The Black Heart and the Machine God

OOC: You're free to continue manning Rasputin if you so desire. And I hope I'm not messing up any storylines, etc. by manning the interrogation.


=======

Tim decided to oversee the interrogation. He decided if the Inquisitor ran into any problems, he would intervene. As he was walking back, he asked his AI Miranda, "Is your system updated to analyze body information?"

"Just a simple analysis that determines a target's heart rate, thoughts and feelings, and any major injuries."

"That will suffice. The important thing is we want to push our target to a fear point where he will crack under pressure, but not too hard that he closes off completely, or worse, ends up dead. Let's see how the Inquisitor is doing right now." As he walked into the hatch, he overheard, "WHAT IS THE BLACK HEART'S INTENTIONS!!!"

Igor simply replied, "I have no idea what you are talking about. I am but a simple civilian who has his rights being violated by the Protoan menace!"

Eisenhorn smirked, then said, "Do not play games with me, Mister Ravanov. There are two routes we can take here. The easy route where you tell me what I want to know and I assure you that you will not face torture or death. Or you can take the hard route and I cannot be responsible for what happens if you opt to take that path."

Igor replied, "I will never betray my secrets to the likes of you. And I challenge you to do your worst. I have experienced years of torture to the point that most of what you can potentially do here will have a minimal effect on me."

The Inquisitor decided to start taking it up a notch and grabbed Igor before placing him calmly but firmly against one of the grated walls. He then bellowed, "Now tell me the intentions of the Black Heart before you end up hurt."

When Igor simply remained silent, Eisenhorn decided it was time to start being a little more forceful in his interrogation as his traditional methods were not working. He therefore punched Igor a few times in the face to see if that would put any sense into his head. He then said, this time with anger and a hint of frustration in his voice, "What is the Black Heart planning?"

Igor retorted, "Is that the best you're going to do? A few punches? If the roles were reversed, I would have utilized twenty different ways to injure you already." This remark led Eisenhorn to slam Igor's head back through the grating with enough force to start some bleeding. Meanwhile, Tim was watching and asked Miranda, "What's Igor's status right now?"

"Apart from some minor trauma thanks to the head smash and an increased BPM, he seems to be doing alright. But if Inquisitor Eisenhorn increases the threshold, you may wish to intervene."

After Eisenhorn gave Igor a moment to regain his breath, he once again grabbed the terrorist leader and told him, "It can only get worse for you from here, and I am not afraid to use all the tools at my disposal to get the information I need." He then brought Igor up to his face and said, "Now then, will you tell me what the Black Heart is planning? Or will you subject yourself to more misery at my hands?"

After looking into the Inquisitor's eyes, Igor snerked, "I know who you are, Inquisitor. Out of all the people Protoa sends, they send you, a pathetic excuse of an Inquisitor!"

"Do not question me, and do not speak badly of the Inquisitors!" Eisenhorn roared before sending Igor once again through the grate treatment, but now he sent all of Igor, not just the head. He did this a couple more times before asking him, this time with rage in his voice, "What are the intentions of the Black Heart?!?! I will not ask again!"

"You weren't there to save the ones you loved...." Igor commented. "You weren't there for Maria, or for Theodore, Theresa, and Stephanie.....Maria suffered a slow death at my hands. A stomach cut that ensured she suffered in agony for an hour.....I made the three kids watch their mother die, and then I ordered Vladimir to brutally beat the kids up.....When they were at the limit of how much pain they could take, I cut them up so they too would bleed out slowly...."

This made Eisenhorn ballistic to the point where he threw Igor to the grating on the other side. He then repeated this move. As he prepared to start again, Tim rushed in and shouted, "Before you kill Igor, let me take over. I have a way to get him talking."

Tim proceed to grab Igor, and when he did, he saw that now Igor no longer showed a face of defiance, but a face of fear. Igor took one look at the commando in front of him before starting to whimper. He knew that a member of the KCT could be brutal, especially in the way they got information. And unlike an Inquisitor, they opted to simply start hard.

After thinking for a moment, Tim said, "Let's play a game, Igor." He walked the prisoner to the back of the plane and proceeded to open the rear hatch. Almost immediately, a cold burst swept into the hold. Tim turned to Igor and stated, "That wind burst you feel will almost certainly lower your body temperature, and given your wounds, you will all but certain be unable to combat hypothermia and you may start suffering from frostbite. I won't kill you this way, but I will make you suffer to the point that you will wish you were dead." He held Igor with a firm grip for about a few moments before Igor finally muttered, "A bomb...."

"What?"

"A bomb.....will detonate in Protos in five days.....six gunmen.....will kill any survivors.....main square......Commander will hide in the outskirts....oversee the plan...."

Tim nodded then set him back down before raising the hatch. He then turned to a still simmering Eisenhorn and told him, "If you want to kill him, I won't stop you. If you want to keep him and see if he won't give up anymore information, that's fine. But I need this plane to land back at LE CEITO to drop these men off and see if I can't borrow an explosives specialist. I feel our job has only begun and the stakes have increased ten fold."

Rasputin got to the console. He promptly recovered the codes to disarm the bombs in a series. Password was "dark sky". It would have to be done in series or the bombs would detonate..and finally the coordinates...Thracian Square. It was then that the chief guard Yuri walked in.

"Rasputin, what are you doing?"

Rasputin turned with a helpless look in his eyes. He heard a voice say " Thank you Rasputin" and his last thought was that he was a bright star glowing in the sky as his body detonated killing everyone in the compound.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Eisenhorn slowly composed himself. He then said, "We will g8ve him to Lord Lucian, he ll find some use out of him."
With that he strapped Ivan to a parachute with a auto deploy feature and casually opened a hatch then tossed Ivan out.

" He'll survive, the tech priests will sure of it. Lord Lucian has the exact location and passcode for the bombs, yes bombs. However, its set in a series, so we gotta find the pattern or they all blow."

5 days later, morning, Protos outskirts

"Men, your assignment is simple. First, have you deployed the bombs in Thracian Square?"

"Yes sir. We have positioned them so that the local police will not be able to find them unless a specialist is brought in."

"Wonderful. Are all your weapons loaded up and ready to kill innocents once the bombs go off?"

"Affirmative sir."

"Then be on your way. Remember, the time for the detonation is 1:05 PM, when the speech starts to get underway. Do the Black Heart proud!"

=======

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Protos

"So what type of bombs are we dealing with?" Eisenhorn asked the man in heavy armor.

"Quite simply, it's referred to as the Nanjing RX-9 Series, as it's the only explosives manufactured currently that follows a strict disarming pattern," the man replied in a noticeable Dutch accent. "It's reasonable that they are utilizing the Mark II variant, the current model in production."

"And why not the Mark I?" Tim asked.

"Long story short, that model is unstable. Reports came of premature detonations, detonations when disarming via the sequence, detonations when carrying it, etc."

"So how do we determine the pattern?" Eisenhorn inquired.

"All Nanjing models utilize a wave detection pattern, and in the RX-9, depending on when the bomb was activated will determine it's frequency."

"So what's the pattern then?" the inquisitor asked.

"A bomb that has been activated earlier will emit a stronger frequency. You can track it with this gadget here. If you're reporting a low frequency, then it needs to be dealt with later on in the sequence. And likewise, stronger frequency dictates dealing with it sooner."

"Alright," Tim commented. He then turned to Eisenhorn and asked him, "I think we're ready to start our search. But one thing, they're going to have a couple gunmen in the area I'm certain as a backup plan. How are we going to track them?"

Eisenhorn looked at the captain. They were through so much in such little time.
"A diversion. I have Death Watch Marines in full power armor. We ll use them for us. Then we ll use the gun servitors as diversions so they will be distracted."

He then showed Tim a man with cybernetic implants and a heavy machine gun where his right should be.
"Capable of laying down mountains of covering fire, but has the intelligence of a calculator. It only works when you control it. We have many of them. "

Tim nodded, then told the Inquisitor, "We'll need to be cautious when we handle the bombs and the gunmen. If they suspect something is up, they'll more than likely attack prematurely. And that may not bode well." He turned to the Inquisitor before setting out and told him, "Those Marines will be useful, just so long as they can do their jobs as stealthily as possible. Remember, we don't want to spook the Slavs."

ooc: once again RL has attacked sorry canton

Gregor grinned. "It will be a little hard for them to be sneaky in full power armor, that is why we have deployed some skitarii (or tech legions) that will be able to get in and get out. I imagine that Canton Rouge wishes to assist. What would you like to do?"

"We don't want the Black Heart to be fully aware that we're assisting you," Tim replied. "So we'll only be having a UAV up overhead to track the area. We also have the explosives tracker modified to pick up the frequency pings between the bombs, so we won't have to do much guess work, hopefully." As they left, he also added, "And I didn't mean for your men to be 100% sneaky. I just need to make sure they don't expose themselves too much to our enemy."


=======

Later, 11:00 A.M.

"Are we all in position to start?" Tim asked.

"Affirmative."

"Okay then, the plan is this. We'll fan out and start looking for the bombs. Those are the top priority, but if you can confirm any hostile infantry in the area, deal with them as well."

"How long do we have?"

"We have about two hours, so we can't dwadle. That is unless you want to witness a lot of innocents be killed...."

Inquisitor Eisenhorn was frantic. He had to contact Tim.
"Captain, we have a situation. Bombs are destroyed. That's the good news. The bad is...well Grand Lord Inquisitor Lucian was mortally injured when he allowed it to detonate in his personal shielding."

-===========================================================
Coded Message Of the Omnissah
The Deus Mechanicus Empire owes it's life to our new Emperor, Lord Lucian. In these past few days, a transmission was intercepted by Canton Rouge and Empire forces. With the incredibly brave and valiant troops of Canton Rouge and Captain Tim Matthews, Inquisitor Eisenhorn was able to foil a grand terrorist attack by the members of the Black Heart.
Unfortunately, we have our Emperor to mourn. He could not figure out the correct disarming code, and accidently tripped the proximity alarm on the device. Using his array shielder, he proceeded to prevent anyone from coming to harm. This of course mortally wounded him. He now presides over the Imperium, entombed on his Platinum Throne- where it will keep him alive and functional for all time.

The Empire would like to personally thank Canton Rouge for it's valiant efforts and success. Captain Matthews will receive our most coveted reward, the CyberCross, where it will be embedded in his flesh and will forever link him to us.

"For without his assistance in these trying times, a bloody war would have been fought, causing the unnecessary lives of numerous Protoans," the announcer said at the CyberCross ceremony. "Working in tandem with one of our Inquisitors, Captain Timothy Matthews of the Korps Commando Troepen of Canton Rouge helped uncover a sinister plot aimed at Protoa. His actions up to and including that faithful day have helped ensure that while the Black Heart threat still looms, they are a group on the run."

Tim solemnly held his head in respect for the Emperor, even though he was not his nation's ruler. He then heard, "Now, we present to him a high honor bestowed only to those who go above and beyond the call of duty, the CyberCross."

When he heard that, he extended his right arm for the embedding. The process took only a moment, and amazingly, it didn't hurt as much as he thought it would. Now, there was no telling what awaited him next. Where would his next conflict be? And who would proudly join him in the fight?