus cogwheel along its barrel, it had been rendered holy to serve the Golden Throne rather than its blasphemous constructors, its machine-spirit awed into submission to His will. The grenade launcher had been removed, and a lasgun foregrip added. Mireya bristled with pride at the praise, and Talan pat her on the back before turning to the rest of the group. The thing would do very nicely when they reached the enginarium.

"Mine's bigger," joked Roxana, hefting her longshot pulse rifle to rest on her hip. It was similarly decorated, and a flowing purity seal hung near its business end.

"It's not a contest, Madame Bactriana," Talan frowned, "Besides, in this environment, bigger is likely to get you killed."

The acolyte grinned. "Not likely."
Roxana Bactriana had been with the Inquisitor the longest. Standing as tall as Talan, she was of noble blood and beautiful in the way nobles usually were. She was far from indulging in the aristocratic sense of dress at that moment however, with a hard carapace of armour stretching down from her chest to her ankles, and a targeting auspex in one eye attached to a standard Tempestus helmet which covered her face. The only part of her unarmoured seemed to be a long blonde tressed ponytail poking its way out from under her helmet. Talan envied the protection; he was still in an ill-fitting Guard flakjacket, and had no protection for his head, arms or anything lower than his waist.

"You're not as good as you think you are," Talan said.
"Yes, I am," Roxana replied, her armoured mask failing to block the tone of her voice, "It's just a fact." Talan sighed. If she learned some modesty, she would be on the fast-track to getting her own Inquisitorial seal and commission, he thought to himself.

"Alright, you are pretty damn good," he said finally, "Just try not to get that thing caught in a doorway or something." She was the best shot he had ever come across, after all, and Talan had met plenty of marksmen in his time.

Mireya began communicating with the door's cogigator in binary, and suffocating incense started rising from the shrine. Talan coughed, now given another reason to envy his acolytes' protective equipment.

"I am not even sure we should be using those unless there is no choice," growled the fourth member of the retinue, referring to the xeno weaponry, "I am not one to invite blasphemy."
Aelian Cosano snapped the firing selector of his Arbites pattern combat shotgun to safe with an audible click, and set it aside as he sat on yet another of the ubiquitous rusted pipes that ran along every wall in the ship. A former Arbites arbitrator, he still wore the armour of his old profession, inscribed with the Lex Imperialis' foundational tenets. Talan himself had been an Arbites cadet, and they had met long before he held the rank of Inquisitor, though Aelian was the latest addition to his retinue. The grizzled man wasn't exactly a treat to look at, but his skill for investigation was excellent and he was unshakeably loyal.

"Ah, shut up you old hound," Roxana said, "These things have been sanctified." Aelian grumbled to himself in response, muttering about the law and techpriests' blasphemies.

Mireya stopped chanting, and turned to the conversation.
"If it helps your conscience, there is significant evidence that certain Tau technosorceries are in fact derived from holy STC designs recovered by the xenos in the course of their expansion," she said, matter-of-factly, "Their plasma and melta weaponry in particular shows signs of derivation from Imperial models. My sect has long been interested in the parallels between our own technology and that of the Tau."

Another burst of grumbling erupted from Aelian. Talan decided against getting into it. Blowing off a little steam before combat was probably for the best, he thought.

"See, nothing to worry about," said Roxana, as the door controls chimed compliance, "We'll kill all the Orks and arrive just in time to save Artemis."

Talan grimaced. "I doubt Colonel Mieza is in need of rescue," he said shortly.

"Really? We seem to do most of the heavy lifting," remarked Roxana.

"We're not the Guard," said Aelian, "Our role is different."

The doors opened smoothly but loudly.

"Alright, no shooting unless we're spotted," Talan ordered, glad to be on the way at last, "I'd rather not fight the Orks in the corridors. Again."

Roxana and Aelian acknowledged the order, while Mireya simply pulled out her own shotgun. The Magos' servo-skulls hummed away into the corridors ahead. Aelian took point, and the group moved carefully through the bowels of the ship.

Things were quiet at first. Little sign of the Orks was to be found. Rooms were unlooted, no particular smells except rust were about and there was a distinct lack of corpses. Yet not a soul was to be found. By the time they made it to the hatch they would use to get down to the enginarium level, Talan's stomach was knotted. Reports of Orks operating in such a disciplined manner were such a rarity as to be considered non-existent and worthy of summary execution by ordinary Imperial agents. Very few people would believe his reports if they made it off the ship.

The Inquisitor knew better, of course, and possibilities of tainted greenskins of many kinds entered his mind.

Mireya proceeded down the hole first, climbing down head-first with her mechadentrites, shotgun at her shoulder readied. She then gracefully flipped onto her feet at the bottom of the ladder rungs, and signalled the all-clear.

"I need to get some of those," Aelian remarked, as the techpriest hummed to herself.

"Would interfere with other things, I imagine," Roxana replied, shaking her head in disbelief. Even after a few years, that trick never got old. Talan motioned them to hurry up, and they complied.

Following them down, Talan inspected the space they had entered. This was clearly the realm of the enginseers and Mechanicus crew; the messy functionality of the rest of the ship gave way to well-maintained geometry, and symbols of the power of the Machine-God were present everywhere. The doors were larger as well, evidently to allow the passage of servitors.

Talan followed Mireya's lead in making the cogwheel, hoping to insure the goodwill of the Omnissiah in his realm, and then ordered an advance. They moved with great caution now, as a great clamour echoed through the halls. From the direction they were headed.

"We're near the main chamber," said Mireya after a while, as her servo-skulls returned to the group once again, "The enemy is a deck below us, but we should be able to eliminate them from the balconies above the main Geller Field generators on this side."

"Perfect," said Roxana before Talan could speak, "I'll pick the xenos to pieces from above."
"We should see what they're up to first," said the Inquisitor, inflecting his voice to insure his suggestion was heard as an order. His acolytes agreed.

The group entered the engine room, sweeping right and left on the balcony to make sure there were no greenskins lurking. There weren't, so they turned towards the main space. It was the size and approximate shape of a small cathedral, with one wall entirely taken up by the warp engine's massive bulk. In front of it, amongst the various diagnostic and control equipment, stood a whole warband of Orks. Orkish banners and icons were plastered on any space with room for them. The bellowing of the xenos was cacophonous, almost drowning out the noise of the engines.

Roxana flicked her hair to her back, lay down at the edge of the balcony and began scanning with her longshot-pulse. Talan approved, she had anticipated his order.

"Do you see any bosses?" he asked, as Aelian sat down beside Roxana and Mireya consulted a console.

"I see plenty of big ones," Roxana replied after a minute, "But they're all roughly the same size."

"Must be nobs," Talan thought aloud, "There seem to be a lot of meks too."
"They have the techpriests," she continued, "Big group of them sat down the other end, slaver-types guarding them with gretchin."
"What in the name of the Throne are they doing with all the banners?" Aelian asked, "We will need to get flamers down here to purge the place of taint."

"The machine-spirits are in great distress," Mireya cut in, "It appears the Orks are attempting to gain control of the warp engines and main thrusters. Fascinating, the Mechanicus has very rarely seen this stage of the process of Ork looting of Imperial vessels before. They seem to be attempting to coerce the engines' machine-spirits into submission with their icons and banners, while using violence where that fails."

"Sounds familiar," said Roxana, patting the side of her own 'alien' equipment.

"The technotheology isn't my concern at this point, if they get control of the engines, what can they do besides crash us into something?" Talan asked.

"Well, on this class of ship, atmospheric processing is powered directly for economic reasons. They could suffocate everyone outside of the bridge, medicae section and in this chamber. These areas are designed to function as emergency redoubts in case of a massive loss of atmosphere or clean air."

"Great, so if they pull it off, our choices will be to suffocate or survive in an enclosed space with a hundred orks," Roxana said, still scanning below for sign of a leader, "They've got an airlock open as well."

"The secondary docking tubes," said Mireya, "For emergency access to the engine survival area."

"I guess that explains how so many are in this one place, they've got a ship or shuttle docked" said Talan, observing two Orks blast each other at close range with bolters while a circle of others cheered and roared insults.

"What do we do?" Aelian asked.

Talan cracked his knuckles as he thought.

"It won't be long before they get control of the place, so we need to stop them now. We're not going to get planetside to fulfill our mission if the aliens crash or loot the ship. We also need to make sure those techpriests don't do the Orks' work for them."

"And, if we don't clear them out soon, they will find and kill us all," added Aelian.

"No choice, we attack," Talan concluded.