Governor TeamWithout further delay, you load into the lander with your armsmen. And possibly your astropath. It is possible they just bumped into something too hard back in the Warp. Your feline guardian gets a message and decides to exit the lander after a cursory examination to make sure there where no hidden explosives or Eldar designed bugs, while the Lord Captain and Senechal take up comfortable seating next to each other. Your personal driver briefly talks with the local aircraft control and you launch into the void.
As one would expect the fortress looks even bigger up close. It is shaped like a ziggeraut with terraced levels with a rockcrete wall separating each making ground invasion impossible. You can make out industrial, residential, and many military facilities from the sky. Most are covered in defensive weaponry and built like bunkers. Several miles on each level are dedicated to ICBM launchers that are likely meant to drive away Void Ships in addition to supporting ground forces outside the fortress. Overall it is likely that they outgun the
Ark Royal by a significant amount simply by having a much greater scale. The airspace above the fortress is busy with combat craft flying from location to location - likely the reasoning behind restricting airspace given the high volume of anti aircraft weaponry below you could make short work of any hostile aircraft.
Before long you are taken to the highest point, the fortress's spire at the center of the ziggeraut. Your assigned LZ is somewhat below the armored tower, but a simple five minute walk to an elevator fixes that. Guards solute you as you pass by. They're wearing flackgrass armor as the advertisements had suggested, with headwraps of the same material. Both are dyed gold with decorative peach trees sewn into the material. The locals are dark skinned and clean shaven. They're also visibly large and more muscular than your own armsmen suggesting there is some truth to the belief about peaches - though perhaps this is simply because the Governor General picked the strongest for his own defense.
The Elevator opens silently into the "penthouse" office. Two guards stand by the door looking inward. The Governor General is sitting at a desk doing paper work with two servants on either side. Seeing you he stands and waves you in, armsmen and all.
"Thank you for coming on such short notice." At his full height, he is just as mighty as his guards. His voice is deep but deliberately soft. His outfit is similar to his guards, but is gelted with real gelt and has the addition of silver stars above the peach tree. He gives a surprisingly gentle handshake to everyone who entered, starting with the Lord Captain and finishing with the armsmen. He then motions his servants forward. Two bring forth a silver platter, one with pre-cut peaches the other with iced tea (presumably made with peach leaves). They offer it to the guests with a bow.
"I was informed of your delay and apologize as Governor General of Rook's Crown. It is my duty to keep such things from happening and it seems I have been shirking."
buy dinosuar
fail
"Thank you."
Indaria intends to wait on the lander during the talks, and is going to check for anything spooky when they land, before the people going to the talks leave.
"Hey, while you're shopping, could you try to find some good Pressure Carapace srmor? It's too easy to poke holes in a voidsuit and we could be in a boarding action with that station later on."
Attempt to requisition a few Pressure Carapace Armor (good) sets for the command crew.
Seeing the Eldar shopping, you decide to send them shopping for something that (if available) would be on the other side of the planet from what they're shopping for. What a task master!
While there are some voidsuits available for the fighters and bombers of the fortress, they're mostly to avoid the forces involved with high-velocity flight and assume that anything that breaches will probably kill the occupant. There are, however, a good many tailors both in the fortress and lands surrounding it. It would perhaps be possible to find one willing to modify a void suite or to make an armored version from scratch. Failing even that, you could at least have them make flackgrass patches that can easily seal a breach.
((26. If you didn't get greedy you'd have one
))
I'm IC observing the Raptor Wrangling mission, and thus collapsing the wavefunction.
After attending to vital business such as charting the warp route, the Seer retires to her chambers and requisitions a bunch of cat-themed pillows and blankets as a way of cooling off after experiencing the Warp. Hiding under a pillow fortress, she uses her dataslate to gently probe the local 'net. Text based communication is helpful, considering that it can't reveal her identity to the vile apes.
Dinosaurs are neat, and part of her heritage, kinda maybe. Acquisitioning one or more of the beasts could prove useful.
Having located an opportunity, she decides to contact the... rather adorable Head of Security for backup. (That title seems anachronistic. wouldn't Imperials tend to call such a position "Primus Defenderizer" or "Main Heretic Tenderizer" or such? "Head of Security" has a sort of old timey Dark Age of Technology ring to it.)
Text communications would be ideal... yes, wouldn't want to call her...
Dearest most honorable Head of Security and such,
I have located an opportunity to acquisition one or more of this planet's savage creatures for our own usage. Humbly requesting a security detail to accompany me with "wrangling" some "dinosaurs". Seeing as my own subordinates aren't suited to such fieldwork. Also requesting the assistance of a survivalist.
(Perhaps you'd enjoy this "shore leave"? Not in the fortress itself, so it should be fairly safe. I would appreciate your presence.)
Humble regards. """"Kedia""""
Sure that might as well happen. Keeps me from writing seven paragraphs I guess.
Wranging TeamYou load up into a secondary lander and launch toward the opposite end of the planet. Aside from the fortress the land is still very beautiful. There are biomes of every type that you pass by toward your goal. Forests and bogs with unique trees, snowy hills and frozen lakes filled with roaming mammoths, picturesque fields that seem to go on forever. Even works of men like the flackgrass fields have a certain beauty to them. Still before long you are in the spartan landing of a small village. Little more than a rockcrete landing pad with the starship equivalent of a gas station next to it.
Leaving the lander you're greeted by a mounted team of what must be warriors. Each is riding their own dragon as if showing off. Two are on your targeted Raptor, another is riding a creature with the appearance of a crocodile, the eldest is riding a massive beast who's head starts where yours ends. Each are wearing flackcloth coats painted in green and black tiger-stripped cammo pattern. Including the dragons barring the crocodile who is embarrassingly naked. All the humans have painted more camouflage on their exposed faces.
The chief clicks his tongue and his massive dragon sits on the ground. He dismounts as easily as someone without a cat tail would dismount a chair. He is equipped with what must be a Dominator pattern plasma gun in a holster and a leaf-shaped lance on his back. All the rest of the warriors are equipped with bolos, lasguns, and a long knife.
"Welcome to our small ranching village! How goes your family?" He moves forward and offers both of you a gentle handshake. His greeting continues long after this is answered, inquiring of your health, how business goes, how the weather is treating you, and how your coworkers are doing. Those following him seem to be more content with a simple handshake.
"Too bad about your timing. If you had come but a few days earlier we would still have hatchlings to sell. Once a warrior has bonded with a dino, they would sooner part with a leg then their companion. You'd have to offer something as valuable as their own life to make that kind of deal. But you honor us by joining in a dino roping!"
He looks truly proud to have off-worlders visit his small village. This seems infectious to the other warriors. "Dino" seems to be local tongue for "Dragon".
"There are many techniques for catching a wild dino, depending on what equipment you have and who you are targeting. It is much simpler once you have your own mount, but many young warriors see it as honorable to catch there own mount on foot. Especially those too poor to buy their own. Do you have any experience that would give you a preference for technique?"