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

"Shut those voxes off," Jessie calls out. "And transmit through the ship: No shouts, no calls! We're on silent running effective immediately."

The howling, screaming sounds from the vox clamp off and you shudder as your hands go to your shoulders. The roiling space beyond - the bright, pulsing lumination of the hideous black heart of this system, the sight of an entire star being slowly unwound and sucked into her dead sister...

You shudder from your head to your toes again as the sounds vanish...from the voxes. Not from your own attuned senses.

The vista-plates crackle as the Colossus and the Tachyon hails you. Ryia looks sleep deprived and worn, but otherwise hale and hearty, while the commander of the Tachyon, Ted Sawyer, looks merely annoyed and like his favorite hat has been recently patched together. "Ryia, are-"

"I'm fine, just tired," she says, and you can tell she's lying. For sisters who had spent such a time apart, you still felt as if you had had a childhood together. It was very perplexing, but exceedingly useful. Your hands slid along your shoulders, while Em gives a nod to his subordinates.

"We've done a preliminary sounding - as much as can be managed. This system is a Sanguinian love triangle - we can barely see more than a hundred thousand kilometers ahead or astern. The only advantage we do have is the same is true of the damned pirates here. They can't know we're here, and so long as we keep in silent running, they won't know we're here until we're atop them. According to information relayed to me by our esteemed navigator..." He gave a little bow of his head. God-Emperor, you loved it when Em talked all serious and naval. He just cut such a dashing figure, even if he wasn't in his blues anymore. HIs hat just...MMM! His hat looked so good, and his que was so long and elegant. You clung to the simple, earthy pleasures of watching your husband talk - because it kept the howling darkness beyond the edge of your ship away from your thoughts. "The system has...some...foul mockery of the Astronomicon. He declined to say how..." His lips curled. "But..."

"Knowing bloody reavers, it ain't pretty, sir," Commander Sawyer says.

"Quite," Em says, nodding. "Unlike the Astronomicon, this...thing...this..." He pauses. "Scream only projects through the system."

"What in the warp's that good for?" You ask. "The Astronomicon projects across the galaxy."

"Auspex are dead, telescpes are useless, augeries are blind," Ryia says, rubbing fatigue grit from her eyes. Why was she so tired? "So, follow the screaming of the damned. Cute."

You shake your head - and Em says something that makes your stomach turn. Infused knowledge is a terrible thing sometimes - because there's facts you cannot ignore, when you know them. And you know the basics of the Astronomicon. Psykers found too weak to be used in war or commerce instead are put to work powering it. The task is wearing and painful, but not instantly fatal...but...also, not conducive to long life. The best of them are given juvinat treatments, medicade, but...there's a limit to what techno-sorcery can do to the halt the terrible strain of the task and they die by the thousands every year, often cut down in the prime of youth, having only seen ninety or even seventy years of life.

There was only one way you could see heretics like the pirates of Inequity running this Scream, this Beacon of the Damned.

The image that sprang into your mind was leering, laughing cultists, their bodies twisted by the forces they worshiped, marching sobbing, desperate civilians towards a vast, guttering bonfire, and jeering as they were flung in, alive and screaming.

You shuddered again - even as Em said: "Our navigator says that he can lock onto the Scream and use it to navigate our way in in realspace - easy, compared to warp navigation says he. The question now comes, of the disposition of our forces-"

---
Will you
[ ] "No! We will not under any circumstances use that foul thing."
[ ] Remain Silent. The needs of the mission demand it.
[ ] Write In

Also! How will your fleet's disposition be arranged? If you write in, describe the arrangement of ships and how you shall progress.
[ ] Stalk with the Tachyon in the lead, the Revenge behind, and the Colossus in the rear, with a CVP deployed for asteroids, mines and worse. Aim to navigate the clear space between asteroid swarms.
[ ] Athwart the flow, with the ships in a breaking line. Prow guns will target any asteroids coming near, and we'll rely on the Revenge's lances to them utterly. With this much radiation, who will notice?
[ ] Cut the Ecliptic. The majority of this system's rubble is along that plane. It'll be rough going for the first five, six AU, but once we're beyond that, space is mostly clear. This will make us easier to detect, but that's what silent running is for. It'll also take vastly longer than the direct route, but we do have five months of stores each.
[ ] Write In

Remember the Colossus has support craft! Remember the juicy +250 AP bonus to any objective you apply them to! Just, you know, be creative!