[center][h3]Arkos Alpha Delta Alpha Mike[/h3][/center]


Apart from the crackle of flames, the click of heated steel cooling, and the groans of pain from the dying, and the living both. Well it's quiet. Strangely so. And it's that quiet that causes what at first appears to be a mass of metal and cloth high in a tree to shudder.

[i]...
Error: Environment unknown
Error: Optics in Error mode
Reboot and Restart Engaged[/i]

The mass of metal and cloth moves again. mechanical arms grasping blindly for a time. Heavy treaded feet wheel. Multi-articulated joints creaking. Finally a hand wraps around something thin and hard.

[i]Warning: Unit sensors read anomalies in position
Supposition: Unit is not standing.
Left hand Sensors grasping material....scanning[/i]

The metal...man...no not that kind of Metal Man, one of the Holy Warriors of the Omnissiah, a Skitarii. One of the one hundred Adeptus Mechanicus Metal Men, the Warrior Elite of the Machine God. Stuck in a tree. Because that's what his sensors and scanners tell him soon after. Stuck in a tree. His left hand wrapped around a branch that had missed impaling him. Another branch between his legs, another under his right arm. And yet another just to the left of his throat, any one of these branches could have actted like a wooden spear to have piked right through him.

[i]Attention: Optic reboot and restart complete[/i]

The world swam back into view. And Arkos ADAM could finally see where he is. Some 30 feet off the ground, in the upper branches of what could only be this planets version of a mighty Oak. He looked left right, up and down a few times. Before looking back and spying the burning hulk of what's left of the Fortune's Dominion about seven hundred yards away. His optics click and whir. And with something that sounds like a grumble of machine code, Arkos ADAM starts to try and untangle himself.

As he does he goes over what he can remember. Being woken before the scheduled reactivation. The Magos Primus saying the ship needed their help. And the march of the Maniple down to the engine room. The Magos had shoved data-slates into their hands. Unlocked and decrypted.

Arkos ADAM stopped to see if the data-slate he knew he had still held when the decompression had occured is still near by and there on his waist attached to his combat belt it rests. The last thing he had done before being sucked out into the atmosphere. Praise the Omnissiah he hadn't been burned to a metal crisp on the way down. And Praise the Cog that he hadn't fallen much further from the ship then he did.

Arkos ADAM returned to the task of untangling himself from the branches of the tree. His long range scouting suite had started to pick up the sound of survivors. His Maniple count showed zero, but perhaps he was just out of range, perhaps if he could get out of this tree, which is proving quite a task he can find out about the rest of his comrades. A burst of Machine Code as he prays to the Omnissiah for their safety, and for patience in getting clear of this blasted organic puzzle!