Hans leaned back, straightening his back, basking in the sensation of his rejuvenated vertebrae and muscular fibers stretching. The salesman watched him expectantly, waiting for his response.
"Ten million Hels," Hans said, swirling his drink with the calm of someone who had dealt with far sharper negotiations. "Not much for a Rogue Trader, sure, but it becomes plenty if your contacts are only pushing a few rusty old weapons."
The salesman's smile faltered, his eyes narrowing.
Hans leaned forward, his voice steady. "So, instead of a lump sum, I propose a ten percent commission. If these weapons are as valuable as you claim, you'll earn more. If not, well, that's a different conversation."
The fat around the sales man eyes salesman thickened with interest.
"As for the Necromundan armored vehicle," Hans continued, setting the glass down with a soft clink, "I'm happy to gift it. But trust has to go both ways. If your merchandise is as good as you say, I'd expect you to part with the girl" he pointed a finger at the housemaid "as part of the deal. She's worth less than the car, anyway."
The girl's hands faltered for the first time, the glass in her grip trembling slightly as she caught his words. Her gaze flickered up, just for a moment, before dropping again.
The salesman let out a low, rancorous laugh. "A Rogue Trader with a sharp tongue. Very well, Lord Zimmerman, I can part with her. A small price indeed." He scribbled something on a data slate and slid it across the desk. "Your meeting is arranged. Tomorrow night, midnight. Here are the coordinates."
Hans took the slate, gave a curt nod, and stood. "Until tomorrow, then."
He stepped out, onto the circular platform surrounding the salesman's quarters. The tower, an exposed lattice of rusted steel beams like some twisted, decaying version of the Eiffel Tower, rose high above the filthy green fogs into the synthetic orange skies of Helsreach.
The wind hit him, thick with the stench of burning fuel and oil, making his eyes water. Around him, the view of the hive's industrial sprawl stretched out like a rotting machine, its massive oil pipelines crisscrossing the ground, bleeding black sludge into the earth.
One of his troopers approached, lasgun slung over his shoulder. "Sir, you should wear the mask. No more than two minutes out here without one," he said, his voice slightly muffled by his own filter.
Hans glanced at the girl standing silently beside him, then back to his trooper. "Any extras for her?"
The trooper shook his head. "No, sir."
Hans handed his own mask to the girl without a word. She looked up, surprise and confusion flickering across her face for the briefest second before she took it and secured it over her nose and mouth. The wind howled around them, stirring up the foul, greasy air as Hans surveyed the land one last time.
The sea of sludge below bubbled, slick and black, stretching out toward the shoreline. Refineries and oil rigs dotted the coast, flames from their stacks lighting up the sky in a toxic, orange glow. The hive proper loomed in the distance, legion of sharp church-organs' pipes raising a hard metal hymn to the pallid sky. Barely visible through the thick smog, the hive was towering above the grimy shoreline like a rusting behemoth.
Without a word, Hans gestured toward the lift nestled at the core of the tower. They stepped inside, the hum of machinery following them as they descended toward the ground. Hans glanced at the girl, now silent behind the mask. He wasn't one to think too much on these things, and right now, there was only one thing on his mind: the meeting tomorrow night, and what the salesman's contacts might offer.
The lift rattled down, sinking towards the muddy tarred ground where the Aquila Lander was parked.
———-
"No sir, I can't allow you to" Hans gazed at Sergeant Lopez for one long instant "unless it's an order, sir." Hans gazed at him again.
"I prefer you to court marshal me, sir, to Commander Fara breaking my bones for letting you be kidnapped, or worse, under my watch!"
Hans gave a quick look at his surroundings, at the dimly light interior of the Aquila, mahogany marquetries, bone and marble inlay with soft angles, perfectly amalgamated with the futuristic cabin, not even too many skulls gazing at the groups of rough troopers surrounding Hans. Pushing his gaze further, out of the synthetic diamond windscreen, twin beams of light were cutting the thick darkness beyond the shimmering electric blue voidshields.
The beams were brightening the dark vale among the steep hills of garbage, a whole landscape made of refuse, rusty things without name and without shape, mixed with discarded bleached plastics, solidified industrial percolate, rags, crooked tools, and God knows what else.
Unseen, somewhere in the darkness, their appointments.
"Ag-ree-dd, Lord Rogue Trader" the mechanical voice of Callidus, the enginseer, broke the tense silence "my frontal cogitator warns me there is a forty-six-point-seven-percent chance the gangers could attempt to kidnap you for ransom."
"Well, I want to see through it."
"My Lord, you don't need to be blessed by the gifts of the Omnissiah to arrive at the logical conclusion this is a disproportionate risk, given the circumstances. May I suggest I go in your stead?"
Hans hadn't really started to think himself as a VIP person, but maybe he better should.
"Sure, are you confident to do that?"
"You don't need to worry, Lord Rogue Trader, this servant of the Omnissiah has a few aces up in his sleeve. For one hundred percent precision, up in his mechandrites"
Maniac mechanical laugher.
Mechanicus humor.
Hans waited impatiently for the mechanicus and his four troopers escort to come back. They went out of the aircraft as soon as the ramp was lowered, voidshield down. The mechanicus had opened a data stream from his cybernetics to the Aquila's videocasters, and, for a few instants, he could see the gangers moving in the shadows from the aircraft's wind screen and smell the putrid air pouring in from the open ramp (once closed the air filters quickly cleaned everything's up) and hear the soldiers moving out with the mechanicus. Then there was only the video streamed by the mechanicus, his group meeting the gangers lying in wait, lasguns at ready, between the piles of garbage, the Prometheus obese salesman introducing the mechanicus to a ganger called Koldo, them following the gangers, lasguns at ready too, after a few turns in the garbage labyrinth, they lead them to a tunnel carved inside a garbage hill, walls and roof kept together by strong nets. They entered. The video started to crack due to the garbage's interference. Then they disappeared.
They had waited for more than an hour, in a tense silence. Hans now was starting to see the wisdom in not going himself.
Sargent Lopez was readying his troopers and taking a vox caster to call for reinforcements via Arvus, when they started seeing lights outside the windscreen.
It was the mechanicus. And the four troopers.
His cybernetics warned him Callidus opened a private encrypted channel with him.
He opened it.
"Lord Captain. I can one hundred percent confirm the gangers are holding to extremely unholy Ork-xenotech."
"So, is it stuff we can have use for?"
"I will need to perform the seventh ritual of purification, Lord Captain, for the second time this month. I hope it doesn't become an habit collecting blasphemous xenotech, but I can understand the logic of disposing of it for a price out of the imperium's borders."
"And…"
"Besides Ork armor and ordinary weapons, they have down there the broken torsos of two gargants."
Gargants. Hans had seen them in the pictures of the Armageddon War, lumbering mechanical humanoid fortresses.
"Both have great quantity of armor, mostly ceramite plates. One contains a Prometheum based furnace, probably workable. The other one seemed to be the torso of a great-gargant. The energy source is way more exotic… a warp-engine, unfortunately relies heavily on execrable Ork-physics. Shall we purchase the items, Lord Captain."
————
[consequences: Armageddon War Ork relics available for purchase, vote options after turn narrative]
———-
Hans sat in the dimly lit chapel, his eyes briefly drifting toward the stained glass windows simulating a warm, golden sunlight that filled the room with a serene glow. The light bathed the assembled colonists in a soft, reverent atmosphere, their attention firmly on Gemmo Flickster, standing at the pulpit. The air hummed with anticipation. Hans found it strangely calming, despite his unfamiliarity with such rituals. He wasn't a religious man, but there was something about the ceremony that pulled him in.
Gemmo, his serene presence commanding the room, looked over the colonists from Hive Hades, those 1,150 souls chosen to establish a religious outpost in a distant part of the galaxy. The priest's voice began low, deliberate, but firm, like an ancient bell tolling.
"Brothers and sisters in faith," Gemmo intoned, his gaze moving slowly across the gathered crowd, "we stand on the brink of the unknown, guided only by the Emperor's light. As the desert knows not the path of water until the rains come, so too do we wander without the Emperor's guidance. But we do not wander in darkness—His light falls upon us, even when we cannot see it."
His voice carried the weight of conviction, and Hans could see the colonists, hardened by their years in the smog-filled hives, beginning to shift. They were drawn into Gemmo's words, carried by his quiet yet unshakable certainty.
"Consider," the priest continued, his hands gently lifting the iridium skull pendant that hung from his neck, "how the mountains stand tall against the winds. They do not bow, though the storms rage upon them. You, too, are like those mountains, standing strong in your faith. Even in the depths of Hive Hades, where the smoke chokes the air, you remained steadfast. It is this faith that brings you here today, to carry the light of the Emperor to new worlds."
His reference to mountains and storms, though veiled, spoke of something deeper, something from his own past. Hans caught it—Gemmo was weaving a parable drawn from his own world, yet careful not to alienate his audience. These people didn't know the lands Gemmo hailed from, but they understood struggle, hardship, and faith.
"Remember, just as the sun rises each day, so does the Emperor's light renew us," Gemmo said, raising his arms, the vetrate light catching his robes in a golden hue. "It shines even when we are far from home, for our true home is not a hive, or a ship, or a distant colony—it is in the Emperor's embrace."
Hans couldn't help but be struck by the simplicity and depth of the message. It echoed faint memories of his youth, seated in chapels not unlike this one, listening to the sermons that seemed, back then, so detached from the world he knew. But now, this was different. Here, in the cold reaches of space, faith seemed less like an abstract concept and more like a compass in a void.
Gemmo took a deep breath, the silence in the room palpable. "The Emperor has blessed you with purpose. You are the builders of His will, the hands that will raise up a new city of faith, far from the smoke and ruin of the hives. And in this, you will find your redemption, your glory in His eyes."
The priest raised his steaming cup, the soft clinking of the ceramite spoon cutting through the silence. "To the Emperor and the Primarch Guilliman, we offer our service, our strength, and our faith. May His light guide us all."
Hans, observing from the back, watched as the colonists silently bowed their heads in prayer, their resolve strengthening. Gemmo was unlike any priest he had encountered before—calm, patient, his faith like a slow-growing tree, rooted deep but with branches reaching toward the stars. And for the first time, Hans understood the power this faith held over these people. It wasn't just words. It was hope in a world that rarely offered any.
