Every night he would lie down on the damp earth and watch the distant stars.
He wasn’t highly educated, like the inhabitants of civilized worlds, for instance, but nevertheless he knew that those twinkling lights were the same suns as his own.
And that near those stars there were also planets like his, and that perhaps there were dreamers like him there, lying on the damp earth and thinking about distant stars.
And so, day after day, the boy looked at those stars, and gradually in the child’s mind began to form what would later become his only dream and goal, the reason he was ready to leave everything he had — to go beyond his world and see those stars!
And so began his long adventure to achieve this dream.
First, scout camp leader, school valedictorian, PDF sergeant.
But going further and further, climbing higher and higher, the young man began to understand that he could only fly away from here on a starship if the God-Emperor Himself descended to this planet forgotten by the Administratum and personally led him into space, just as the Master of Mankind had once taken His Primarch children into the heavens.
Such were the minuscule chances of an ordinary farmer’s son.
And then an Inquisitor appeared with his retinue, and all subsequent events had the amplitude of a swing.
First a small swing up, then a strong drop down, and then an incredible high success and rise up.
The Inquisition… another milestone in the life of a farmer boy from an agri-world forgotten by the Emperor, which radically shook his views on life.
Now, when fate had thrown another somersault, the former acolyte understood perfectly well — it depended only on him whether he would fly further up, to the heights of success and glory, or slide to the very bottom.
With such gloomy thoughts, he reached the bridge.
The bridge was a huge steel cage, filled with numerous clusters of ship instruments, cogitators, computers, and so on.
And there were also many officers of his Kraken, dressed in uniforms bearing the colors of his coat of arms — black with gold trim.
Even though Alrik was a representative of “fresh blood” among the Rogue Traders, along with the Patent he had also received his House with all that entailed, even if for now he was the sole representative of House Eyvor.
It should be noted that “all that entailed” with the House was quite a few things that distinguished the high society of the Imperial nobility from the rootless rabble… A coat of arms, a flag, personal heraldry always come with the patent.
The coat of arms of House Eyvor was a black shield with a golden eagle owl holding a sword in its talons, crossed swords in the center.
“Knowledge in the right hands is like a sword that will slay your enemies outright.” The words of his now-deceased mentor resonated like a hollow echo in the Trader’s head at the sight of his own coat of arms.
The officers on the bridge bowed and smiled warmly at their master.
But looking at their faces, Alrik remembered Bloodmoor’s words that he was aware of his close ties with various xenos.
This immediately soured the Trader’s good mood.
Alrik, by nature, was perhaps a greedy man, but he never skimped on truly important things, on which his life often directly depended.
When paying out the monthly salary to his workers (slaves from the lower decks didn’t count), he never delayed or cheated them, and their salary was so large that their colleagues in the Imperial Fleet could only bite their elbows in envy.
Given these circumstances, it would be extremely stupid to betray one’s master, to bite the hand that feeds you schnitzel.
Though on the other hand, they could be partly understood — refusing an Inquisitor was akin to death.
Well, when he found out who it was, he would definitely show them his stick instead of the carrot.
He walked further, into the depths of the bridge.
At its very center was a large circular superstructure — the combat command center.
The place from where Alrik pronounced sentence on planets that, for one reason or another, had long dwelt in darkness, cut off from the Emperor’s blessed light.
He climbed a spiral staircase to a door proudly adorned with the golden eagle owl from the coat of arms of House Eyvor.
As soon as the noble holder of the Warrant of Trade approached the carved door, it automatically opened, revealing a large room with a round table in the center, comfortable chairs on the sides, where all his retinue and the high command staff of the trading fleet had already gathered.
The Trader glanced over all those present and smiled with the corner of his mouth — everyone was in place.
Ingard was closest to Alrik.
The big man had finally taken off his sweaty t-shirt and put on an excellent quality black-and-gold dress uniform.
In it, he looked very solid and appeared as a real bodyguard, even if not everyone in this room shared their master’s opinion… Eyvor gave a short nod to his friend, thanking him for the work done in gathering these “noble gentlemen” for the meeting.
To the left of the “right hand” and concurrently old friend of the patent holder, a very curious person sat with her legs crossed.
A sly look in violet eyes, tall stature, wasp waist, swan neck, predatory beauty sung by poets, long hair the color of a raven’s wing, and an expensive black dress sewn with diamonds, with an open neckline revealing a sight of voluminous hemispheres pleasant to the male gaze.
A beauty almost impossible to obtain naturally, it was obviously the legacy of millennia of genetic selection and deliberate modifications of human DNA, which directly indicated the girl’s noble origins, with roots stretching back to the time of the Imperium of Man’s founding.
All these refinements, mannerisms, the ability to carry herself, barely perceptible details in the behavior of the noble lady, like a heap of subtle hints and clues in a tangled puzzle, all boiled down to a single invisible word that could be boldly branded on her forehead with red-hot metal — “Bitch!” And that would be the absolute truth.
Melissa Lownes, an aristocrat from the world of Tetrion, which is several light years from Terra itself, but she behaves as if the balconies of her native spire look directly onto the Golden Throne of the Emperor himself.
Arrogant, impudent, lacking patience, the girl possessed an enviable ability to drench people from head to toe with filth, demonstrating her status, while never directly insulting anyone.
A difficult interlocutor who, thanks to her sharp tongue, had managed more than once to put not just anyone, but planetary governors of major Hive Worlds, into the pose of a humble courtesan.
Difficult to deal with, like a person whom most of the Rogue Trader’s personal Retinue secretly envied and at the same time felt a strong antipathy towards (which, however, did not stop at least half the crew from relieving accumulated stress by mentally picturing the image of the noble daughter of the House of Lownes).
Melissa was initially a constant headache for Alrik.
But not so much because she irritated him with her innate arrogance — towards the holder of the Warrant of Trade himself, she behaved quite tolerably (at least in his personal presence) — but because the in every sense provocative behavior of this noble lady negatively affected the other members of the former interrogator’s retinue (the crew of the Kraken the daughter of House Lownes didn’t even consider human).
In other words, Melissa could hardly be called a team player… These not-so-pleasant character traits of the aristocrat were especially evident in her “interaction” with Ingard.
No, the woman never insulted him directly.
She simply refused to acknowledge the Catachan as a human being.
In her eyes, he was something like a bald forest ape.
Similar to the Jokaero who had settled on the Kraken, only uglier and many times dumber… The most piquant moment in this whole farce was that the woman wasn’t in the least bothered by the fact that Ingard, for a second, held the position of “Second after God” in the entire trading fleet (or third, if one stopped blaspheming and included the Master of Mankind in the short list).
Melissa thought nothing of publicly questioning his authority or, in front of subordinates, contesting orders given by the ex-Guardsman.
Of course, the stern native of Catachan, who had killed the Catachan Devil several times and survived several years of his own vendetta against an entire hive-fleet, wouldn’t have cared about the antics of a spoiled noble girl if her antics had only concerned him personally, but a public undermining of his authority in front of the entire crew was something Ingard could not tolerate.
In fact, he had asked permission a dozen times to get rid of this, quote, “emancipated bitch”!
The methods of “getting rid” ranged from the banal (twisting off her pretty head, throwing her naked out of an airlock, giving her a walk to the core of the Warp drive) to the perverted (giving the girl to the sailors from the lower decks to be torn apart, arranging a mating session with a grox named “Petya — a meter and then some”) and even quite exotic (once, after a bottle of vintage amasec, Ingard suggested feeding the daughter of noble blood alive to a recently acquired viskeon*… When it soon turned out that the xenos didn’t eat humans, Ingard was greatly disappointed).
In other words, Melissa Lownes had become quite a thorn in the long-suffering backside of the Rogue Trader.
A logical question arises — why hadn’t Alrik, if not thrown this “person” out of an airlock, at least left her on the first inhabited world of the Imperium?
There were reasons for that… Of course, Alrik would never allow anyone to treat his crew that way, indulging the airs of an arrogant noble girl.
But Melissa was special not solely because of her social status.
She was a Delta-plus level Primaris Psyker**!
One of the best in her group of psykers trained at the Scholastica Psykana.
Outstanding indicators, an iron will, unique skills, a large number of mastered disciplines — all this made the daughter of House Lownes a largely irreplaceable asset for the Rogue Trader’s Retinue.
That is why Eyvor only conditionally punished Melissa for her unworthy behavior, and also ordered Ingard to tolerate her company, as she would stay with them until the end.
Alrik could not afford to let such luck slip through his fingers.
He had met her in a rather unusual way.
The first time the Rogue Trader encountered Melis was in the bastion fortress of the line fleet at Aquius, the Trader’s home sector.
Active negotiations with the commanding Lord Admiral were in full swing there, and a large banquet had been organized to celebrate their successful conclusion.
Cup after cup, glass after glass, decanter of fine wine after decanter, word after word… Suddenly, out of the blue, the already thoroughly “merry” admiral proposed a game of cards with Eyvor.
He, naturally, didn’t refuse.
The admiral was dead drunk, while Alrik, in turn, was prudently sober, having only taken a sip for appearances… All in all, stacking the deck in his favor wasn’t difficult.
Eyvor had been thoroughly trained in the art of filigree cheating by a ganger from the inquisitor’s old retinue decades ago, and the skills he’d acquired hadn’t dulled since.
Getting back to business… Victory followed victory, and by the end of the game, Eyvor found himself (besides the Lord Admiral’s gold-stitched trousers with a family buckle on the belt) in possession of several million credits and a brand-new frigate.
The final stake had been the daughter of the noble House Lowne, his personal psyker.
The admiral was so drunk he no longer really understood what he was betting.
As one might guess, Alrik won, and Melis was grateful to him for taking her away from that mortal tedium, though the very thought that she had been gambled away like a low-grade whore left a noticeable mark on her sense of self-worth.
Eyvor was able to fully appreciate his luck a little later, when the girl, right before the eyes of the former Inquisition acolyte, wrung out a traitor Astartes like a wet rag without any visible difficulty.
The icing on the cake was the fact that Melis’s arsenal of techniques and disciplines wasn’t limited to just a set of combat skills.
The girl proved herself not only as a master telekinetic but could also transmit messages no worse than the best astropaths the Rogue Trader’s fleet had at its disposal.
From then on, he always took her along as a member of his party.
Off to the side of this “inseparable pair” sat a “pair” of a slightly different kind.
Two brothers, whose grim faces were hidden behind thick beards and rags wrapped over them.
Squats.
Some of the few last survivors of their native stronghold.
The last few centuries had been a true test of strength for the Squat worlds.
First came the invasion of the Tyranid hive fleet, which swept through Squat space like a destructive hurricane, burying a good half of the ancient Strongholds under it, and when the threat passed and the miraculously surviving remnants could straighten their shoulders to rebuild what was destroyed… The herald of the End Times struck.
The Cicatrix Maledictum, or as it’s commonly called — the Great Rift, which split the galaxy in half.
The brothers couldn’t be considered fully human in the strictest sense of the word, though of all the so-called “abhumans,” they were the closest to that concept.
Short, barely reaching the chest of a normal adult human like Eyvor (and coming up to the waist of strapping fellows like Ingard), stocky, muscular, wiry brothers, Philip and Clegane, differed somewhat from the stereotypical images of Squats that had become widespread across most territories controlled by the Imperium of Man.
Despite common misconceptions, these Squats were a bit different.
Despite various crude jokes about their height, Squats were still taller than, say, Ratlings (who were the source of such jokes).
The brothers didn’t have the outrageously thick, caricatured beards and huge, bulbous noses they were described as having in various rumors.
What’s more, if Philip and Clegane had happened to serve in the Vostroyan regiment of the Imperial Guard, the local veterans would have called them beardless whelps with their sparse stubble, which they, to the great bewilderment of Vostroya’s sons, dared to call a beard… In principle, they looked quite human; only their height gave away their true origin.
Alrik had met the brothers when, at the head of his Retinue, he was exploring a space hulk filled to the brim with coveted, valuable archaeotech, and along with it, far less coveted Genestealers and Tyranids.
A thrilling story, full of firefights and adventures, but that’s for another time… Let’s get back to our sheep, that is, the Squats… With the remnants of their people, the brothers fled from their native stronghold, whose bastions, impregnable for long millennia, had finally crumbled under the onslaught of the Leviathan hive fleet after a long siege that had lasted nearly three years.
The desperate refugees didn’t manage to get far.
An ill-timed Warp Storm damaged the ships’ engines, leaving them helplessly adrift in the void of cruel space.
The hive managed not only to catch up with its prey but also to inflict irreparable damage by launching boarding parties.
The survivors of the ensuing massacre were few, and yet they had to flee at sub-light speeds towards the ugly cosmic hulk that the Warp Storm had spat into realspace.
For many years they hid inside the vast space monster, playing cat and mouse with the Tyranids and Genestealers, hiding among the bodies of their kin, until Eyvor found them.
In fact, the brothers had no choice but to join the Rogue Trader’s Retinue.
After long years aboard the hulk, they had become grim and taciturn; even decades later, they refused to reveal the details of their past life.
The holder of the Warrant of Trade vaguely suspected that during the darkest times of their stay on the space hulk, things might have gone as far as cannibalism… But for Alrik, such thoughts didn’t matter much.
What was far more important was that the brothers, being first-class demolitionists, excellent fighters with vast survival experience, became an excellent addition to his Retinue.
In the darkest corner of the bridge stood another figure significant to the Trader.
Taumi Otto, a legendary thief and burglar from Necromunda.
The woman wore a dark, tight-fitting jumpsuit that didn’t restrict her movements, along with a hood that concealed her eyes.
Of all the Trader’s retinue, the least was known about her.
Unknown where she was born, how old she was, or what she did before.
No matter how hard Alrik tried, he never found any information about her.
All he knew about her was what she herself had told him.
In her time, she had been a Magos of the Mechanicus from a Forge World, the name of which the Tech-Priestess hadn’t deemed necessary to reveal.
Everything was going well, and a successful future awaited her in the service of the Machine God… But at some point, for reasons Taumi tactfully chose to remain silent about, she turned away from the sacred 16 Laws, which among the Mechanicus meant certain death.
A slow and undoubtedly agonizing death, the fate of all whom the Tech-Priests of the Omnissiah deemed guilty of techno-heresy, was clearly not on Otto’s list of immediate future plans, so she didn’t wait for her brothers in faith with their galvanic rifles at the ready***.
Having orchestrated a small act of sabotage that escalated into a full-blown worker uprising, the Magos hastily left her native Forge World, fleeing by hiding in the hold of a merchant vessel that happened to be heading for Necromunda.
Having shaken off her pesky pursuers and finally arrived on Necromunda, the Tech-Priestess started a new life with a clean slate.
She renounced her past, taking a new name — Taumi Otto.
Arriving in the infamous hive Primus, the servant of the Machine God, who had gone to the dogs, descended to the very bottom, into the deepest depths of the Underhive.
But she didn’t lose the will for a better life and began to develop her skills as a technical burglar.
Soon, unlike many others, luck smiled on her — Taumi managed to find a unique piece of archaeotech, without losing her head in the process of obtaining it.
For many of the dregs on Necromunda’s lower levels, such an achievement could easily have been the pinnacle of their criminal career.
Sell the found archaeotech, and you could live like a king for the rest of your life, breathing in (almost) fresh air to your heart’s content… However, Taumi chose a different path.
Having analyzed the discovered technology, the former servant of the Machine God managed to successfully integrate the archaeotech she had obtained into her main line of work, which helped elevate the level of her sabotage operations to unprecedented heights (not to mention the complete power outage at the Delaque House residence… For an entire day, House representatives ran around in panic, trying to fully comprehend what had happened, as data worth several fortunes had been burned on their servers…).
Soon, all the more or less significant houses of the hive city learned of Taumi’s outstanding skills and began hiring her as a freelance mercenary for their wars.
Technical specialists of an extra class, who could bypass any security system, crack any digital lock, and even take control of unmanned equipment, don’t grow on trees.
Naturally, the payment for the rendered “services” was corresponding… However, Otto didn’t limit herself to just working for the “noble houses.” The Tech-Priestess wasn’t shy about “working” solo, striking at the assets of enemy houses while mercilessly plundering their treasuries.
Over time, Taumi’s “elusiveness” played a cruel trick on the Tech-Priestess.
Her appetites grew, and her soul craved new sensations… It got to the point where she robbed the Great House Catallus, earning their eternal hatred.