Nope, it seems that perhaps a lance or war banner would be the most obvious symbol of this famed knight, also a bugger to smuggle out! And of course this leads to the reason it was buried with him - probably full burial honours from an enemy commander who respected him, and did not want his tomb looted after his death.

Of course we’ll need a reason for the location of teh tomb to have been smuggled out in a tapestry too. Perhaps a commemorative silk artwork that the commander subsequently lost in a coup, which of course allows our historian to show his knowledge.

A mercenary company - led by an ex-communicated priest - find evidence of the survival of a priceless holy relic left behind in the Holy Land in the previous crusade. Narrowly escaping the clutches of a suspicious inquisitor they contract to a minor lord, they sail to the crusades, storming the beach, and fight their way across country to reach the artifact, nearly losing one of their number to ______. When they reach the artifacts burial place, they find it’s buried beneath a city of pagans, and sealed inside a tomb full of lethal traps.

well, I say “art”, what I mean is “things that I really do need to get on with shortly”.

Realising that they had time to pre-empt the investigation, the acolytes immediately went to ground, searching for signs of chaos, finding that production had been affected across the planet, realising there was a sect of TRADE UNIONISTS fomenting dissent and discovering the at least two noble families, the KAPPA GHU’s and the MONTULETS were on the verge of fighting in the street.

[GM NOTE : I'm a bit fuzzy as to what else happened here as we swiftly went off reservation witt the extra four days... oops]

Investigating further, led the acolytes to North Sector 7 Arms Factoria, motto: “Opus Planto Licentia” a Montulet Facility where hundreds of artisans were engaged in the production of Las Weapons for the Imperial Guard. There, an explosion had killed a senior Las-pack scrimshawer and injured his journeyman. The acolytes soon realised that the bomb blast was a crudely made explosive, most likely manufactured by the Journeyman.

He was soon put to the question, and more seditious ANARCHIST PAPERS were found in his lockers. He was forced to admit that the CULT of SEDITIONISTS were headquartered in the UNDERHIVE at the ST BOGGS CATHEDRA!

[GM's NOTE: I was hoping for more torture ;)]

Climbing through the foundations of the middle hive, CANUS led the team into the Cathedra, relaying back vox and vid from a helmet auger. Nearly one hundred seditionists were present as the CHAOS PRIEST in charge of the CULT. The order was given, the priest was executed and battle was joined. The cultists mostly fled, with one or two apprehended outside the church for later questioning [Knee-capped].

The RENEGADE’s ACOLYTES turned out to be heavily armed and armoured ABHUMAN squats who met the acolytes in battle, whilst the CHAOS DAEMON that had possessed the once-proud imperial priest reformed itself and attacked. Canus was momentarily overcome by it’s fearsome presence, and collapsed to the floor screaming, as he was lit by the hellfire of an acolytes flamer.

[GM's NOTE: A failed fear check and a few insanity points later, but no lasting damage]

As the last few acolytes fell, the beast made it’s strength known, and only the quick capture of an enemy flamer and the Force Barrage of the tean’s psyker forced it back to the immateria.

[GM's NOTES: It turns out Force Bolts need a Willpower roll to hit, apart from that, they're awesome, if short ranged]

The last surviving acolyte retreated into the sacred crypt, where a well placed grenade forced him out, and also destroyed a printing press from where the seditious material had been printed. The remains of what must have been a RENEGADE TEK were also recovered.

In the priests chambers, a sealed box containing an unholy artifact was uncovered and opened by ADAM, who still refuses to talk about what he saw, before it was re-sealed and taken to the black vault of the TRICORN PALACE.

The acolytes returned to the surface, with a captured Imperial Rating, one of the ABHUMAN ACOLYTES and a selection of captured gear removed from the CATHEDRA; Montulet Armaments, with no identifying scrimshaw, Kappa Gu augmetics and chirurgy gear!

Of course after the Wall Act, It’d be a year of community labour for anyone caught supplying the immi’s, but it didn’t stop the bleeding hearts of California.

We dug in, found dark, shady nooks in the buildings and waited the sun out,dozing fitfully in the heat of the shade. Finally the sky turned red, and the sun dropped beneath the far horizon, the blazing heat of the day became the chill cold of the night, and our threadbare uniforms didn’t keep us that much warmer.

If we’d had night vision gear, we’d have seen them coming from miles away, a handful of scrawny Aztlanners, carry their worldy goods in scruffy backpacks. They were as nervous as a pack of coyotes, stayed on the edge of the lot for a good long while, scanning for any threats. Then finally they came up to the buildings, started nosing around for food and water.

PFC Jeffers broke cover first, he hated Immy’s, something to do with his parents, and as soon as one came through the door of the restroom, he stepped up and hit the guy right in the kneecap with the butt of his rifle, the guy folded and started screaming. That set the rest of them off, and they rabbited.

Lucky it was a clear night, and we were far enough away from the city that the big old moon and a fair few stars where shining down, they were fast those immy’s, but we’d had rest most of that day, and some of them were old.  Me and Hughes chased one down the side of a scree slope, kicking up dust and whooping for the fun of the chase, when there was a sharp BANG and a flash of light that had me seeing stars. I could hear Hughes hit the dirt next to me, and i readied my worn out AR as I blinked and tried to clear my vision. All I could see was the Immy, lying in the dirt in front of me clawing weakly at his chest, where a dark stain started to spread.

“point those guns at the sky fellas, we’re friendly”

Came a local accent from up ahead, and we both goggled as an honest-to-god flashlight clicked on, red filter making the desert floor into a little bit of hell.

He got up from the ground slowly, dragging a lot of it with him, our intruder had a full Ghilli suit on, it was like watching a piece of the desert just stand up and start talking. A little smoke came from the muzzle of the rifle he had clamped in one big hand, pointed somewhere between us and the Immy, who was moaning slightly.

“Sgt Philips, 75th Rangers, you boys sling those tired old things and grab this guy, we need to question him, and he ain’t walking back to that truck stop by hisself.”

We didn’t argue, they guy was wearing ACU’s, had more gear than our sorry platoon had ever seen, including a brand new SOPMOD sixty-eight that he could wave around single handed. Nobody argues with that much muscle and a command voice.He was massive, built like an old time football player, with a square jaw, and the biggest, wide eyes. His face was pale between the stripes of cammo face paint, and he had white, sharp teeth. He didn’t smile.

We dragged the groaning Immy back to the truck stop,  and found the rest of the platoon there, with half a dozen more Rangers, in full battle dress; flexible body armour, individual comms gear, helmets with working NVG’s and battery operated gear that still had batteries. Their uniforms even had the catseyes sewn in the back to avoid blue on blue incidents during night ops, probably the infrared absorbing material too, although we lacked the IR gear to tell.

Kneeling on the dusty concreate were eight captured Immy’s, plasticuffs binding their arms behind them, and sacks over their faces. One of the Rangers, another sergeant, from the subdued rank markings on his shoulder was “discussing” the siuation with our LT.

“Sergeant, I have standing orders that all Illegal Immigrants are to be returned to base, for questioning by the case commander, before processing by the BNI and other relevant civilian authorities.

“Lieutenant, I dont care what your standing orders are, my fireteam has specific orders to detain and question these illegal combatants, now are you men going to provide security while we do that, or are we going to have an issue?”

Our Loo took a deep breath and squared up to the giant Ranger, and then took a look round him; the other Rangers had spread themselves out in a loose semi-circle, each of them facing a small cluster of our guys, most of whom had sat down to take a smoke, and brag about capturing an immy.They all had their hands on their weapons, one or two were even smiling, a little too widely. They had the drop on us, and my guys didn’t even know they were being threatened. Those rangers had death in their hearts and they looked like they wanted to let it out, on us.

The Loo slumped, and asked “what do you want us to do?”

“Just provide a perimeter, and keep an eye on the rest while we question these, one at a time,” The Loo started to turn away, to give the orders to dig in for a few more hours ” oh, and L.T.? None of your men are to enter the rest room during the questioning. None of them. Our Techniques are Eyes Only.”

“Of course, evil is best overcome from a safe distance using the heaviest weapons available.”
- Zena Marley, 21st Century Philosopher

I’ve learnt a lot of history in my time since the guard, about the first great depression when the Stock Market Crashed, and the second, when the Banks crashed, of course we’re still living through the aftermath of that one. Even the lean green fightin’ machine got leaner in those days. After the government debated bailing out the financial system while all around them the banks sank and people’s savings disappeared into the deep blue. By the time they finished, there wasn’t a snowballs chance of making that ship sea-worthy again, and even the Air Force had to stop buying $150 hammers. The days of trillion dollar defence budgets were long gone.

Outside the barracks, Hummvees we should have scrapped twenty years ago rumble on, generating power for the base perimeter lights, and providing a flickering glow over the tent city we like to call Forward Base: Grande. KPR Signs hang over the PX, and the mud is trod down almost as hard as real tarmac.

Beyond the twin strands of razor wire and the dirt backed concrete blast shields, this red, dusty land used to be farmed, back before the banks forclosed on the mortgages, and then found themselves holding millions of acres of farmland they didn’t know what to do with. Since then, soil erosion had turned it into a dustbowl again.

The wind whipped it up, blinding and choking, most of the men are wearing Shemagh’s over their faces, and squint tokeep the sand out of their eyes. The Army doesn’t even issues Oakleys any more, not that they’ve been in poduction for nearly a generation. There’s not much demand for high-quality, high-price “designer” eye wear any more.

The gate guards pull apart the reinforced plastic barriers, and the long snouts of the twin Ma Deuces in pintles on the burnt out 1043’s raise in silent salute as we traipse out through the chicane of the crash barriers. Each man waits for the other to extend to the regulation distance before stepping out from behind the scarred concrete.

“So, wadda ya think it might be this time Jefe, coyotes, real coyotes or suicide bombers.”

“Shaddup, and keep your eyes open.”

I’m no flag-waving Nazi - like the IndyMedia calls me;  I’m just a guy who wanted something a little better, somebody who tried to dream a little. I dreamt of freedom of choice, funny how dreams can so easily turn into nightmares.

My issue gear awaits me as a climb out of the base showers, threadbare BDU’s from the last century, worn and washed dozens of times, their camouflage patterns faded now, all the better to fade into the dusty dawn outside. I’m a National Guardsman, about to patrol the border of the greatest and most bankrupt democracy on the face of the planet. Not that I know what democracy means, my parent’s signed away my proxy vote when I was sixteen, I think they got twenty extra channels of daytime “stories” for it.

We’re patrolling the great divide today, between the second world country that America has become and the third world shanty towns just over the border. Truth be told, there isn’t much difference really, but the ruling white elite don’t like the gomers coming over the Rio Grande all by themselves, they’d rather have them shipped into to the prestigious gardener academies or educated at private maid schools. Rio Grande is something of a misnomer too, since we cut off the flow of it and the Colorado to ensure water security for the nation.

The rest of the squad are from similar backgrounds to me, poor uneducated, some of them are serving out sentences for disorder misdemeanours, others are here looking to be sponsored for their high school equivalency courses. We’re the lowest of the low.

Except of course for the people we’re out patrolling for, illegal immigrants, terrorists, child kidnappers, satanists, drug mules, liberals. Whatever TNN’s bogeyman of the day is. We’re here to stop them getting over the line in the sand drawn by President Bush II’s “Great Wall of Texas”, when our father’s voluntarily deployed here as part of the original volunteer National Guard I bet they didn’t think there’d still be a guard presence here thirty years later.

But then I don’t supposed they’d have predicted the selling of voting rights, the Corporate Security Force Bill, the suspension of Habeus Corpus, or any of the other changes that have left us where we are now.

When we were all assembled, the LT led is in mandatory prayer, and we left the barracks.