WARHAMMER 40,000: ROGUE TRADER: THE CITADEL OF SKULLS (Roleplaying on the Farthest Frontiers)

"Come on, Em," you say, taking his hand, gently. "We're not exactly wilting flowers. And besides...this may be something we want to keep, ah..." I paused. "Private!"

Ryia bites her lip, then looks aside, clearly not wanting to look pleading or desperate. Her obsidian fingers clench tech against her metallic palm with a soft clack.

Em nods, slowly. "There is sense to what you say..." he says, frowning. "Considering the rate at which rumors spread on this ship. Faster than scurvy."

You snort. "Not since I took over!" you shake your head. "Honestly, you had enough vitae supplemental tablets for the hands to take them, but the dears thought that they were only for after you got teeth wiggling. I had to set them right, and they were all blaky about it. Miss Tine this and Miss Tine that, they taste funny, well, NO! Benson, you're not supposed to chew the things, they're dry swallows!" You shake your head. "Honestly, for a load of murderous, cut throat, deck sweepings and hard headed naval goons, your hands are the biggest bunch of babies when it comes to taking their medicine."

"We need to get our kids here," Ryia says, dryly. "Before she adopts the entire crew of both ships."

"Too late," Em says.

"Hey!" you glare at them both.

Em makes it up by kissing your cheek and, very subtly, giving your rump a smack. So, you decide to forgive him.

For now.

The shuttle screamed over the unpleasent landscape of Chorda's Folly as Ryia sat in the driver's seat and you tried to not remember the last time she had flown anything. A strange feeling of quasi-memory washed over you at that thought, as if your hands could remember gripping and holding onto the controls of a Valkyrie. Aria, who is normally rather quiet during missions, murmured softly. That is to be expected - the memory isn't just in the mind, after all.

"I heard that," Ryia says, not taking her eyes off the horizon.

"I was just thinking that this is one incredibly unsightly planet," Em says, dryly. "And we've been to Dross."

"Technically, only I was on Dross," Ryia says, her voice smug. "You were just over it."

"That was bad enough," Em says, looking back out the window as his finger plays along the edge of his sword hilt. Ryia transfixes you with a significant look. You cross your arms over your chest, as if to say 'well, what about it?' and Ryia rolls her eyes and holds up her fleshy hand, using her index finger to make a stylized I on her forehead. You scoff, rolling your eyes right back at her. She shrugs and mimes shooting herself in the head while her obsidian hand remained locked on the console, smoothly guiding the ship over endless, tactless wastelands of brackish lakes, low brown gullies, and lumpy, uneven hills. You do see the occasional incredibly low, slope-backed four legged herd beast slumping along...in fact, you had noticed that the color of the ground had changed remarkably after you'd gotten about a hundred kilometers past the colony.

"Why do you think the ground's a different color out here?" you ask.

"Well, because the red lichen down there isn't dead past the colony," Ryia says.

"Ah."

Then, with the engines dipping to a low whine and the repulsor-lift taking up its throbbing melody, the shuttle comes down towards the source of the signal. The shuttle settled down onto a low hill looking down over the site - and you step out of the door immediately, eager to see what's what. The first thing you hear is the rattling of metal - cans on the wind, held up on a string that is strung between an ancient salvation pod that clearly had crashed down quite some time before, leaving behind a black furrow-scar through the landscape. Surrounding the pod are several makeshift tents of cloth and tarps, rustling and rattling in the gray breeze. The cans look like they've been hung out to dry after being used. You can see a refuse pit in the far edge of the camp, a large, burbling contraption that sits in the shade of the pod, hooked to the still softly humming and ticking power-cell.

"Hello?" Em calls out. "Any survivors? WE're from a ship!"

No answer. You start forward, your sister and husband fanning out. Your hand drops to Aria as you peer at the contraption up close - and recognize it at once.

You've seen them often enough...

"It's a still," you say, turning to face them. "For making grog."

Em snorts. "Well, he is a spacer."

Ryia steps up to the door of the salvation pod, ducking underneath the tent that shades it, and looks inside. "Sly?" She calls out, then steps back, then punches the wall next to the door as hard as she can - her knuckles crunching into the steel, her obsidian hand making an unhealthy groan. "No. No! I didn't come this far to get...nothing!" She snaps.

"OI!"

You, Em, and Ryia turn at the voice and see that a figure is standing on a nearby hill, looking down at you. He starts down the hill, his steel toed boots kicking up small patterings of reddish dust. In one hand, he has a survival laspistol - the kind with the solarium charger on the back so it can build up charge from sunlight, and the single shot capacity. In the other, he's holding the scruff of a critter that has been most conclusively holed through the chest - even with the low powered lasbolt of that kind of weapon, the creature looks like most of its meat has been turned into unedible char. The man is dressed...

Ryia and Em both draw their pistols and you grab your sword.

The man freezes - the look of shock rippling through the tattoo of the eight fold star that spreads across his bald pate. His shoulder epaulet has another star, and his right leg has a third spreading across his shin guard, while a broad with the same symbol is worked into the strap of his backpack harness. His clothing is cut to colors of red and black, and his narrow chin beard just completes the picture of a nigh perfect Chaos Reaver, if one had simply stepped off the screen of Commissar Cain.

He held up his hands, his survival las hanging from one finger. "I can explain!"

---
Will you...
[ ] Open Fire immediately
[ ] Immediately restrain him with non-lethal force
[ ] Let Him Explain
[ ] Write In