_POVSHIFTPOV_
The craft that Qui-gon had managed to talk the Xenos leader into giving them was somewhat small, but it only took a little work to figure out how to get Hannah into one of the side-seats. The two Jedi, fortunately, didn't seem to have a problem being stuffed into the other the side-seat, while he took the minimal empty space Hannah left for him. "Alright Lukas, it's time to see if those amazing flying skills translate to a Xeno submarine." The words themselves were heretical, but he didn't feel the overbearing sense of dread he normally did when using those words. That only happened when the Emperor approved of the heresy, for the good of the Imperium. Besides, new technology to benefit the Ordos was always important. Hannah had already started a deep conversation with the Machine Spirit, in an effort to understand exactly what this Xeno machine was. He had brought her on a possibility of coming across Xeno-tech, but also because he had been present for three incursions into Xeno worlds for the purpose of recovering STCs and other vital archaeo-tech, or Xeno-tech like the fancy shield Hannah was picking apart.
He settled into the space, ignoring the discomfort of a mechadendrite stabbing him in the side, because it was necessary to get to the Queen in the next hour and a half, so the blockade would break on schedule. Fortunately, Lukas Starkiller was the best pilot he knew, and he intended to make full use of that.
Lukas had slid into the organic seat with the same ease he fit into the cockpit of everything from a Fury to a Valkyrie, Sentinel, or Tauros, almost like the seat was made for him. His hands flew across unfamiliar, unlabeled controls, and latent psyker powers so subtle they had remained undetected showed him how to fly the craft. He smiled as the Xenos outside went to give him instructions, the words overlapping with Hannah's chittering voice, and slammed the throttles in full forward. The submarine lunged through the electrostatic barrier on the hangar and into the water without slowing down, throwing the two Jedi, unprepared for his style of driving against the back of the seat.
The ship responded to him like it was a part of him, rolling towards the center of the planet, following the directions the Jedi had extracted from the Xeno. It was a relaxing drive, not too dark, especially with the lights on, and he started to unwind, letting the submarine work.
_POVSHIFTPOV_
Caldera watched the timer tick down. She honestly had no idea if the Inquisitor was on schedule, but she knew he would Vox her as soon as he was departing, hopefully with a description of the vessel he was on, since it probably wouldn't be in any way similar to any Imperium design she knew of. Less than half an hour, and he still hadn't Voxed in. Too close for comfort, he always Voxed with at least thirty minutes left on the clock. "Twenty Five minutes to deployment!"
_POVSHIFTPOV_
The two Jedi watched in muted wonder at the ocean around them. They had left the Gungan behind, mainly so the Inquisitor didn't shoot him in the head. Fortunately, they were able to get directions through the planet's liquid core fairly easily, using a combination of the Jedi asking, and the Inquisitor demanding. Now, though, the flight had gotten very quiet. The inquisitor was staring at the two with a narrow stare.
"Jedi Master Jinn, show me your Rosary. Now."
Qui-gon looked at the inquisitor for a long minute, eyes focused on the large gun in the man's hands, "My what?"
Scylla scowled and rolled his eyes. It was no wonder everything was backwards. The Sanctioned Psykers in this sector must have been given some other symbol, "Your symbol of rank, the one that shows you to be sanctioned, and not about to explode into daemonic possession."
Qui-gon pulled out his lightsaber hesitantly and showed it, "The only symbol a Jedi carries is his lightsaber."
Scylla raised his pistol and pointed it at the two Jedi, "But you are a sanctioned Psyker, correct?"
"I have been authorized by the Republic to utilize my mental strengths for the betterment of everyone, yes."
"Good. I'd hate to shoot you."
_POVSHIFTPOV_
"FIVE MINUTES" Caldera hollered into the Vox again. Fighters were already floating out the doors, joining into formations for the assault on the fifteen massive vessels before them. The Swords would bust down the Void shields with their lance arrays, then the Fighters would dart in and rip the hulls to pieces, exposing the occupants to the vacuum.
_POVSHIFTPOV_
Lukas flinched as he sensed something approaching, and threw the submarine into a spin that meant it only barely got winged by a giant sticky tongue. Unfortunately, that was enough for the xeno machine to get slurped into the mouth of a massive fish. The younger of the two Jedi started freaking out, even as the elder muttered, "There's always a bigger fish. We'll get out of this."
Scylla had a different plan. He knew that the field would allow him through, but the pressure dirrential would be painful if he stuck his head out. Instead, he just stuck his arm out, wincing at the crushing pressure as he pulled the trigger on his power-fist. A powerful shockwave hammered the fish in the face as the disruption field blasted the water back and shattered its teeth. A pair of shots from his bolt-pistol tore the tongue apart and they floated away. Hannah set aside her current project and started on the Xeno submarine, tinkering it back to life. The younger Psyker helped, with clear knowledge of how to work the machines. This part of the galaxy must have been closer to Xeno overlap than most. Not unexpected. There were a great deal of systems that made use of Xeno technology, most of them sanctioned by the Ordo Xenos, and the ones that weren't usually didn't live long.
Scylla wasn't entirely sure which this planet was, yet, but exterminating a loyalist system after just offering to help them just didn't sit right with him. If they were indeed unsanctioned, he'd finish them off after regaining contact with the imperium.
_POVSHIFTPOV_
"ATTACK!" Lance arrays blasted crimson light across the blackness at the blockade of fifteen ships, expecting to tear one at a time. When the first hit tore through the other ship's void-shields like they were made of wet paper, and followed up by melting holes through the hull, Caldera started rethinking the strategy. Three full Lance arrays was probably excessive. What sort of pathetic archaeo-tech were these ships using?
"Pair broadsides!"
The three Swords moved between the blockade vessels, tearing into them with broadside assaults that sheared through the shields and armor like they were made of butter. Fightercraft swarmed the others, ignoring the rather pitiful shields to tear open the hulls. Merely an hour later, it was over. Less time than expected, and the fifteen ship blockade had been turned into space-hulks. The vessels that had not been obliterated by the Swords were quickly surrounded by tugs, who dropped Servitors and Sentinel lifters to strip out anything still functional, for the Mechanicus swarms to examine and properly sanction for use, or get rid of." It was maintenance time. Not much maintenance, admittedly. Nothing these blockade carriers held was any good at overloading Void shields.
_POVSHIFTPOV_
Only one other creature accosted the submarine on its way back out of the planet core, and suffered a similar fate, being shot repeatedly by bolt-pistol fire and Hannah's flamer until it left, or died, neither cared which.
The vessel surfaced in a river, and the force-fields over the hatches dissipated, letting the occupants out. The two Psykers leapt, and Scylla felt a push from behind them, like they were calling on the Warp to launch them. Probably to buffer their impact too. He resorted to a less mentally strenuous method, having Hannah fling him with her powerful servos. He hit the tile, rolling into a stance that exuded arrogance, and trying as hard as he could to not reveal that he had landed wrong and probably messed up his right shoulder. His power-fist on the other side flexed as he waited for the Lukas to land in a tumble. Somewhat less dignified, but the pilot managed to turn it into a spin into a combat pose, las-pistol out and scanning the horizon. Hannah landed a moment later, clawed feet crushing in the tile as she impacted.
"Alright, let's go. We're in Theed, right?"
"Yes sir. And if my information is still up to date, the palace is this way," Qui-gon took off running, and Scylla pursued, power-fist cupping his right shoulder and using the powerful fingers to push the joint back into place. He ground his teeth as it popped loudly, and almost didn't notice the Psyker stopping.
Stumbling to a halt, he stared at Qui-gon, "Why have you sto…"
The Psyker was holding up a hand, the universal gesture for 'Shut it'. The inquisitor stopped talking and followed the pointing finger. Over the balcony was a group of tan painted Necrons, escorting a pair of seriously mangled looking Tau and what looked like an excessively painted human in an overly heavy dress. The human was the only one who seemed to care about the Necrons, and was clearly not pleased by the Xenos.
Obi-wan and Lukas arrived next, and joined in the muted whispers of pseudo-plans. Hannah was the last, crawling on mecha-dendrites and toes, trying to be as quiet as five hundred pounds of machinery could be.
"That's the queen, in the middle. Do not harm her, or her councilor, the tubbo in the hideous beard. Otherwise, slaughter the Xenos," Almost as an afterthought, he added, "Oh, and don't kill the handmaidens either." Scylla shook his arms out and withdrew a combat knife. Hannah prepared for a servo-assisted leap over them as Lukas set up in a sniping position with his las-pistol. The unarmored Tau Xenos wouldn't stand a chance against the searing heat of the gun. The two Psykers just stared mutedly, "Well, are you gonna use some of your mind-juju to make them run in rank and file?"
Silence responded, and Scylla raised his power fist, fingers in the air, counting down. As he closed the fist, the power-field lit up with a blue crackle and Hannah launched herself over the Xenos and the Queen, landing with a terrifying crash. She spun around and whipped out her las-pistol and flamer, pointing them at the Xenos. Everyone stampeded towards the bridge she had jumped from, then under it. Scylla landed beside Qui-gon, fist disrupting the tile into a mess of dust and shards, even as he knifed the two Xenos in the abdomens. Qui-gon whirled away, chopping into the Necrons like they were nothing, with his symbol of office, which had somehow sprouted a blade of pure energy. Xenos-tech? That would need investigated.
The entire fight took less than six seconds, and Scylla shut off his fist's power-field before walking up to the queen. He checked the chrono on his wrist and smiled, "Ma'am, we need to leave now. My fleet is currently in the process of making us a gap in the blockade for your vessel." He noted wryly that there wasn't actually any carriers in orbit besides his and the Xenos vessels, so there really was no way for them to leave the system in her shuttle anyway, but getting the nobility into an armored warship was always the primary objective when dealing with this sort of thing. "Where is your hangar?"
_POVSHIFTPOV_
Since the assault had been short, recovery time was also swift. The empty parade grounds were now piled high with scavenged technology, which the tech-priests were going over for anything that could be sanctioned for use in repairs, or upgrades. The inquisitor wasn't picky.
Caldera had spent much of the recovery time examining a large, blocky contraption that closely resembled a Warp-drive, though it lacked several components. It appeared to work with the rather ineffective shields to protect the occupants from short jaunts through the Warp. Perhaps the blockade had accidently left their Gellar fields on, and the Void-shields off. She would have been more inclined to believe that if there had been a single void-shield generator in the five vessels they salvaged.
_POVSHIFTPOV_
Arriving at the hangar, Scylla discovered, to his dismay, that there were dozens of human pilots being held captive by more of those tan Necrons. They weren't even struggling to escape, or overpower their captors. He mentally marked every face, listing them for later execution, as he did not have enough bolt-rounds for all of them right now. The Psykers were about to make a move when he held up a hand, "Milady, which of those pilots are trained on your shuttle?"
The queen pointed at a single pilot, wearing a red flak vest, who seemed to be casually smoking something near one of the Necrons. The machine Xeno didn't appear to be pleased by the ash the pilot continued to tap into its neck base, but had not killed him yet, probably under orders. Good. He signed at Lukas, who had already moved up on top of one of the chromed vessels in the hangar, Xeno-tech probably. Not an Aquila in sight. Lukas lowered his head to the back of his Lasgun and pulled the trigger. The Necron dropped like a sack of bolts as its spine was flash-vaporized. Pitifully armored too. No wonder the pilot had felt safe around it. It must not have been armed either. Another shot dropped the second, then the third, fourth and fifth in rapid succession.
Lukas jumped down and ran up to the pilot, "Hello. Are you the Queen's pilot?"
"Yes. Ric Ole, at your service," the pilot seemed confused about what had just happened, but didn't put down the smoking death-stick he was sucking on.
"Good, which ship is it?"
Ric pointed at the silver dart that Lukas had just jumped off of, and Lukas frowned, "Is it armed?"
"No, it's a noble courier vessel, not a warship."
A dirty look from Lukas, and the pilot ran towards the ship. Lukas waved the others down, then caught up to the pilot easily, "Where's the rest of the crew?" He knew a vessel that size had to have at least a dozen crew, mostly for the guns, but a couple servitors and a Tech-priest for repairs were necessities.
"I'm it." Lukas turned sadly back to the hatch, and watched the inquisitor walking up the ramp, still dignified, "Lord Inquisitor, I fear this planet is far more lost than we suspected. There is no practicality, or Mechanicus presence. We must report this to Holy Terra as soon as we are able to contact them."
_POVSHIFTPOV_
Qui-gon reached the ramp just in time to overhear the pilot-sniper's last words, 'Holy Terra?' He blinked. As far as he knew, there were no planets by that name. None that even resembled Terra, without the addition of a lot of extra letters and syllables anyway. These people couldn't have been from the Republic. He walked up onto the ship and found himself face-to-face with the Inquisitor, well, face-to-collar anyway. He looked up and addressed the taller man, "Inquisitor, a number of things you have said do not fit with common knowledge, and I feel I need to ask you a few questions about where in the galaxy you are from."