TO BURN, VENT, OR TAKE AS PRIZE (Warhammer 40k Naval Quest)

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HIS MAJESTY'S SHIP, THE VALIANT, AND HER CREW LISTS
  • Informational
    • Cruise Start Date: 3.004.755.m41 | CRUISE COMPLETE
    Shiptime: 180 Days
    Current Date: 3.412.756.m41
    Current Location: The Tempestos Ring
    Current Status: Under Repair and Refit for Duty


    CHRISTENING: The VALIANT
    CLASS: Falchion Class | KEEL LAID: 02.0011.231.m41
    COMPLICATION: Haunted (-10 to max morale, +6 to detection, enemies get -10 to boarding/hit and run attacks)
    MACHINE SPIRIT TEMPERAMENT: Wrothful! (+1 speed, +7 to maneuverability in combat, -1 speed, -5 maneuverability, -5 detection while out of combat)

    --

    HULL INTEGRITY: 36/36 | VOID SHIELDS: 1 | ARMOR: 18
    TURRET RATING: 1 | SPEED: 9 (7) | MANEUVERABILITY: +24 (+12) | DETECTION: +30 (+25)
    CREW QUALITY: Elite (40%) | CREW: 99/100 | MORALE: 87/90
    SUPPLIES: 12 Months (at 6 months go on short rations)

    --

    Dimensions: 2.2 Kilometres in Length | 0.3 Kilometres abeam at the Fins
    Mass: 6.5 Megatonnes (approx) | Crew: 27,871 Souls (may the God Emperor Protect)
    Acceleration: 4.6 Gravities (Constant)



    DORSAL CANNONS

    Mars Cannons
    The Jumping Bastard, Long-Lolly, Big Lass, Old Contemptible, 'Nought More, Domination, Obliteration, The Silly Lad, Gigatech, Omnisiah's Child, Emperor's Fist and The Smiling Jack
    Range: 6 | Strength: 3 | Damage: 1d10+3 (Crit: 5)

    Ryza Cannons
    Furious Sun, The Sisters
    Range: 5 | Strength: 5 | Damage: 1d10+6 (Crit: 4)
    If this weapon deals the Destroyed critical hit, it destroys two components rather than one

    TORPEDOES
    Speed: 10 Void Units per Turn | Damage: 2d10+14 (Crit: 10) | Terminal Penetration: 3
    Rating: +20
    Maximum Range: 60
    14 Torpedoes


    Space: 34/34 | Power: 42/45

    Jovian Pattern Class 2 Plasma Drive: Blessed be her Fury, for she Driveth us to Salvation.
    (Space: 10 | Power: 45 Generated)

    Stelov I Warp Engine: Blessed by her Swiftness, for she Taketh us to the Foe
    (Space: 9 | Power: 9 | This Component is Best Quality, reducing it's Space and Power requirements by 1.

    Weir-Miller Pattern Geller Field: Blessed be her Aegis, for she Hold the Darkness at Bay
    (Space: 0 | Power: 1)

    Single Layer Mars Pattern Void Shield Array: Blessed be her Sneer, for she Winks upon Death
    (Space: 1 | Power: 5)

    Command Bridge: Blessed be her Ire, for thou shall smite her enemies from this sacred place.
    (Space: 1 | Power: 2) | Special: +5 to Command Checks and +5 to BS checks. If unpowered, roll 1d10. On a 1-3, this bridge is not unpowered)

    Vitae Pattern Life Sustainer: Blessed be her Breath, for thou shall sup from her teat and live evermore
    (Space: 2 | Power: 4)

    Voidsmen Quarters: Blessed be her Arms, for the encircle your Earthly Body.
    (Space: 3 | Power: 1)

    Deep Void Auger Array: Blessed be her Eye, for she Sees All
    (Space: 0 | Power: 7)

    Prow Mounted Voss Pattern Torpedo Tubes: Blessed be her Fist, for she striketh the foe!
    (Space: - | Power: 1) | This component is included automatically and cannot be removed.

    Dorsal Mounted Mars Pattern Macrocannon Batteries: Blessed be he Sword, for she sweeps away the Shield
    (Space: 2 | Power: 4)

    Dorsal Mounted Ryza Pattern Plasma Battery: Blessed be her Lance, for she driveth into thy Enemy's Belly
    (Space: 4 | Power: 7) | This component is of best quality, adding +1 Strength and +1 Damage. Praise the Emperor.

    Munitorium: Blessed be her Quiver, for it is Ever Filled with her Hate
    (Space: 2 | Power: 1) | This component is of best quality, reducing Space and Power Requirement by 1. Hail to the Omnisiah!
    VOLATILE: IF THIS COMPONENT IS DAMAGED, IT EXPLODES, DEALING 2D5 DAMAGE TO THE SHIP IGNORING ARMOR AND SETTING A NEARBY COMPONENT ON FIRE

    COMPLIMENT

    Bridge Crew
    Captain: Commander VYNN
    First Officer: Lieutenant Yorke ZELLA
    Chief Surgeon: Doctor Jonathan BALTHEZAR
    Helm Officer: Lieutenant, 2nd Class, Privata SONJA Blitzkovatch
    Ship's Master: Xandi ES
    Gunner's Mate, 1st Class: Sujek KHAN
    Gunner's Mate, 2nd Class: Khotar VROOK


    Guildsmen and Civilian Officials
    Cartho-Artifex: Sir Jividias VONT (the Younger)
    Chief Purser: Mrs. Sydwynn Carter
    Head Confessor: KURGHAN Malik

    Midshipmen
    Mr. Tommen Blakely (aged 13)
    Mr. Vindalin Cork (aged 15)
    Mr. Dashire Rainwild (aged 14)
    Mr. Bower Xon III (Aged 12)
    Mr. Ted (Age 13)


    The Priesthood of Mars
    Chief Enginseer (aka Enginseer Primus): Isabella "ISA" Turantawix


    Navis Nobiline
    Warp Guide: GALE of the House Nobiline Majoris Stikellan-Vorin-Ma (Guiding Light of the Astronomicon, The Daring One, Mistress of the Stars)
    Warp Secondus: SEVERUS GALE of the House Nobiline Majoris Stikellan-Vorin-Ma, Husband to GALE
    Warp Tertrius: MARY GALE of the House Nobiline Majoris Stikellan-Vorin-Ma, eldest daughter to GALE
    Warp Quaternus: TOMMEN GALE of the House Nobiline Majoris Stikellan-Vorin-Ma, younger son to GALE

    The Crew

    Boatswain Frik (MIA, ship-date 112 at warp, no body found)
    Able Voidsman Darya Ivanova
    Able Voidman Sa'adah Sanguhamat (Died of Infection, ship-date 108 at Warp, consigned to the Void, God Emperor Bless His Soul)
    Able Voidsman Nasir Naaji
    Voidsman Akulina Ignatov (Died of Infection, ship-date 108 at Warp, consigned to the Void, God Emperor Bless Her Soul)
    Voidsman Irina Kuznetsov (Died of Infection, ship-date 108 at Warp, consigned to the Void, God Emperor Bless Her Soul)
    Voidsman Lev Volkov
    Voidsman Mikha'il Abdulrashid
    Voidsman Isra Saqqaf
    Voidsman Asim Ahmad
    Voidsman Happy Jack Sheng

     
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  • Informational
    • I wonder if at some point we roll so abysmally that we emerge from the Warp centuries from now, when Necron dynasties rule huge swathes of the galaxy, when the Imperium is divided between its core regions around Terra and a thousand separate successor states, when the Tau Empire is by then a actual big deal on the galactic scale, and when various Chaotic empires descended from the Thirteenth Black Crusade effectively control half the galaxy. Also,Orks everywhere like always and tyranids evolved into super tyranids to counter primaris space marines and GW's gradual model-size increase and powercreep. :V

    Another successful warp jump. :V

    Edit: Alternatively, we may roll a critical failure of such a magnitude that we exit the world of Warhammer 40000 and end up in a galaxy, far, far, away. There's no way to disprove that warping into another universe doesn't happen (I mean, the Warp is a very convenient way to justify one's crossover fanfic, I suppose), because it's not like there are any mortal observers to witness such things.
     
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    Speaking of the warp and lore dumping, Orks don't use Gellar fields. Instead, they ward their rust-bucket ships with really big teef to scare the daemons off, knowing full well that some daemons are still bound to enter. They generally like this, because fighting the odd daemon keeps the boyz happy and away from boredom.
     
    [X] "Of course! The more the merrier, ha ha! They can be counted as your guests, yes?" (gain three warp researchers. Possibly useful! ...possibly dangerous. The Priesthood of Mars is not infallible. But, on the other hand, dear Isa will like it. But, also, on the other other hand, Zella won't.)
     
    CHAPTER TWO: STORMS, SHOALS AND SPIRITS (1.1)
  • Threadmarks
    • Life aboard ship during the Warp is much like life at any other time on a ship at any other place, save for a certain specter of utter damnation and ruin that hangs above the crew and the officers both. Whispering, sibilant voices hiss and claw at the edges of perception and there is sometimes an odd knock knock knocking that comes at covered windows and seal-locks and walls. Knock knock knock, let us in, let us in, how bad can it be? But this is a well trained crew, and the pressed men are too terrified at their new situations to make hay over it all, and so things went rather swimmingly for the initial insertion into the Warp itself. You had, of course, gone to the Navigatrix's spire and gone through the song and dance and the bowing and the scraping and the yes sir, yes, ma'am, yes my lord, my liege, my noble lady, my glorious one, my starry browed fellow.

    Navigatrix Gale of the House Nobiline Majoris Stikellan-Vorin-Ma the Third, Guiding Light of the Astronomicon, The Daring One, Mistress of the Stars, was fairly early on in her career as one of that most august noble houses, so very powerful and so very famous because of their remarkable Talents (not a mutation, never a mutation, no, Navigators were not mutants, this was an important point, underlined often by the Navis Nobiline themselves and their factors in polite society. Yes, you had once seen a Navigator by the name of Belle Tarin being wheeled from their spire to the bridge to speak with your captain in a vat of green glop that came nearly as high as you, nothing more than a dark shape inside of the green fluids, speaking with a low mournful moaning noise like some kind of vast whale.)

    But as Gale (oh, sorry, you meant to say, Gale of the House Nobiline Majoris Stikellan-Vorin-Ma the Third, Guiding Light of the Astronomicon, The Daring One, Mistress of the Stars, never forget that) was rather early on in her career, she had but a few oddities and eccentricities. Being a woman who has served among the odd and the exccentric since the age of twelve, you did not blanch at a woman near to three meters in height and barely two hundred bounds, with joints that seemed to bend in three directions at her on whims, dressed in a contraption of leather straps that covered what might have been three, six centimetres of her body, and even that, only the barest idea of what could be considered shame...well, after you had bowed and you had scraped, she had finally, finally, deigned to actually do the reason why she had been whelped.

    "Bring me a roostrex," she said to you.

    "A roostrex..." you had tugged at your chin, then gone to the bridge, then tasked the mids to catch a roostrex from the galley. Mr. Ted and Mr. Blakely and Mr. Rainwild had returned, a half a bell later, with Rainwild covered in scratches and Blakely with a broken nose and Ted entirely and completely unharmed and with a trussed up roostrex dangling from her hands by the legs.

    "Very good, you three, Mr. Blakely do not drip on your uniform, be a good fellow and lift your head, no, lift and tilt backwards, grip there, very good. Mr. Rainwild! Be sure to have the doctor take a look at those, you don't want to get laid up with a blood sickness. Mr. Ted, being the victorious one, you shall accompany me to the navigator's spire. Time to learn how to properly bow and scrape and kneel and all that rot." You clap your hands. "Come along."

    Ted, to her credit, manages to not do too great a disservice to her uniform upon seeing both the Navigatrix and her heavily armored, halberd holding guards, and the other navigators that were in the spire (her husband, mores the pity, and her two children, who were the cutest little eccentricities you ever did clap your eyes upon, even if you but saw them peeking around the corner of the gilded doorways leading deeper into the spire itself.) Ted keeps her stomach yet more as Gale takes the roostrex, turned her back to you, then opened the augmetic oculus upon her brow, revealing her warp's eye. Even with her back to you, the terrible power of that awful all seeing eye makes your bones ache and your nose bleed.

    The roostrex burst apart...the organs dropped to the floor....the blood went everywhere...and the Navigatrix, picking bone fragments from her hair, knelt down like a spider and began to prod and poke at the entrails upon the ground, humming quietly. "Hmm, yes...yes, yes...no, yes..." She shakes her head. "Yes. Captain, the Divinations are mixed - the route is shrouded and storm-tossed. The Astronomicon shall be a hard light to see here and the time..." She lifted her hand, twisting it from side to side, as if she were measuring current in a rapids upon your homeworld of Aquios, a shockingly familiar gesture to see on so alien a figure. She looked over her shoulder at you, smoke and purple flames still flickering about her augmetic oculus - even with it sealed tightly shut once more. "Two...three weeks? Maybe more, maybe less."

    You nod, your spectacles upon your nose already, your notebook in your hand as you jot down in a wandering, barely legible hand full of misspellings and errant punctuation: Tyme to sivoma, Thirty Days (give Or Tace)

    "Very good, we shall enter the warp posthaste," you say.

    And so, you had.

    And so, you were.

    Two days into the sail, you woke at the third bell of the Last Dog's watch to find a tall, old, bearded gentleman with a vast hole in his ribcage standing above your bed, glowering down upon you with a fierce, intent frown. You blinked up at him, proclaimed: "Bloody hell, man, get on with it?" in the sleepy, stupefied way of the recently awoken, and when you blinked, the tall figure was gone, gone as if he had never been. Such things were not odd, not unexpected, not even that frightening to an old space hound like yourself, and so, you put it out of your mind, focusing instead on learning the names of your crew and seeing how well they handled the sailing of the ship. Quite good, all things considered, and while simmering resentment seemed to be the order of the day, you managed to keep Zella back just enough to not make things boil over. The only thing you regret is no chance to check and test the gunnery, the gunnery of a naval ship was what made or broke the day...though, aboard a torpedo ship, you would only be able to test half that gunnery, as you could not sling torpedoes like there was no tomorrow, but you had shells enough to fire practice volleys for days...and you needed a way to make the crew feel more kindly about their situation...hmm...

    But then on the fifth day of the sail, a report reached your ears: Five headless specters, running to firing positions in the gun decks! A dancing ghost in the third mess hall on the starboard side, singing in a language no one spoke. Ghostly flames reported in the belly rigging of the plasma vents.

    "Ghosts? Preposterous," Jon says when you hesitantly bring it up to him during one of your visits to his surgical bay. "There are no such things as ghosts." He nods definitively, then stands and begins to rummage about in his voidchest, throwing the lid up and taking out several oddments. You begin to pace as Jon continues to lie, and you (quite taken in and utterly believing of his statements) nod along with him. "Ghosts have long been stated as being a byproduct of an unbalanced mind, created by the poor diet and the bad air, the malarial clouds created by the vitae sustainers."

    "Ah, capital," you say, rubbing your chin. "So, we need not worry about it?"

    Jon, who by now had removed a dagger, a censer upon a chain, a thickly bound tome with a heavy purity seal upon the front, three symbols of holy protection, a philter of salt, and his trusty much used laspistol, turned to you. "Oh, no, no, no, I'm sure that as the crew grows more accustomed to their new station, these tales of specters and ghosts will all be gone."

    You nod, then frown as you see Jon has taken up his cane. "Jon, are you leaving?"

    "It's merely time for my evening constitutional," he lies, and walks hastily away, and you - still taken in - nod and mutter to yourself.

    "Specters...humors...imbalanced minds...give me an ork, I say!"

    There are no more reports of ghosts for the rest of the cruise, but the crew remains profoundly unsettled.

    With the tales of specters settled to your satisfaction, you find yourself in a bit of a quandary - the tradition of all ships you've served on, and a tradition that you planned to begin upon this ship if it had not taken roost, was that of the Captain's Dinner. Held but once, at the mid point of all passages in the Warp, you invited, oh, three brace of the officers (you mentally increase this to three brace and one, as you could not bear to leave out poor Jon, especially not as he has seemed rather sickly and wan for the past few days.) But the question is, which officers to invite...hmm...

    VYNN IS TO THROW A DINNER! BUT WHO TO INVITE?

    [] Isa
    [] Sonja
    [] Zella
    [] Mr. Sujek Khan (gunnery's mate, first class)
    [] Mr. Xandi Es (ship master)
    [] Mr. Khotar Vrook (gunner's mate, second class)
    [] The Navigatrix Herself
    [] The Navigatrix's Husband
    [] The Navigatrix's Children
    [] Mr. Ted
    [] Mr. Blakely
    [] Mr. Rainwild
    [] Mr. Xon
    [] Mr. Cork
    [] One of those Cog Botherers that Isa invited aboard? What's his name? Snipper...Clicks? Or...whatever it was?

    AND WHAT TO SERVE?

    [] Grox and mashed pitattes, with a fine port
    [] Roostrex, stuffed with fried rats, and the M40 Quianti Shimmerwine
    [] Voidfish, fresh caught from the cisterns, with chopped greens and grog, a proper trencherman's diet
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Isa
    [X] Sonja
    [X] Zella
    [X] The Navigatrix Herself
    [X] Mr. Cork
    [X] One of those Cog Botherers that Isa invited aboard? What's his name? Snipper...Clicks? Or...whatever it was?
    [X] Grox and mashed pitattes, with a fine port
     
    [X] Isa
    [X] Sonja
    [X] Zella
    [X] The Navigatrix Herself
    [X] Mr. Cork
    [X] One of those Cog Botherers that Isa invited aboard? What's his name? Snipper...Clicks? Or...whatever it was?
    [X] Grox and mashed pitattes, with a fine port

    This works for me.
     
    CHAPTER TWO: STORMS, SHOALS AND SPIRITS (1.2)
  • Threadmarks
    • "Unmitigated disaster? No, too kind. Utter catastrophe! Wrack! Ruin! A shame worse than Horus. I do believe that you can stick a fork in me, Jon, I am dished. Utterly dished."

    "I do not believe the dinner went so poorly as you are proclaiming," Jon says, meditatively, his fingers drifting between Emperor, Chapter Master, Astartes, Ecclesiarch, in a kind of wavering dance - here, there, back again, his brows knit in a kind of intensive focus, as he tries to find some way to escape from your (admittedly, rather clever) box formation of Imperial Guard you had arrayed before your own Emperor. Jon pauses, then says. "In fact, I believe it went quite handsomely."

    Yes, well, you reviewed the beginnings of the disasters. You had chosen your guests from the bridge crew - it was custom to invite the most likely of the Midshipmen, and you had chosen Mr. Cork, as he was the least talkative and most lumpish, meaning that he would do little and interrupt the flow of conversation little, excellent considering you had planned to win your way back into Isa's good graces by putting on a commendable showing. Plenty of excellent anecdotes, stories and tales about your heroism and bravery, such and such. Next, of course, you had to invite your first officer, to do anything but would be the height of rudeness. Then, Lieutenant Sonja , as her handling of the helm controls has thus far been nothing but admirable (and it is no mean feat, to follow the often unclear instructions from the Navigatrix in her spite.) Then upon determining who was on duty, you had presented a polite request to the guards at the Navis spire, asking that the Lady Gale herself might be invited. As her husband was on shift (most ships lacked the full immersion tanks that would allow a singular navigator to handle the navigation duties for an entire sail, which was why she had her husband and her two children along with her - beyond the obvious duties of a wife and mother.)

    She had accepted, and you had rounded it all off with an invitation to your Chief Engineseer (after all, it wouldn't do to have so many charming anecdotes without a chance to impress Isa with them) and an invitation to one of her fellow new cog-botherers. Snipper...something. You honestly hadn't been entirely sure as to the fellows name or gender or preferred pronouns or means of address, as he or she or they or it appeared to be a mass of metal and flesh poorly concealed by a massive red robe, with several articulated augmetic limbs emerging from their body (or his body, or her body) like the spines of some kind of terrible spider.

    In other words, a far more standard example of the Tech Priests mold.

    But the first disaster had come with the pitattes and the first toast. For one, the damnfool cook had barely mashed them, and not quite cooked them properly, and even before you were halfway through lifting your glass and pronouncing the good health of everyone visiting had Mr. Cork begun to push the unmashed chunks about his plate with a fork, letting out a tiny grunt with every single attempt to mash the chunklets, and being quite insensible to Zeller glaring down at him with his augmetic eyes a whiring and his hands clenching one of your fine silver forks into a twisted ruin, and Jon, who was seated to your left, was more interested in plucking weevils out of the complimentary biscuit and prodding them with his fork - and so, you got a bit mixed up.

    "And so," you had said. "I say, that is, the Emperor smites, and we all protect, the foes, and so on!"

    "Hear hear!" Zeller rumbled, dutifully, while Sonja downed her entire glass in the Valhallan style, and the Navigatrix wrinkled her nose, then poured the port out into nearby planter with the subtlety of an orkish kommando - in other words, more than you expected, but not enough to actually fool anyone at the table.

    The grox meat was brought out, and as you had commanded, it was rare and looked quite succulent. Your cook - a grumbling, never happy looking fellow whose name you gathered was Killick - set it down and muttered, not quite quietly enough: "Fair fit fine to not so much as sear a meat proper and not a spice to be had..." You pursed your lips - then were delighted as things seemed to come around to your heading as her Ladyship, Gale, actually did the remarkable thing and asked a question of you!

    "I do wonder," she had said. "What, precisely, are your reasons for getting this ship, exactly?"

    Well, it had been less a question and more of a subtle knife wound to the belly, but you took it with as jovial as a smile as you could muster, then began to drown some weevils in butter by picking up your biscuit and applying to it with a will. "I just so happen to have served with distinction-" and here, you did pause to take a bite, careless of the crumbs upon your cravat, chewed, swallowed, and produced to tear away your entire rudder on a lee orbit with a poorly timed burn and tanks that hadn't been mixed properly: "-at the battle...of Mcgee."

    "...where?" the Navigatrix asked.

    You paused. "The...the Battle of McGee. You...might have heard of it?"

    She shook her head and even Zella was looking at you quite blankly. Jon, cursed misfortune, was cutting into his grox with the single minded determination of the starving and was no help at all, and Isa was drinking heavily already, and she didn't seem ready to spring in. And so, aware that something had gone ahoo but not quite sure what, you continued on, saying: "You know. The little...dust up with the 'nids? In 45?"

    More blank stares.

    "It was around the bloody home of the Ultramarines!" you exclaimed, feeling quite at a loss.

    The Navigatrix spoke with the most rapier sharp kindness you had ever had your misfortune to hear: "...you mean...Macragge?"

    "You were at Macragge?" Mr. Cork had piped up. "Smashing, three of my uncles died there!"

    "Clearly close relations," Sonja had said, chuckling.

    You attempted to recover, though your face had become entire red and flushed by this point. "Yes, well, I can sketch out the initial engagement. If you treat this pile of pitates as the first thrust of Hive Fleet Behemoth-" You lifted a fork. "And this fork as the Victory..."

    "Were you in any kind of a command position?" the Navigatrix asked.

    "Well! That is, I had a good enough idea of things, being a Lieutenant..."

    "No, tell us what you were doing," Isa had cut in.

    "I once dissected a half Tyrannid bioform that had begun to spread in the lower warrens of the hive city of Astara," her Tech Priest chum said, his voice a churring whirring clattering noise. "It had begun to propagate via infesting the sex worker community, so that their intercourse would create more Tyrannid infestations. It was fascinating."

    Mr. Cork had dropped his fork, while Jon had lifted his head. "By intercourse, you say? Merely oral, or-"

    "AND SO AS I WAS SAYING-" you said, while the Navigatrix had laughed and leaned back in her seat, clearly enjoying herself in a low, base kind of way. "If...this fork! Was the Victory!"

    "Your position?"

    "She was unconscious," Jon had cut in, devastating you utterly, leaving you a wreck, a ruin, and you had sat down at that moment, your chair groaning.

    "Unconscious?" the Navigatrix had asked.

    "Unconscious?" Zeller had rumbled.

    "Oh yes, for the entire first day of the battle," Jon had said, nodding. "The boat was struck by one of the genus Microcosmus Voracious, a kind of fast attack kraken used by the Tyranids in their space superiority role. It struck the boat with several of it's writhing tendrils - massive biological structures, with hardened chitin plate and a kind of arrowing feature on the forward tentacular club - most similar to an ancient Terran sea beast known as the Spirula spirula. This allowed for a great deal of striking force due to mass and the narrowness of the points, but the lack of forward momentum, the lack of kinetic energy from velocity, is why it slipped past the Geller Shields and struck us right onto the left side."

    You had placed your hand over your face, despairing utterly - the fact Jon could not tell a Geller Field from a Void Shield, or port from starboard, left you feeling almost as mortified as what came next.

    "Now, Vynn was down in the, ah, the part of the boat with the guns and all," Jon said. "Pulling some fellow, a Simon Calgar or something, out of a fire. The strike to the boat sent her rocketing back, head first, into a wall. I had to do quite a trepanation, you can see the bumps, there..."

    "Your head IS a great deal more irregular!" Isa exclaimed. "If you look beneath your hair!" Which did not make you feel any better, in the slightest.

    "You saved the life of a child of Magnus Calgar, the Chapter Master of the Ultramarines?" the Navigatrix asked, sounding shocked.

    "Cousin, actually, fifth removed..." you had muttered, too distressed to lie properly.

    "And then she saved the entire medicae bay," Jon had said. "Some boarding action started, with bioforms coming in, and we had sealed the bulkhead and my pistol was out of charge, and I was seeking a second weapon when this hideous thing came in through the vent. It would surely have slain a half a dozen men and women in their beds, still insensate, when Vynn, her head still bandaged, stood, grabbed the stool beside her table, and laid it out with a single blow!"

    Which, while admittedly somewhat impressive, still had not dispelled the unhappy attitude that had settled about your head, to have the most thrilling day of the battle, the First, to be so occupied by everyone asking about your skull being drilled into to relieve the pressure of internal bleeding. The fact that the cake afterwards was burnt, and the port ran out, and Cork kept picking his nose, were all secondary, and once the dinner was over, you were left feeling quite out of sorts. The fact that, at your post-dinner game of regicide, Jon was entirely unapologetic and, worse, didn't see how the dinner had gone quite all that badly left you none the happier.

    Isa did refer to you, the next time you asked about how the engines were going, as "Captain Bump-Head."

    This was not, in your mind, an improvement.

    ***
    ​
    On the twelfth day of sailing, the winds of the Empyrean grew quiet and stilled. As nothing could spook a crew quite so much as the idea of being becalmed, you kept it to only those that needed to know, though you did order Zella to ensure that rationing systems were in place. He had barely had time to begin to organize such a thing before, with a flickering, hissing, roaring sound the winds picked up again - leaving you happy and hopeful. But then, a mere five days later, after a gusty, blustery progress that the Navigatrix compared to attempting to thread a needle attached to the nose of an ophidian with a temper, you were becalmed again - and this, for a good three days. You knew that such stills could last for anywhere from three days to three months, more if the God Emperor had turned his gaze upon you...and you were glad they were happening relatively early on in your cruise.

    You, after all, had six months of victuals aboard, and a nearly limitless supply of water, so long as the cisterns were not punctured and the filters did not break down.

    So, in other words, you had six months of victuals and water, as you knew that, invariably, either would happen, given your luck.

    But then, the winds of the Sea of Souls picked up again, on the twenty fifth day of the sail, the winds died once more and the ship was caught, drifting ever so gently to the left and to the right within the Warp Passage for two hours, two hours that left you fuming and cursing at the vaguries of fate and time and that was when, like a broadside from the horizon, the warp storm struck. You were in the midst of sharing commiseration with Sonja, who as was her custom, was wearing as little as she could get away with despite the ship's rather cool temperatures, when the entire Valiant heeled hard to the port, throwing Sonja against you and you against the wall. Sparks flew from a cogitator and the entire ship groaned as if she had been struck. The vox that led directly to the Enginseer's Sanctum crackled.

    "Douse! DOUSE! DOUSE NOW!"

    That had come from Isa - and you bellowed to Sonja. "Douse the engines!"

    Sonja leaped too - throwing herself into the console that controlled the engine functions from her. She skipped the normal rituals - flicking switches and stabbing down buttons across the entire console. BUt as she worked, the ship shuddered and rolled again. This time, you were braced for it, while Sonja shouted: "Navigatrix Gale reports, sir, that we have reached the destination - that blow shot us here faster than an ice bear after a baby!"

    "Excellent, drop us from this damned wasteland of a dimension!"

    The entire ship heeled again - and you were flung upon the floor.

    ***

    ​
    You craned your head over the edge, your magboots locked firmly, while Isa stood beside you, her own body clad in naught but her robes and her face mask. She pointed with her finger, careless of the killing void about you. "See, there?"

    "Blast and damnation!" you hissed.

    The two of you stood upon the upper edge, the flange, that thrust above the main thrusters. They glowed so brilliantly that your face mask polarized immediately, but you could still see the damage, quite visible, along the inner edge. It helped that two of the thrusters were cold and doused - the remainder were merely sputtering along. The snarled metal scar that had been cut into your dear ship looked rather akin to a lance blow - albeit, one of glancing angle and limited duration. You turned and looked at your old lover, nothing but the needs of the ship in your mind.

    "So, thruster six, nine and ten?"

    "I can make repairs - but we'll need a high orbit, or an asteroid to brace too."

    You nod.

    "Or a colony world, if there is one in this system."

    You and she both lifted your heads - at the edge of the system, this far, as far out as it could be and still be considered within a solar system, the star looked like pale gray-white dot with a smudge of almost invisible brown beside it. According to your charts, it was a collapsed neutron star with a binary twin, a captured fellow, a chum to keep it warm in the vastness of the interstellar dark. The fact that the binary twin was a long burning, cold as a coal red star was already making the crew grumble and talk of how the system was already bad luck. Of course, they would say anything was bad luck. The worse luck was, as far as you knew, there were no life bearing worlds - though, the old census said there was a mining world here...

    Of course, stopping over to scan the system, vox the colony...

    "How much slower are we?" you ask.

    "When it comes to intrasolar travel? Not a jot," Isa says, nodding a bit as she puts her hands upon her hips. "Constant acceleration is constant acceleration - but if we ever need to do quick maneuvering..."

    In other words, during a battle of any sort, of any kind...

    "...then we shall be operating at half mast, so to speak."

    "Damnation!" you hiss. "Buggery blast damn and hellfire." You kick a bit at the void, then shake your head.

    "Captain!" Zella's voice comes over the vox - crackly and hissing and popping. "how does it look out there?"

    "Oh, a mite troubled - we have some thrusters carried away by that storm...could have been worse, yes..." You shake your head. "What is the report on the system?"

    "We have completed initial parallax scans and ausepx sweeps. The radiation belts put out by the neutron-dwarf binary make vox transmissions impossible - and the charts say Simovia is the first world - the nearest to that blasted place. However, we've detected a metal signature - likely artificial in nature, though it's cold and silent. The only other planet here looks to be Venusian in character."

    Ah, delightful! you think. The crew are sure to love such a visit - it will mean their morale problems will be resolved from now until the Black Bell tolls...

    "The rest of the system is rocks - rocks and more rocks. Your orders, Captain?"

    VYNN FACES HER FIRST TRUE COMMAND DECISION. THE SHIP IS RUNNING AT HALF SPEED FOR COMBAT UNTIL THIS IS REPAIRED - WHICH REQUIRES A MOORING PLACE OR FRIENDLY COLONY.

    [] "Set course for Simova Prime."
    [] "Set course for the derelict station."
    [] "Set course for the nearest rock."
    [] "Weigh anchor - we don't need a plasma drive and I doubt the End of Days is in this worthless rubbleheap."
    [] Write In
     
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    • Question is Vynn a woman or a man reading it you seem to be jumping between the two unless he/she is gender neutral.

    [X] "Set course for the nearest rock."
     
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