PROLOGUE ( PDF )

Aleksander Strom, Rogue Trader, Scion of the Strom Dynasty, strode into the bridge with all the authority he could casually muster. Each step was part of a dance, light but strong, to show the hundreds of bridge crew their master’s confidence as he passed through the tunnel and below the lectern. Sparks from welders cast his face in bright cool light. It was not a happy one.

“Enginseer,” Sander said just loudly enough to be heard over the susurrus of activity. “Enginseer Caselva?” he repeated as the tech-priest turned, her augmetic eye focusing on him and not the welds on the deck. “Why are you still here?”

“Forgiveness, lord-captain,” Caselva said smoothly. “We were just finishing our repairs.”

Sander felt the eyes of his bridge officers on him, though none dared to look in his direction. He nodded and copied a dangerous smile he had seen his ‘uncle’ use from time to time. The tech-priest wilted slightly. Much like in the Imperial Navy, dealing with the Mechanicus required a firm but also loose hand. They were not servants, but allies that often needed reminding of their partners’ expectations.

“Are these the same repairs you promised would be finished three weeks ago? Or the ones last week? Or yesterday?” The smile didn’t waver even when the red-robed priest bowed.

A clang of tools and a wobbling panel saved the enginseer.

“Oh, off with you,” Magos Turin said, waving the younger tech-priest away with a precise wave of a mechandrite. He emerged from a panel behind a bank of brass-wrought cogitators, his own robes stained by some liquids that looked suspiciously like curdled blood. “It’s not her fault the Novasperanza won’t accept these--well, things ,” the Magos said, measuring the young rogue trader’s technical capacity and amending what he had wanted to say. “She was meant for better equipment than Navy surplus, lord-captain.”

Sander nodded, placing his hands behind his back and continued towards his command throne, ascending the spiralled staircase slowly. “The New Hope ,” he emphasized, “will reclaim more than she’s lost, Magos. I’ll leave you to it.”The senior Mechanicus representative bowed before returning to his work.

The rogue trader circled the vaults, speaking with the deckmasters. He needed to be seen and heard even when everyone on the bridge did their best to pretend to ignore him. As he moved back to the tunnel, to the stairs on either side that took him up to the command platform, the acrid tang of the welders were replaced by the cool and lightly perfumed aura near the throne. His seneschal waited for him beside it.

A few decades in the Imperial Navy had see him rise to the rank of commander. In a few more years he was sure he could’ve made lord-commander, all on his own, without any overt patronage of noble or military families. His greatest concern then had been the Naval Commissar assigned to each senior officer. Not only did the commissars keep watch over the ship they also watched the captain closely.

The proverbial bolt pistol was always cocked and pointed at his head. He accepted the offer from Anton Strom and bid that life behind. Now, instead of a commissar in a black cap, great overcoat armed with a bolt pistol and chainsword he was watched over by a small woman with a large hat and pockets full of quills. He was beginning to miss the commissars.

Lord-Commander Eliana Thraves came to attention as he sat on the command throne, her eyes acknowledging him for the briefest instant before it returned to scour the station vaults set into the bridge deck below them. The throne was behind the command lectern, the forward portion of a platform built to ancient specifications but, as the continuing repair work revealed, with modern skills.

The cruciform shape of modern bridges were considered sacrosanct, but a star galleon like the New Hope was built ten thousand years prior, in a time when technology and artistry could still be combined. It had been a circular bridge, a dome, with the command throne on a raised dais that oversaw the wrapped stations that faced outwards. Efficient and beautiful, Sander had only seen it in pieces as it was torn out to make room for the modern parts.

Any Imperial that had been to worship the Emperor in a cathedral would be familiar with the cruciform aesthetic. The main entrance to the bridge was from below the command platform, where the crossing would be in the gargantuan cathedrals on Imperial worlds. The transept wings on each side were filled with cogitator banks with lexmechanics, ordnance-savants, and bridge officers. A staircase on each side of the entrance, which itself is a long corridor filled with armed guards, combat servitors, and turrets, gave senior officers access to the command platform, though the command lectern is higher and extended above and forward, like the pulpit for some fiery cardinal. Gargoyles, statues, and other adornments all around hid gun-servitors and heavy weaponry.

The cardinal would sit on a golden throne to symbolize his ordination by the Priesthood of Terra, his authority with the God-Emperor. It was no different for captains and their voidships. This section is in fact the bridge proper as the command lectern and the transept wings contains all the equipment necessary to guide and steer the vessel.

Ancient navies used a command information centre to coordinate battle activities. It was joined to the bridge some time in the distant past and formed the longer part of the cruciform, where a cathedral’s nave should be. Station vaults, sunken into the deck, filled with servitors and personnel, sat staring at pict-repeaters, hololiths, and other instruments overseen by their station masters who in turn report to various deckmasters and senior officers. They strode along the aisles, patrolling their own areas of responsibility.

Behind the throne was where the choir stood to sing praises to the Emperor. Aboard most voidships, this half-circle contained stations for emissaries from the Adeptus Mechanicus, Adeptus Astra Telepathica, Ecclesiarchy, and the Navis Nobilite. The apse in between the throne and the emissaries was a planning den, away from the eyes of the common bridge crew. Smaller rooms, chapels, were dug into the metres-thick of adamantium that protected this vital section. Sensoria interpreters, scryers, servitors, and armsmen waited in these vaults, performing some vital task that couldn’t be performed on the bridge itself.

It had required some effort to reshape the bridge to fit in modern systems and modern thinking. Nothing was spared to make the ship at least feel like the cruiser it was not, meant for another master who would have appreciated the effort. Its new, perhaps interim, master was less concerned with familiarity than he was with function, or form.

Sander had quickly done away with the alerts that he traditionally sounded when he arrived on the bridge. They were not needed, not while they were in drydock. Sander could still taste his seneschal’s disappointment with that order, even weeks later.

“Report.”

Eliana nodded to herself before obeying. “Cargomaster Vilkus reports a fault with the port gantry cranes, lord-captain. They’re entangled again.”

Sander shook his head then sighed.

“It will delay loading by approximately 7.3 hours, putting us now more than 38.8 hours behind schedule. The good news,” Eliana said quickly, “is that the Merciful Light will finish its full repairs by then, according to the dockmaster.”

To Sander, the timing was not so much providential as conspirational. He had wanted to get underway quickly, exploit the Koronus Passage’s bout of quiet and leave the transport to join the next convoy. But fates, and the seneschal he was sure, had deemed otherwise.

“Very good,” he said. “Have the convoys’ supplies been topped off?”

“Yes lord-captain,” Eliana said evenly.

He nodded for her to read their readiness levels one more time. He had insisted on this, to refill spare parts and rations, take on new ratings, even cycle the air and the water, for all ships in the convoy. Traversing the Maw would only require a month, maybe two, and they would not go all the way through to the Expanse, but there was no sense in not doing so, not while they waited docked at Port Wander. Especially when it only added a few hours to their stay and cost several hundred thousand gelt. The dynasty could still afford that much.

Eliana finished her daily report with the traditional sore point. “The factory ship is still refusing to coordinate protocols with us. Including noospheric pairing, according to Magos Turin.”

Sander nodded. “Understood,” he said, forcing himself not to smile. The ‘factory ship’ was the Goliah-class Balkayn . Its plasma refineries had been ripped out long ago, replaced with manufactoria and a salvage deck as well as gantries to mine asteroids or moonlets. A nearly self-sufficient armoury ship and sometimes fleet tender, the Balkayn was en route to join the distant Achilus Crusade and would be treated like the second coming of the Emperor if the Navy captains there weren’t stupid.

It so far refused to submit to the New Hope ’s supposed authority and rankled Eliana Thraves’ principles.

All it did was confuse him all the more. The Achilus Crusade was in the Eastern Fringe of the Imperium. The Margin Crusades were somewhere to the galactic north. The Strom Dynasty had been charged with the oversight and protection of a series of convoys, from one end of the Calixian Sector to the other. The number of ships had changed, and so did the ships along the way, and he was expected to trade on the Strom Dynasty’s influence to keep the ships supplied. But they were nowhere close to either Crusade.

The seneschal surprised him by sighing in frustration. “Lord-captain, perhaps we could ask Magos Turin to speak with the factory ship?”

Sander shook his head. “He’s far too busy keeping this ship intact.”

“They’re carrying munitions,” she said, almost rudely. “Torpedoes, nova cannon shells, promethium--”

“--And spare parts, food and water rations, medicine, prefab structures, not to mention colonists, same as us. The only difference is they want to keep their cargo manifests to themselves and not share it with,” he was about to say her dynasty, but it was his as well, “ the dynasty. That’s fine. The Mechanicus make fine allies.”

The admonishment was well received this time.

“There’s still the small matter of your executive officer.”

“What of it?” Sander asked.

“Well, you still don’t have one.”

“I don’t see why you’re telling me,” the older man said, taking a step back. The man’s drawn faced was still softened with a timid smile, despite the irritation in his voice. His blindfold matched his robes, quite a feat for a man who no longer saw through the use of eyes. The footstep back echoed in the empty lobby leading to the private domain of the Navis Nobilite aboard.

Morena sighed, her own matching headband covering only one of her three eyes. “It’s a pyramid, Gurson. A pyramid . Not an obelisk. Not a tower, nor is it a spire or even a really long staircase!”

“Does it really matter?” the astropath asked, taking another step back from his companion’s fury. He had quite enjoyed the chance to mingle with a member of the Navis Nobilite, but that was weeks ago when it had been novel. How was he to survive years on board with the fiery Morena?

“Does it matter?” Navigator Morena repeated as if each word were new. “Does it matter if we call the Astropathic Choir the Telepathic Band?” she asked with a wave of one elegant hand.

Gurson shook his head. “No, it wouldn’t bother me one bit. It wouldn’t change the function--”

“--Exactly!” Morena said, raising her arms up in frustration and letting the blue silken sleeves of her wrapped clothing slide down to her shoulders. She yanked at them ungracefully back to position.

Gurson shrugged. He knew this was meant to be a private conversation between friends, and that he should be more sympathetic, but the men and women wearing black in well-tailored robes behind him were doing very fine impressions of executioners. Each waited for the merest hint of a taint and Gurson knew his head could come flying off seconds after a bolt punctured his forehead and splatter the remnants of his brain all over Navigator Morena’s tight-clinging dress.

He focused on the pleasant company in front of him instead. One benefit of being blind and seeing through the Warp, by the Emperor’s blessings, was that women no longer knew when they were being carefully appreciated.

“It’s not funny!” Morena said misinterpreting his growing smile. The tone of voice woke her own guards behind her, combat-servitors of gleaming white and silver. Not that they had been asleep at all, only motionless. He liked those guards, lifeless though they seemed. When they first met, Morena made a show of including him as one of the select few who could approach her safely and passingly mentioned that they would protect him in case of any emergency.

It was far better than the promise of a swift, bloody death should he falter.

Gurson smiled nervously. “No, it’s not, but a pyramid is still like a tower, or a spire, or an obelisk. Only with a larger base.”

“What is that supposed to mean? That I need more support?” she asked with her own deadly smile.

“Well, yes! Not for that, of course, but it is easier to protect, and those walls are pure adamantium--”

She shrugged. “--They’re hideous--”

“--But they’ll take a few macrocannon hits, a lot more than one tower.” He sighed. “Besides, didn’t you say you prefered the use of the observation domes?”

“I did, didn’t I?” The combat-servitors behind her seemed to relax, somehow. “But I did request a spire, nonetheless, and one will be built. On top of the pyramid.”

The astropath’s smile faded. “We leave in a few days, I don’t think--”

“Oh don’t think, dear Gurson,” she said, cupping a blushing cheek. “Leave the cog-boys to their work, that’s how it is for us.” She brightened, and Gurson didn’t need to see through the Warp to notice. “Now come, help me find one of the red priests so we can both yell.”

“Will you be silent?” Corrance said, earning her strange glances from the already strange inhabitants of the station. The servoskull paid her no mind, the glowing lights in its eye sockets were fixed forward. She adjusted her hat and gave steely glares back at those that refused to look away. “It’s bad enough you speak without moving your mouth, don’t go doing it in public too.”

The servoskull swayed side to side.

Corrance snorted and walked on, readjusting the rucksack on one shoulder, as she made her way to another listing station. She wasn’t voidborn, but she had spent most of her life in aboard a ship or station. It hadn’t been her choice, but she’d made the most of it, even commanded a few transports when things inevitably went bad. The last one went worse than most, and the charter that had been dangled in front of her had been chewed up, along with the hand doing the dangling.

She found the line of voidsmen easily enough. They were hunched over, bound in chains, or sweating as they waited in line to list their names as able crewmen for those ships that berthed at Port Wander. Other lines were for bars, obscura dens, and worse, and the voidsmen were full of life and gelt. Corrance had no connections here, no word other than an entry scribbled by some Navy clerk after sufficient bribing. It was worthless and it was all she had.

The line shambled forward, heavy footsteps and clinking chains, as the line shortened. She stood like an officer and none spoke with her save a few lieutenants looking to share bunks for the eve. She sent them away quickly, not mincing words lest she be accused of being a tease. Nothing worse, in Corrance’s mind than to be called one.

“That one?” she mumbled under her breath. “He’d trip over his own sword in the dark if he could find it.”

“Whas dat s’posed to mean, luv?” the third lieutenant said, his augmetic ear twitching.

“It means what it means,” she said, staring straight ahead.

The man smiled and ambled forward again. “I think you and me, we got on the wrong foot,” he said slowly and nicely in passable low gothic. “I’m a Strom-man, born and raised. And I’m in charge of hiring.”

“Strom?” Corrance shook her head. “Never heard of him.”

The third lieutenant balked. “Why!” he stammered. “Why half the ships here are heading through the Maw to Svard, heard o’ that? He took, Anton Strom did, fought off the damned Rak’Gol and the Yu’Vath!” The voidsmen in line turned to listen, many nodding and even shouting their encouragement. “How about the Midnight’s Lair , heard of that?

Corrance fought to stay calm. “No, I’ve never heard of the ship--”

“--Hah! It weren’t no ship!” the lieutenant said, his veneer cracking under the incredulity. “It was a space hulk, took the whole of Battlefleet Koronus, the Mechanicus, and a dozen dynasties all under Anton Strom hisself and they brought it down! Hell, if he hadn’t the Maw’d be closed and ignorant wenches like you would find somewhere else to be.”

“Sounds like a great man,” she said slowly. “He’s hiring?”

The lieutenant sniffed at her, looked her up and down and elbowed a lackey with a smile. “No. He ain’t here, just one of his nephews. He’s not hiring officers ,” he said slowly. “Anton Strom, however, had no need to hire women. Hell, one time these women committed mutiny--I hear--just so they could follow the man back. Was at Raakata, you see--”

Corrance straightened herself and thanked whatever passing saint that the man had meandered off with his lackeys in tow. She wore a pistol and blade on her hip, but the pistol was empty and the blade was broken and the proud lieutenant had the respect of the voidsmen.

She stayed silent and gave her details to another bored clerk, scrivelling away. Hunched shoulders, a pair of squinting eyes--one biological, one augmetic, and a hand stained with ink and scarred by holopaper cuts wrote everything she said. He perked up slightly at the authenticated hololith from the Navy.

“Yes, commander,” he said with all the graveness of a man being paid to humour his clients. “The Strom Dynasty is in fact hiring.” He nodded to several stacks of stained documents and Corrance saw several that teetered so high a ladder was needed to add to the pile.

“So the Stroms are popular, best not to bother then,” she said.

The clerk shook his head vigorously. “Oh my no, forgive me. That,” he said pointing with a quill to a nearly empty bin, “is where the Strom applicants are filed. See the lionshead? Yes that is their sigil, in this sector at least. Seems they take on new sigils for new sectors, what a strange tradition--”

“--How much to put me at the top of the pile?”

The clerk swallowed. “A promise not to curse me with your dying breath.”

Does this mean we will hear no more from Anton Strom?

For now, no. It's a new group with new dynamics. Anton is still part of the story, as are the old characters, but they're behind the scenes.

CHAPTER ONE ( PDF )

There were fourteen ways Sander knew to kill quickly with a knife. He had tried ten of them already, and it was the Emperor’s own luck that he had survived each attempt. He circled his foe again, wary of the detritus of a half-repaired stowage bay, his knife held at the ready. The glow lamps flickered as the ship’s power fought to return. Enough light returned and allowed him to see more than his opponent’s silhouette.

Most of the stabbing attempts were successful--his foe glistened as it bled heavily from a dozen deep cuts. None of them were fatal. Sander took a step back, feeling, not looking, what was behind him from the sound of his own heavy footstep.

He rolled to the right, ducking just under the brute’s furious overhead bash. The metal crate crumpled under the attack and his foe roared. Not in pain, Sander knew, but frustration and not a little joy. Bleeding the thing to death had not been the plan, but he only had four target areas left and the thing wasn’t interested in letting him experiment further.

“C’mere humie! Orgutz gunna carve that pretty face up!” the greenskin roared, charging at Sander even as the crate flew at him.

“You really think I’m pretty?” Sander shouted, rolling under the hurtling crate. He dug a furrow behind the ork’s left knee as he finished his roll, hoping to hamstring the greenskin again. It had bought him a few seconds before.

Orgutz was prepared this time and clamped down hard on the blade by raising its left leg. Then the greenskin rolled to the deck, slamming into it with full force and sending other crates away. It came up smiling as it pulled the knife from its leg, still dripping blood, and took one step forward. The lights dimmed again.

Then it tossed the knife at Sander’s feet.

“Imma smash that face ‘n’ take them pretty teef!” Orgutz promised, drooling.

The rogue trader grabbed the knife quickly. “You sweet-talkers are all alike,” he slowly. “Now tell me about my pretty eye--aahh!”

The ork pounced and landed on Sander, slamming the air out of his lungs. Sander felt blood spurt then gush, warming his chest even as the greenskin continued to thrash at him.

He’s eating me .

The thought was calming. He could barely feel any pain.

The deck shuddered as power coursed through the ship, forcing the lamps to shine painfully. Sander shrieked as he saw the Orgutz’s head resting on his stomach, his knife’s pommel protruding from the greenskin’s mouth.

It took minutes of effort to struggle from beneath the greenskin’s bulk, by then its blood had congealed and its stink had made the rogue trader retch. That was all it was. Anyone would lose their lunch at the sight--no, the smell--of one. Sander Strom, Lord-Captain and Rogue Trader, waited for several minutes until the nearest armsmen party could be routed to him.

They were not there to rescue him. They were reinforcements. But he needed to be near a vox-set, giving orders and seeing to his ship. The armsmen saw him covered in blood and a grin, sitting on a crumpled crate.

Why it had been dragged over the fallen greenskin they didn’t know. But the lord-captain had been found. Maybe they’d survive this after all.

“We’re all going to die.” Gurson said slowly. He was no warrior like the lord-captain, no psyker-primaris, used to the blood and guts of war. He hid behind a statue of some dead hero, looking for some solace in the thing’s shadow. His black-clad guards were dead or had fled, he was sure. It was just him and his unhelpful companion.

“All biological life ends, astropath.”

Gurson laughed silently. “Not very assuring, magos.”

Magos Turin shook his hooded head. “No, it is not.”

The astropath looked at the red-robed tech-priest. It was easy for the magos to say such things; he was mostly mechanical now and fought with a machine’s precision. The few dead boarders had been killed by the magos until their numbers threatened to overwhelm the two. His guards had stepped in, firing their pistols as he ran.

It felt like yesterday. But the scream after a chainsword revved meant his guardians were still not finished dying. Gurson shivered in the dark. He felt the dead heroes, statues of some Strom scion or rogue trader no doubt, were judging him. He made a rude gesture to a particularly disapproving one, at least it seemed so in the dark.

“I don’t suppose I can convince you not to fear?” the magos asked.

“You would be correct.”

“Strange. I thought your kind mastered fear.” It was not quite a question, but Gurson sensed the curiosity behind it.

“Psykers?”

Magos Turin shrugged his mechandrites. “Astropaths.”

“Oh, we fear. I know what’s what, and it terrifies me. There’s a fear borne of ignorance, Turin. Then there’s the true fear of knowing, do you know what I mean?”

The tech-priest was silent for a long while. “Yes.”

Gurson had half-forgotten his question by then, and he struggled out from behind the statue just as the doors exploded open. He cowered back behind the stone statue, shrapnel hissing off the power field that wrapped his body.

“I think--” Magos Turin began, in between his firing of a scavenged shotgun, “--that they have more to fear from you !”

Gurson nodded and brought his shaking pistol up. The laspistol had been a gift, a silver-and-white weapon with the Strom’s lion sigil on its handle. It thrummed in his hand as the whip-crack of the lasbolts punctuated the shotgun blasts.

“Not what I meant!” the tech-priest yelled.

I know!” Gurson yelled back, grasping the rosarius in his pocket with one hand as he fired the pistol from cover with the other. Slowly, he raised his head, catching their attackers laughing from beyond the doors. His eyes needed some time to adjust, but he quickly found what he was looking for.

“Take cover!” he yelled, curling into a ball.

Magos Turin turned his head. “What?” the tech-priest asked then followed his example.

Heavy footsteps replaced the echoes of gunfire. Gurson didn’t realize how loud battle simply was, but prayed it was a little bit louder.

Turin peeked out from his own cover, reloading the shotgun with the last few shells he had. Gurson shrugged and wrapped himself into a tinier ball.

“Friends!” a voice said, silky and sure. “There’s no need for this! I’m Lieutenant Avery Wales, I’m sure you’ve heard of me and the--”

The explosion shattered the statues.

Armsmen found them both later, covered in the broken forms of Strom ancestors. One, newer statue had fallen on Gurson. The astropath woke with the carved face of Anton Strom staring at him.

“What are you smiling at?” Gurson asked as he came to. One armsman called for a medic.

Magos Turin’s mechanical voice answered him. “I love being right.”

“Shoot left! No right! Right!”

Corrance bit down on her tongue. If the woman she was with was not so far above her station, rank, and just about anything else, she would have shot her already. The pistol strapped to her hip suddenly felt heavier, needing to be pulled.

Instead she said “Yes, ma’am,” and shot at her original target. Seizing one of the turret’s secondary fire control vaults had been easy, especially with the presumed second-in-command leading the way. Lord-Commander Eliana Thraves had walked in as if she regularly toured the hardened bunkers and plopped her down in the command seat: a bedraggled midshipwoman ferrying messages from the battery commanders to the bridge. Commander Thraves introduced her as Lieutenant Corrance, a reward for saving the seneschal’s life from a boarding party and then from the sudden power outages that wreaked havoc on the ship.

They had then spent most of the siege, as she was calling it, coordinating the gunners to take down the small craft and teams of heavy voidsuited boarders as efficiently as possible. The boarders--pirates or worse--had swarmed from the murk, hiding in the shadows of the Battlefield’s many victims. The Station of Passage was littered with corpses of ships in their hundreds and Corrance did not want the New Hope to join those numbers. Not while she was aboard it anyway.

“Good shot!” the seneschal said reassuringly.

Corrance nodded her thanks. She had taken one of the gunner’s seats as she dispatched them to head up turret crews she couldn’t reach. The cogitators did a good enough job of targeting that she rarely needed to intervene, and the actual gunners manning the turrets needed only to be pointed in the right direction.

The remaining gunners in the bunker nodded, some mumbling even more prayers to the votives and shrines they had set up near their stations. Wax overflowed from the candles. It rankled Corrance’s sensibilities, but those candles were the only sources of light apart from the blinking cogitators.

“Report!” Seneschal Thraves called out, and a new set of armsmen, officers, and runners began briefing her. She didn’t need to listen.

There was no stopping those already on board with these guns. But the turrets swept the hull, splattering would-be boarders with fire meant to savage void craft. Commander Thraves had already issued a pardon for any damage done to the hull--within reason--in the ship’s defense. That had cut down the number of successful hull landers through sheer, vigorous firepower.

But those weapons would do nothing to the voidship lurking just beyond. The fire control bunker didn’t have access to the augury vaults which were undoubtedly damaged from uncontrolled surges, and the seneschal was determined to remain here and order the ship’s defenses rather than deal with the true threat. A voidsman the seneschal was not, Corrance realized. She was, however, and the senechal had recognized it immediately.

She still didn’t know if she should thank the woman for promoting her. She bit her lip and cleared her throat, steeling herself.

“Thank you, Commander,” she began. “I believe the men can take it from here. I suggest we see to the main guns, or that raider,” she raised a hand vaguely, “will knock us out again.”

Eliana Thraves smiled knowingly. “Good idea, lieutenant,” the seneschal said. “But how do you expect us to take the guns?” She walked closer to her. “The bridge is still down, according to Armsman Vorus there,” she tilted her head at a panting young man.

“Then we go down, to the gun decks,” Corrance said.

Lord-Commander Thraves stared at her for a long time. “I’ve just promoted you from there, lieutenant. Why so eager to return?” she whispered.

Corrance tried not to roll her eyes. The woman operated in vastly different circles, dynastic politics that were far beyond the intrigues of even senior officers. She saw deeply. Corrance repeated a lesson she had learned time and again to herself: even the very smart could be very stupid in some things.

“Even if we defeat all the boarders--right this second,” she added hastily, “that raider can keep shooting us.”

“All their shots have done is knock out power, correct?”

“No-not,” she corrected, “just knock out power. Or rather, it’s not the same as shutting down decks. That power has to go somewhere,” Corrance said, pointing to the blackened scars across the bunker. “Auxiliary generatoria, mega-capacitors,” she was sure she heard a tech-priest say that once, “and the grav plating and life sustainers can all fluctuate. They’ll work again, but we’ll need heavy repairs. And those blasts… Commander, I saw dozens of corpses before I re--found you.”

“So we get to the… port gun decks and tell them to fire at a target that we can’t see?” The seneschal shook her head. “Then, those disruptors?” she looked around for confirmation. “Those disruptors will target the broadsides, and then we’ll see what a power surge will do to hundreds of gun ratings.”

Corrance was about to say something that would cost her her new rank when the bunker’s doors swung open. A man was at the head of another mob of armsmen. He wore no uniform and was covered in sticky blood.

“I’ll handle this,” she nodded to the seneschal who had watched with horrified eyes. “You there! Report!” she pointed to an armsman.

“Uhh,” the armsman said, eyes darting around. “We found him in the private stowage bays, below the bridge. Must have been hit in the first salvo that took the command tower out… lieutenant?” the armsman guessed.

She nodded. “And I suppose you found what you were looking for?” she asked the bloodied man. He smiled at her and raised both his hands. “Where are his chains?” she asked incredulously.

The man laughed. “The only chains I have are gold, or adamantium, lieutenant?” his eyes flicked to the seneschal who bowed. The voice was smooth, dried but still strong. Used to command. “As for what I was looking for. Well, not quite. But also yes.”

Lord-Captain Sander Strom took a step forward and looked Corrance up and down. “Also yes,” he repeated. He accepted a flask of water from one of the gunners thankfully. “Now, how do we take back my ship?”

Glad to see you writing again Marwynn! I was getting worried! (I'm afraid I've become a bit addicted to your stories of the Strom dynasty.)

CHAPTER 2

“I’m… sorry?” Sander Strom said. He looked up from the vox-horn at his seneschal and the ship’s newest lieutenant. The rogue trader shrugged and received confused stares in return.

“All is forgiven, lord-captain,” a bored voice said through the brass grill beside the vox-horn. “I will spare one of my servants to aid you. Oh, and lord-captain?”

Sander sputtered. “Yes, Navigator?”

“Do reclaim your ship quickly; we are behind schedule.” A click ended the call abruptly before Sander could reply.

“A servant?” He looked around. “One servant ? What good will--You!” the rogue trader pointed at a gunner that was too obvious with his eavesdropping. “When that servant arrives you tell him, her, or it to sweep the lower decks.” The gunner nodded and saluted. It was usually a punishment he reserved for those that annoyed him when he had command of a frigate instead of a cruiser-sized freighter.

“Lord-captain?” Eliana repeated. “Now that we know Navigator Morena has no intentions of leaving her spire--”

“--Pyramid--” Sander interrupted.

“--Perhaps we could continue with the briefing? For your plan?” she went on.

The rogue trader blew out a breath. “This would be easier with an actual planning station, like what we had installed on the bridge.” Sander bit his tongue: complaining was not what an officer, let alone the captain, should do. “So instead of useless wishing,” he said quickly, “let’s make our own.” He pointed at an armsman. “Grab the nearest tech-priest and tell him I need a vox-net and some lexmechanics. I need a picture.”

“Meanwhile,” Sander continued, sensing the disapproval from his two female officers, “we’ll head to the nearest augury vault. No point in a blind ship having guns. Yes, lieutenant?”

Corrance took a breath, for which Sander was grateful, before replying. “Sir, I must dis--” the elbow to her ribs from the lord-commander beside her forced air out of the new officer.

The lieutenant wheezed as Eliana coughed. “The lieutenant is right, of course, to want to have the guns ready the moment we’ve regained our sight. Less chance for the enemy to react, as the lieutenant said earlier.”

Sander kept his face solidly passive as his newest officer struggled between gratitude and wrath. “In that case,” he said loudly, “the lieutenant will have the honour of leading that party.” He nodded to a team of waiting armsmen. “Commander, please see to the vox-net and lexmechanics when they arrive, will you?”

The two women nodded as he turned away to face his own squad. They were the same ones that dragged him out of the stowage bay, plus or minus a few new faces. Their weapons gleamed dully in the bunker’s light.

“That will not do,” he said, finishing his quick inspection. “We’ll make a quick stop first.”

“Don’t stop!” Corrance yelled as her armsmen ran ahead over. A sharp crump echoed behind followed by a growing rush of fire. She rounded a corner and found her squad had indeed obeyed her orders, outdistancing her quickly.

The revving chainsword behind her added new speed to her sprint, but the armsmen lived and drilled for shipboard actions. She had to deal with her pursuers alone and she had used her only grenade.

Lasbolts traced scorch marks on the bulkhead to her right as the boarders followed, howling promises of pain. She shot the first one in the throat, by accident, and his promises of a painful evening ended with wet gurgling. The leader, if that was what he was, stumbled and sent his chainsword skittering towards her.

She fired again, and once more, but the two behind ducked behind the crates and loose plating that littered the decks. She spattered fire at their cover as she ran forward, grabbing the idling chainsword with her left hand and revving it. One skittered out from cover and she sent the xenos scrambling back, clutching a glowing wound on its shoulder. The other dashed out, but she had closed in by then and met his dagger with the chain-teeth of her blade, ripping it from the man’s grip.

A simple flick of her left wrist brought the chainsword down.

Her squad of armsmen were waiting for her outside the port battery commander’s office. It was barred from within as if to contain the angry shouting. A sergeant shook her head as an armsman worked the lock.

Lieutenant Corrance nodded the young man aside from the door, hiding her enjoyment at his surprise. When they last saw her she had been stuffed into a fresh lieutenant’s uniform--at the seneschal’s insistence. She was spattered with gore now and a familiar chainsword rumbled in her grip.

A bloody right thumb pressed the large rune on the lock. “Belok! Open up, it’s Corrance.” Battery Commander James Belok was a practical man, unused to titles and rank. He beat her to the position and somehow Corrance couldn’t even feel bad about it. A month running messages and seeing to the administrative details of a battery under Belok had almost been peaceful.

“Corrance!” the voice shouted through the door and into the vox. “Good girl! Knew you’d make it--Thought it was those bastard armsmen. Did you get my message, wait I’ll open the door--”

Corrance stood back as the vault creaked open. The office was hardened, like all ‘vital’ positions were, with adamantium and ceramite by request of the Strom Dynasty’s Heritor. Belok had left it open anyway, most of the time.

“I knew you’d see reason, girl! Time to make this ship our--ohhh,” the battery commander said slowly as he saw ten shotgun barrels pointed at him. Heads poked out from behind him, other gunners mates and some midshipmen working the battery commander’s office’s cogitators and vox-lines.

Lieutenant Corrance nodded and the sergeant kicked Belok in the face, knocking him back. She was on him in an instant as the rest of her squad rushed in, kicking and bashing anyone foolish enough to move. They were bundled and tied quickly. Those that stayed at their stations were next, hauled and given the dignity of being able to sit on the ground instead of lying on it.

She breathed in and out slowly. Watching all of it unfold as if through a haze. Belok had taken her under his wing, even began training her in the art of voidship gunnery. She walked into the office, dull to everything else and stared at the man she called friend. His nose bled and his eyes widened as she stepped closer.

Corrance raised the chainsword to the man’s chin, its teeth chattering just a few hairs away from his throat.

“Hey, Belok,” she said weakly. “Sending messages is my job, remember? Who else have you been talking to?"

“Why would I answer that?” Magos Turin asked. “It seems a most inappropriate question.”

The astropath grimaced in pain, not daring to look as the chirurgeon did his work. “Ughhh--come on, Turin, you owe me, Magos, sir,” Gurson slurred. One mechandrite rose from the chirurgeon’s back, needle-faced and glowing blue. The astropath smiled at it as it lunged to his other arm and delivered its payload.

“Psykers,” the chirurgeon said. “Strange interactions with anaesthetics. Need rare materials. Samples. Possible to fashion custom pharmaceutics.”

Magos Turin nodded. They spoke verbally out of politeness to the armsmen and the astropath’s warders but they communicated via the noosphere much more fully and deeply. “As long as he doesn’t try to pull the pins out of any more grenades,” the Magos said loudly, his eyes passive over all the armed men in the medicae bay, “then this shall suffice.”

“Noted.” Without pausing, the chirurgeon continued. “You did not answer his question.”

“No, I didn’t,” Turin said and left the medicae bay. The vox communications he had been monitoring had ceased, then replaced by a single unknown voice. He needed to respond; the Mechanicus would not lose this ship.