By the time Seth arrived at the hangar bay, a small group of people were loitering around one of the shuttles. Vulkan and an engineer in grubby, oil-stained overalls were completing the final checks. Along with his pistol, Seth had donned a slim, slightly curved power sword with an engraved hilt. Branwley stood with his arms folded over a flak vest as he gave a terrified looking young recruit a vicious tongue lashing. Styx was sharing a final lho stick with a grizzled crewman with one eye called Kal. Seth clapped his hands, and the sound echoed around the huge, mostly empty room.
The crew turned around, and with Brawnley's encouragement, saluted. They were all veterans, had been on ships all of their lives and had worked for Seth for several years. They were all equipped with a varied selection of weapons, each modified and customized by the individual. Each man had a bandana or strip of cloth or leather around their necks, to put over the lower half of their faces when they attack the outpost. A suggestion given by the unofficial mission specialist, an ex-bank heister known to the crew as Three of Nine, or just Nines. With a nod from their Captain, the crew filed onto the shuttle, while Vulkan hopped into the pilots cockpit with agility abnormal for his size. Seth joined the crew in the back of the shuttle, and punched the button to close the door. He took a place near to the front of the shuttle, and activated the in-shuttle intercom next to his seat.
"Ready to move Draxus"
"Affirmative Captain"
Seth sat up straight and put on his harness and checked to see that everyone else had theirs on. Branwley, who had spent years in shuttles being transported from one battle to the next, had perfected the complicated art of the shuttle harness, and after checking everyone else's, he tightened Seth's then strapped himself in. Seth tried to say something to Branwley, but his voice was drowned out by the roaring of the engines starting up. Seth felt his blood rush to his legs as the shuttle rose up and left the ship. The next few minutes were filled with the constant deep rumble of the thrusters, and the steady increase in vibrations and shaking through the shuttle as it went further into the planet's atmosphere. The crewmen dealt with the violent shaking, roaring noise and massive increase in pressure in different ways. Some simply sat, knuckles white as they clutched their harnesses and clenched their eyes shut. Others made the symbol of the Imperial Eagles over their chests as they prayed for their deliverance to the planet surface safely.
As quickly as the shaking and noise arrived, it subsided, announcing their arrival within the planet's atmosphere. Many of the crew relaxed, and began chatting happily with one another. Seth leant over and activated the intercom again.
"Vulkan, how far to the outpost?"
"7 minutes Captain, I have spotted a clearing we can land in, which will give us enough cover to approach the outpost under the cover of the treeline."
"Good"
The shuttle landed, and the group filed out of the shuttle. Vulkan hopped down from the cockpit, and joined the other smugglers. The clearing was small; barely big enough to fit the shuttle, which was proof of Vulkan's piloting skills. The area around the shuttle was thick with soldier pines; the floor was covered with their needles that crunched under the parties boots.
Vulkan suddenly nudged Seth pointed silently up at the sky. Half a mile or so ahead of them, a great plume of thick black smoke drifted sluggishly into the sky, a very bad sign on the condition of the outpost. Seth shook his head, determined to retrieve the weapons they needed, and signalled the advance. The crew got steadily more and more uneasy as they approached the outpost. Obvious signs of a firefight were spotted regularly; empty power packs, shell casings, areas of heavily disturbed pine needles, blood splattering on trees and the ground. As they got even closer, the stink of burning flesh and petrol assaulted their senses. Many of the crew began to get very nervous, they fingered various lucky trinkets they kept about their person, and whispered unhappily amongst each other. Seth was no more pleased to be there, he knew if this mission failed, he would be down the creek without a paddle if he ever returned to Madame Zafir, but everything about this had the heady stink if Chaos involvement. If Seth was leading his crew into a Chaos invasion, he would be dead before he got the chance to regret the decision.
As he was thinking this, he suddenly walked into the back of Styx, who was standing with his mouth open, rifle hanging loosely from his hand. Brawnley hissed angrily through his teeth, and made the sign of the eagle over his chest. The crew were completely frozen with shock and fear, their eyes wide and their mouths gaping open. Vulkan stood brooding and silent as ever, but his large, strong hands were tightening slowly into fists.
The outpost outer wall was nothing unusual, made of huge concrete slabs, and painted a dark green to blend in with the thick treeline surrounding it. The dark green walls were now covered in dark stains. Huge, crude rail spikes were hammered into the top of the wall, where still-living guardsmen hung, nailed up by their shoulders and arms, their blood seeping slowly down the wall from a dozen wounds. Their blood had been used to paint foul symbols on the wall that hurt the eyes to look at closely. The older and more grizzled members of the crew recovered the quickest, Brawnley and Kal spat in disgust and raised their weapons, ready for some revenge for the hanging soldiers. Some of the younger smugglers were less resilient so such horrors, and Nines had to sneak away back into the treeline to be violently ill. Vulkan approached Seth, and spoke in a voice barely above a whisper.
"Do we call of the mission, Captain?"
Seth's jaw clenched "Hells no, we go in and get those weapons. We just do so with more…caution." He pulled his pistol from its holster under his jacket, and thumbed off the safety. The others took his lead; autoguns were loaded, shotguns pumped and lasguns were powered up with short, high-pitched whines.