Jarod winced as he stared at the burning husk that had once been the truck he'd been using as transportation and decided that such a vehicle probably wasn't the best thing to take into enemy territory. Granted, it hadn't been enemy territory twenty minutes ago, but that was beside the point.
"Jakob, you still alive?" he asked. Of the two Guardsmen, he'd brought along as his retinue, Jakob was the one he trusted during field missions. Harper was good for overwatch and defensive action, as well as setting up a good base defense (he was the one who had managed to impress Twitch after all) but he wasn't all that great at thinking on his feet.
"In one piece, Sir." Jakob answered, kicking the remains of a car door out of his way, "For now, at the very least."
Jarod nodded, "Any idea where that rocket came from?"
Jakob shook his head, "No idea, but I'd guess some of the locals have caught onto us. The Gene-cult, maybe?" he asked.
"Probably. The other Interrogator and his team are in the process of storming the base as we speak if everything went according to plan." Which, as Jarod had learned a long time ago, never happened.
"'All according to plan'? Sir, I didn't think you believed such a thing was possible."
Jarod chuckled, "I don't, at least not with Xenos. That's probably what killed our truck. Speaking of which, duck."
"Duck-? frak!" Jakob said, getting down just in time to avoid the hail of auto-gun fire that rained down on them.
Jarod managed to get behind the remains of the vehicle while Jakob found himself dug into the trench. Peaking above the wreck, Jarod saw that the hail of bullets was coming from the third story window of a building a little less than a block away. He could make out the vague outline of the person firing it, and with practiced motions, drew on the power of the warp. Lighting, while not necessarily difficult, still wasn't his preferred method of using his powers. Instead, he manifested a ball of white fire - to the Ecclesiarchy, should he ever end up in their good graces, would classify it as a gift from the Emperor.
Jarod just called it warp-fire.
Poking up from his hideout, Jarod threw the ball of fire toward his target, the ball of warp energy ignoring all laws of physics or gravity, sailing right into the window and blowing out the entire room. Glass rained down onto the street below and the corpse of their assailant fell with it.
"Well, not a bad show don't you think?" Jarod remarked.
Jakob just shook his head as he climbed out of the ditch, hefting his lasgun back onto his shoulder. The two of them made their way over to the corpse that had fallen, it's back charred and burned, with bits of cloth still on fire. Jarod flipped the body over with a kick and instantly recognized the Xenos heritage. While not overly obvious, the thin hair and ridges on the forehead gave away the secret of the genestealer DNA infesting them. On another planet, with no possibility of a gene-cult at play, such mutations might be ignored, but with the presence of said cult? And the fact that they were brazen enough to try and attack an Interrogator?
Jarod wasn't going to leave anything up to chance.
"So, they're out in the open now. Open rebellion do you think?" Jakob asked. He received his answer with the sound of an explosion, and multiple alarms sounding, "Open rebellion, then."
Jarod grunted, "We need to get out of here, rendezvous with Calivar, and get in contact with the other interrogator." He said, before placing a finger to the vox-bead on his temple, "Calivar, this is Jarod, how are things on your end? Because ours just went to crap."
A second passed, and the space marine answered, "I have located the ruins the locals spoke of, and have identified many of the markings on them. Many of them have been destroyed or worn down by time, but I believe they are Chaotic in nature. There is a path leading up to a set of caves, I was about to approach when you called."
Jarod hummed, "Alright, I'll make a note of that. In the meantime, I think the All Guardsmen Party just did an oops and set off the rebellion early. How soon do you think you can get back into the city?" he asked.
"I can return to the city limits within a quarter of an hour. I am unaware of your current location, however, so it may take me longer to reach you." Calivar responded.
"Alright then, just get here as soon as you can. We're in the fourth housing district right now, but that'll change pretty soon. Just follow the fireworks."
"Understood. Emperor be with you."
And with that, the transmission cut off. Jarod turned to face Jakob, "You think you can hotwire a car?" he asked.
"Eh, only done it once or twice. Though the local patterns may cause a bit of a fuss." he offered.
Jarod grinned, "Good, 'cause I think the other's are gonna need us over there pretty soon."
[-]
Calivar eyed the caves where the path led, cursing the luck of the other Interrogator and his entourage. If he'd had more time, he might have gotten closer to finding out what had happened to the Grey Knights that had come to the planet.
He still had a hard time believing that the Grey Knights had left the planet untouched. He'd never seen them himself, hadn't even heard of them before he had gone through the ancient records kept in the Fang, but he knew that they almost always left empty worlds in their wake. Jarod had agreed with his assessment but had stated that almost nothing ever went according to plan. Whether it was a simple reallocation of resources, or dealing with luck better suited to that of the Lamenters chapter of space marines, something always went wrong.
In the case of the grey knights, it seemed as though something had gone wrong indeed.
Turning away from the ruins, he mounted the bike provided to him by the Inquisitor. He sped forward, the engine of the machine revving as it's machine spirit hungered for speed. He tracked across the green and brown landscape of the world, driving over rough terrain for a minute or so before he was able to get onto the main road. Almost immediately he saw a problem.
Smoke rose from the horizon, and when he was close enough to the city to see, he witnessed a large barricade blocking off the city entrance. Dozens of men lined the hastily constructed battlements, with mounted auto-guns and heavy stubbers aimed down the road. Mines lay on the surface of the track, ready to detonate when depressed. Armor based mines, by the look of them, big and heavy, meant to disable tanks or APCs.
He was soon spotted, the defenders scrambling to their positions, mounting and loading the guns as quickly as possible. Traitors, then. That made thing's easier.
Caliver drew the bolt pistol from his side and aimed it forward. He was out of range of the enemy, but not the mines. He pulled the trigger on the weapon, the rocket-propelled projectile racing forward toward the explosive. The adamantium tipped round struck home, and the internal explosive set off the larger payload within the mine itself, causing the ground to crack and dust to fly into the air. He repeated the process again, twice, three times more, showering the road in debris and dust.
The defenders could not see him, and that was an advantage he was more than willing to take. His bike entered the dust field, the engine choking on the particles in the air, but continuing on all the same. A second before he reached the barricade, he drew his power sword and activated it, a blue glow covering the weapon's blade. He lept from the bike, the machine screaming forward and crashing through the barricade, startling the defenders. It spun out quickly enough, crashing to the ground well past the barricade.
The defenders cursed when they realized that Calivar was not on the bike itself and turned back to the cloud of dust. Their eyes scanned the haze of dust, trying to pick out where the space marine had gone. One of their number, a bald man with purple ridges clearly visible along his forehead took a visor up to his eyes in order to try and see through the debris. He didn't see anything at first, but he did notice a sound.
Footsteps. They thundered in the cloud dust, and just as he removed the visor, he found the massive black armored space marine emerging from the cloud, his weapon crackling with energy even as it severed the half-breeds head from his shoulders.