Alexis was tempted to spend some points, but held off on it for the moment. Her next catalogue purchase was just a smidge too expensive.
She checked herself over, then looked over her friends. Other than some blood and guts stuck in the gears of 054-648's threaded mobility system, however, there was nothing wrong enough to stop him from rolling along, and his ammo reserves were still decently full.
"I really need to get my own weapon," Alexis said. Her wrench was... well, it was a wrench. Its edge was pretty thin, and it was kinda heavy, but it definitely wasn't weighted to be a weapon. It could bash a head in, sure, but that wasn't what it was made for. "Machine Spirit Vyper, do you have anything nice for me? Uh, I mean..."
"I have plenty of options."
"Do you mind if I just call you that?" Alexis asked aloud. "It's... rude, isn't it? I should be beseeching you? Oh, great machine spirit, blessed by the Omnissiah, praise thee for thine attention to my lowly form of flesh and meat, and bless me in turn with the cold certainty of steel?"
"I do not require worship, Alexis Lambda-3. Seeing you improve yourself and assist in protecting civilization is enough for me."
"Oh... well, I'm pretty sure that goes against a lot of doctrine, but if you say so! So, uh, are there any good weapons... I mean, tools, that I should use?"
She rocked back and forth a little, onto the balls of her feet, then to her toes.
"There are three options that come to mind, at varying price points. The cheapest is a Plasma Torch. Short range, but able to cut through anything up to a bulkhead. It wouldn't be rapid, but most foes you'll find in this vessel wouldn't survive long against it. The second, at a slightly elevated cost, would be a Sealant Foam Projector. A tool designed to cast expanding foam darts designed to seal an area off from the void of space, or to coat an area in insulating foam. The third and most expensive is a Soldering Lance. Technically designed to be used in an industrial capacity, it is a precision tool that melts items a set distance away from its 'head' in order to solder them together. This distance can be dialed in, or out."
Alexis mulled over her options for a while, then shrugged. "What can I get for twenty points that's best?"
"The Sealant Foam Projector would be best."
"That, then, please!"
New Purchase: Type 87 Sealant Foam Projector
Points Reduced to: 22
Alexis opened her new box like a child on Grotmas, then grinned from ear to ear at the tool within. Like with most others, it was all-black, with a pretty matte finish. This one had the symbol of the cog emblazoned on the side, with a pair of small, all-red tanks and a hazard-striped hose connecting back to the main body.
She lifted it up, then checked it over. The weight was nice. Heavy, but only so much as to suggest quality. She could bonk someone with it, she was sure! It was otherwise small. Smaller than a rifle, but a bit bigger than a handgun.
She aimed at a wall, then paused. A sight had blossomed to life above the tool, with several indicators in a bright green. Giggling, she brought it closer and looked the gun over properly. There were dials, and switches! One of them turned on a small rectangular light on the bottom that dazzled her for a moment when she flashed it into her face, another had a toggle to adjust the sights. The gauges built into the side looked to be indicators for the quantity of unused foam left in the tool.
It felt... good. Not just nice in her hands, but also of a quality that she wasn't used to. Sure, it was covered in the proper iconography, skulls and cogs, but it was subtle and small and almost discreet, placed over smooth lines and metal that was so forge-fresh that it had never been annotated by sacred oils. No seal marked this tool, and she wasn't sure if it needed one.
Aiming at a bulkhead, she squeezed the trigger. There was a bit of recoil as a jet of whitish goop shot out of the end and splattered onto the wall. It was just a small drizzle at first, and she was almost disappointed until it started to expand, and kept going until what had been a few drops were as big around as her head.
"Whoa!"
"It should be hard enough to touch within three seconds. It is rather heavy as well."
She walked over, waited three more seconds, then poked it. It felt like ferrocrete. She thumped her closed fist on it, but the material didn't budge. "Whoa."
"There's a secondary fire option to melt the foam away, in case you hit yourself, or an ally. And of course, dissolver can be purchased for a very low cost. More foam as well."
"Neat!" Alexis sighed. She was feeling a little more confident now that she was properly armed. With that in hand, she looked down the corridor, then started walking again. She felt like an Imperial Guardsman, stomping down the passage with a gun up to her shoulder.
She did not make pew pew noises. That would have given her position away.
Her fun slowly faded when she heard some noise up ahead, the distinct sizzle of a lasrifle, a few grunts, then someone talking in low murmurs.
Moving a bit faster, she came upon a room with a poorly barricaded door. It led into a large stairwell with an elevator in its centre. In that elevator were five figures. Three voidsmen-at-arms and two Tech Priests. They were stuck between floors, with several genestealers smacking the walls of the elevator cage and spooking the people within.
"Dammit! At this rate we're going to be out of ammo before help arrives!" one of the voidsmen said.
"Suggestion: Calm the fuck down. Observation: We have a potential ally above us," one of the Tech Priests said.
Alexis started a little at being noticed, but she waved down. "Hey there! Need help? What's wrong?" She scanned the people within more thoroughly. The two members of the Adeptus Mechanicus had very little by way of armour, and only one of them was properly armed with a small laspistol. The other had a pair of mechadendrites that ended in gripper hands and one of their arms terminated in what might have been a gun, she wasn't sure.
She didn't recognize either of them, though the one with the mechadendrites... maybe she'd seen him? There were a thousand or so tech adepts on the ship, and she was usually confined to her little corner of it.
The Voidsmen-at-arms all seemed pretty normal. Brown and black-haired men, one was a woman, all in the darker blue outfits of the ship's enforcers, with flak vests on and lasrifles in hand.
"How can I help?" she asked.
"Explanation: The elevator is locked in place," the adept with the mechadendrites said. "Order: remove the corpse blocking the chains. Supplication: Now."
She glanced up, and yeah, there was a genestealer corpse stuffed into the mechanism above. It had been shot at a few times, judging by the las-burns around it, but the genestealer's tibia was firmly wedged in place.
"I can do that," she muttered. Jumping over there seemed... kinda foolish, so instead, she turned to 054-648. "Hey, see that? Shoot it, low calibre, please."
The servitor rolled forwards, aimed, then fired. The first couple of shots pinged off the metal, but eventually one of them struck the body dead-on and the entire elevator slammed down a few feet, then came to a halt.
"Appreciation: About time."
Alexis moved to the edge of the stairs. The platform was designed with a wide, flat surface on every floor, and the stairs running most of the way around the room to the next platform down. The nearest stairs down, however, were melted off. Judging by the faint glow, that had happened recently.
"What happened here?" she called down. The group of five below opened the doors and stepped onto the next platform down, just below her. They cleared the space, though there wasn't much to clear.
"Tech Adept Red-C61734 chose to eliminate the stairs," one of the Tech Adepts said. "I warned them that this was unwise."
"Consternation: It was a minor failure on my part."
"Can we focus?" one of the voidsmen-at-arms said. They looked up. "Did you come here to help?"
Alexis nodded, then shifted to the side. She didn't want anyone peeking up her robes! "Yup! The... lieutenant said that a group was sent to close a door? QT1-4? I was sent to make sure you were alive."
"Suggestion: You may join us. Observation: The additional meat shielding provided by servitors may assist us in remaining unterminated."
Alexis pursed her lips. Why didn't anyone respect her friends more? But in a way, they were right, in both directions. More help would keep her friends alive too. "Send the elevator up, and I'll be down in a jiffy!"
That's exactly what happened. The elevator rose a floor, then she boarded it with her friends, and soon enough she was down and with the team.
"Command: Let's move out."
The other Tech Adept shook his head. His upper face was boxy and square from the augmetics he had, with both eyes replaced by lensed apparatus. "Forgive them, they are... brusque. I am Anthony, Tech Adept studying the art of the Lexmechanic. These three are Voidsman-at-arms Sebastian, Tobi and Kevin."
"Hey," one of them said with a small wave. She suspected that it was Kevin. "Nice to meet you and all, and the reinforcements are nice, but can we get a move on? The less time we spend down here, the happier I'll be."
"That's fair," Alexis said. "I'm Tech Adept Alexis Lambda-3. These are my servitor companions. 054-648, K84-321, and KYS. I usually work in the servitorium, but I am here to assist against those nasty genestealers. So, where is that door?"
"Answer: 147 metres astern."
"Well, that doesn't sound far at all!" she said.
Then one of the voidsmen opened the door into the next floor, revealing a wide corridor with a low ceiling, and absolutely no lights whatsoever. The lumens in the elevator shaft were only just strong enough to see a dozen steps into the dark.
She swallowed. "Maybe it's a little far?"
***