Captain, My Captain!

Session 5

Written by Jason (jymmijamz)

Game – Rogue Trader

(Run by) GM – Chris

Altius (Astropath Transcendent) – Jason (jymmijamz)

Victris (Navigator) – Will

Admiral Winter (Lord Captain) – Tanya

Gnothics Sexxophin (Explorator Tech Priest) – NightUlf (Darren)

Chapter 5

Lord captain Winter lies unconscious on the teleportarium. Arrayed around her, the two servants of Victris stand over his heavily bleeding body. Huddled to one side is a panicked looking Altius, hands on his head moaning. “Ow, ow, my head.” Looking at the motley crew, Gnophics shakes his head. More plebs to mess up the most holy, sacred tech. Seeing the condition of his team he turns back to the cognitor unit, and sets about trying to find the closest medicae facility. Finally he finds the location of a med kit, but soon realises that the ship is a maze, and there is no way of ascertaining the best route.

As Altius takes note of his new environment, and starts to calm down, he notices the condition of his colleagues. Shouting for Victris’ servants to attend to their master, Altius rushes over to the Lord Captain. While he is trying to guess what may be wrong with Admiral Winter, the door to the teleportarium grinds open. Standing, silhouetted in the door way is a figure, blood and gore dripping from his body. Seeing this horrific apparition Altius scuttles, crab like, away from the door.

As the mysterious figure enters, shaking gore from his clothing, a lung drops and bounces into the room ahead of it.

Panderious lifts his hand to his face, and wipes blood from his eyes. “You took your time.” He says looking around the teleportarium chamber. “Those guys look in a bad way. Do they need assistance?” Altius, a little red faced, and trying not to show how scared he was, replies. “Y. Ye. Yes, yes we could use some help.” Getting on the vox, Panderious calls for some help.

A week later, Altius and Gnophics are called to the medicae bay.

As they come around, both Victris and Admiral Winter are aware that something is not right. Standing at the foot of their beds, Avinor looks proudly at them. “I am sorry to say Lord Captain, but your leg was too badly damaged. But thanks be to the Omnissiah, I was able to replace it. Looking down at her new metal leg, Winter gives it an experimental flex. Turning to Victris, Avinor points to the scars on the navigators chest. “Fortunately the same can be said for your heart.” To the back of the room, Gnophics realised that he could not remember there being anything wrong with Winter’s leg, And although Victris’ chest was badly injured, it did not appear to be that bad an injury. Remembering Avinors, Rumoured, tendencies for unnecessary augmentations, Gnophics allowed himself an inward smile.

After a brief meeting with Lord Captain Zanatov, where in light of recent events, they were offered extended credit. The crew finally make their way over to their own ship, for some it is the first time they have set foot aboard Boadicea’s Wrath.

Entering the bridge Lord Captain Winter, surveyed her domain, around her the crew are busy at their posts. As she up to her command pulpit a well dressed male crew member approaches. “Welcome Captain. I am seneschal Markus, appointed by Lord Captain Zanitov. If you need anything, just ask.” With a nod Winter turns to the crew. “Attention!” She shouts. The crew respond slowly and there is the sound of sniggering. Walking calmly and slowly over to the chortling man, she draws back her arm. The next second there is a resounding slap, and the man’s head rocks back. “Please Lord Captain, can I have another one?” the man asks, with a smile on his lips. There is another loud slap. “I said attention.” Captain Winter shouts, spraying the man’s face with spittle. This time the crew respond with more vigour. As Winter turns away a woman in an officer’s uniform, who had been leaning nonchalantly, just inside the bridges entrance way, steps forward and draws her snub pistol. “Captain, aren’t you going to give him the Emperors mercy?” She asks, in a loud, gruff voice.

Looking back at her, Winter considers for a moment. “Not just now, we need all able hands.”

Putting her gun away, looking a little nonplussed the woman shrugs. “Whatever, Can I go now or do you still need me?” With a wave of her hand the Lord Captain dismisses her, and turns back to her pulpit, where she meets Marcus. “I see you have met Lylith, our master of soldier. But don’t you think we should get underway?” Turning to Victris, Winter addresses the navigator. “I think we should leave that to our nobilite navigator. Do you not think so Victris?” With a nod of acknowledgement, Victris turns to a nearby navigations cognitor panel, and starts the process of laying in a course to their destination. A planet that rumours would have it, disappeared some time ago. “Altius, how true are these reports likely to be.” He asks, a moment of doubt settling over his mind. Altius thinks for a moment, and then brings up the messages on a nearby data slate. “The communications appear to be real, but they are telepathically dated several hundred years age.” Altius pauses as he reads more. “There are reports here of food shortages, and then they go on about finding previously unknown planets in the area. The final report is of them delving deep below the underhive, following rumours of something that could help.” Altius shrugs. “It’s still just hearsay, but the reports seem real enough.” Nodding his thanks, Victris turns back to his cognitor, and finishes plotting the course. With everything ready, uttering a prayer of actuation he throws a final lever. A slight tremor runs through the ship, and blast shields drop into place over the view ports and observation platforms, all over the ship. With a sudden wave of nausea, the Gellar field expands, and the craft makes the leap into the ebb and flow of the warp.

Some twenty four hours later they are still in the warp, much to Victris’ surprise, as he thought it would only take a day at most! A few hours later Lylith drags several warp infected crewmen onto the bridge, and demands that something be done. Taking a closer look at the gibbering, slavering, lost souls, Winter pull out her power sabre and beheads them. As the last head drops to the floor and bounces away, all the heads start laughing. There is a loud crack, and a stub round punches through one of the heads, to no effect. Lylith looks from the head, to her pistol and back again before firing several more shots into the head. But it just keeps on laughing. “Anyone got any bright ideas?” Lylith asks the room in general. A voice drifts quietly from the room, and a waif like figure steps forward. He is dressed in rough robes, with a large barrelled flamer slung under his arm. Following him are two young children, carrying a large canister of promethium between them. “Fire, we must use fire.” He says, and with a fanatical glint in his eyes, washes a cone of bright, noxious flame over the heads. Finally they fall silent.

In the light of recent events, the Lord Captain decides to make a tour of the ship. During the tour Winter comes across groups of crew worshipping, heretical idols. “If you don’t stop that immediately, I will have you thrown out of an airlock.” She demand of one of the gatherings, to which assure her they will stop. On returning to her cabin she finds the seneschal waiting for her. “What on the throne were you doing out there?” He Asks. “My job!” She replies, pulling a bottle of amasec from a draw. “Your job? Your job is to put down any heretics you find.” “Drink?” Winter asks, pouring herself a glass. “If I have a drink, will you stuff those heretics out of an airlock?” “I might” Winter replies, with a slight smirk on her face.

Grabbing the bottle, Marcus knocks it back, barely pausing for breath. As he finishes, he collapses to his knees and vomits. Slowly, he crumples into unconsciousness. With a wry shack of her head, Admiral Winter activates her internal vox-system. Calling for a bucket of water, and a pot of recaf, she leaves the slumbering seneschal to recover on his own. Lord Captain Winter makes her way back out into the heart of her ship, returning to one of the group with an escort of security staff. On arrival at the store room where she found a group of heretics previously, she catches them at it again, confirming she made the right decision. “I’ve changed my mind.” She says, and signals the guards to arrest the heretics. The guards begin dragging them, kicking and screaming, towards the closest airlock. Several of them had to be executed on the way, but eventually they have their prisoners gathered inside the airlock. Switching on the ship wide holo-system, she announces crimes of heresy committed by the group, and hits the activation stud. The out airlock door hisses open and the crewmembers are sucked out, into the maelstrom of the warp. Within seconds they are surrounded by baying warp creatures. The lucky ones are torn to pieces, whilst others are turned inside out, kept alive by the warp powers of the daemons. Finally their screams die away, as the vacuum of space ends their torment.

As things finally settle down aboard Boadicea’s wrath, Altius makes his way to his cabin. When he gets there he takes a few moments to absorb the peace and quiet, before settling down on his bunk. He pulls out his psychic focus and let’s himself sink into a meditative state, in the hope he can sort through what happened to him on the St Drusus. It is his hope that through meditation he can fortify his mind against it happening again. As he slips deeper in to stillness he can sense the astropathic choir deep in the heart of the ship, drifting in their sensory deprivation chambers. But he can also feel traces of the terror and agony of the recently dismissed crew. Focusing on the telepathic voices of the astropathic choir, using them as an anchor, Altius lets his mind drift out into the warp where it brushes against the Gellar field.

Gnophics Sexxophin is going about his duties, when two tech priests come up to him. As they draw near, Gnophics can finally make out their faces under their hoods, and his Vox-caster spits out a binary burst in greeting. “Shiroijin, Joshua. What can I do for you?” He asks. The hoods of his immediate subordinates turn and look at each other, as if sharing a nervous glance. “Lord Enginseer Gnophics, we have been noticing some fluctuations in the power conduits, in the area of your sanctum. Have you been allowing the junior priests to work unguided?” Gnophics takes a deep worried breath, thinking fast, he does his best to divert them. “No. No, I have not. Are you sure of your calculations?” The senior tech priest looks indignant. “Yes. I followed the rituals to the letter, and then had Joshua here double check them for me.” Gnophics tries to placate him. “I mean no disrespect, I am just trying to be sure that nothing else may have interfered with your rituals.”

“I am classically trained, I do not make mistakes.”

“Okay, you two go back to your duties. I will look into it.” The two tech priests turn away, heading back into the depths of the engineerium. As soon as they are out of sight, a nervous Gnophics hurries down to his sanctum. Passing quickly through the levels of security set in place by him, during the refit of the ship, he soon finds himself standing in front of a zenos device. The device, though of unknown origin, is in the form of a humanoid skull, carved with ancient glyphs. After pausing briefly, to admire the device Gnophics sets about trying to isolate the area, and better hide his none standard tinkering. As he finishes, he allows a flow of power into the device. “Hiss, hiss 24 hours to destination. Hiss, hiss, hiss, 23 hours 59 minutes and 59 seconds, to destination. Hiss, 23 hours 59 minutes and, hiss, hiss, hissss.” A sibilant voice whispers in his ear.

Turning down the power Gnophics tries again. “Hiss, hiss you want to talk? Three planets, same result.” Tapping his vox-bead Gnophics tries to get a fix on any frequencies that could be feeding into the skull. “Who are you?” He asks. “Oh well, I tried to warn you!” And with that statement, the vox-channel goes dead. At that very moment, a shudder runs through the ship. Turning to a nearby cognitor unit, Gnophics tries to ascertain the cause of the sudden shuddering. He soon comes to the conclusion that something is very wrong with the primary power feed to the Gellar field. The field is already down by thirty percent and the warp is closing in around the ship.