Rogue Trader

by Andy Hoare

  ‘Mister Raldi?’ The helmsman turned. ‘I’m going to speak with Master Karisan. You have the bridge.’

  ‘Aye sir,’ Lucian heard the helmsman reply as he stalked from the bridge. If conventional, machine-guided communications could offer no clue, perhaps the ship’s astropath might have more luck, he thought.

  The astropath’s chamber was situated amidships, on the lowest deck. Lucian’s journey took him through an area of his vessel that had taken damage during the skirmish with the Chasmata orbital, and he was forced to double back on himself several times to avoid areas made inaccessible. Work gangs and H-grade servitors packed the gloomy companionways, their junior officers working them around the clock to get the damage repaired, or at least contained.

  As Lucian walked, he cast his mind back over the confrontation, and subsequent emergency jump into warp space. He could feel a pattern emerging, fragments of an overall picture that was not yet ready to reveal itself to him. Luneberg had concealed the true nature of the deal he had sought to negotiate; that much was obvious. Lucian suspected that the Imperial Commander had sought to tie him down on some point of contract, but that, for some reason or other he had changed his mind. Brielle had certainly had some part to play in that, for she had apparently sabotaged the talks quite deliberately. He would find out why, when he found out where she was.

  He recalled the flight from Luneberg’s palace. The man had truly cracked when Brielle had burst in on their final negotiations, and the rogue traders had only barely escaped with their lives. When the orbital had opened fire on them with a weapon that Lucian knew was of alien origin, things had begun to make more sense to him. The weapon, what Lucian took to be some manner of ultra-high velocity mass driver, took its toll on the Oceanid, although she had suffered far worse in her time. The question that begged to be answered, was just where Luneberg had acquired the weapon. He had all but admitted that, at the very least, his world was estranged from the mainstream of the Imperium. Lucian suspected that the Imperial Commander had wavered on the threshold of heresy for some time, and the fact that he had obtained, and used, xenos weaponry suggested that he had decided to take that final step.

  As he waited for a plodding cargo-servitor to pass, Lucian wondered who Luneberg’s allies might be, and on what part he had expected Lucian to fulfil in the venture. Lucian cast his mind over the archives he could recall of this region, but he could not think of a single xenos race that might have entered into such an arrangement. Indeed, he knew of no xenos this side of the Damocles Gulf that had anything like the level of technology exhibited by the orbital’s weaponry: a previously untracked eldar craftworld, perhaps? He would be surprised in the extreme if a man such as Luneberg had extracted anything out of the enigmatic and unfathomable race, for they were notoriously self-interested and only dealt with others if they were likely to benefit most from the arrangement. Perhaps, thought Lucian, there were other races out there, in the dense and barely charted regions beyond the gulf.

  Looking up from his thoughts, Lucian realised that he had reached his destination: the chamber of Master Karisan. He extended his hand to knock on the frame, but withdrew it as the door was pulled open from within, and he was greeted by a musty, incense-laden scent.

  ‘My master, please enter,’ said a voice from within the dimly lit chamber.

  Lucian stepped through, into the domain of the flotilla’s astropath. The man was ancient, having served a long series of vessels for many decades. He was long past his prime, in Lucian’s opinion, and he rarely called upon his services unless it was vital. He had resolved to seek a replacement when he was able, but the guild had thus far been unwilling to retire Master Karisan. Lucian suspected that they wanted the ancient telepath out of way, and it would take a substantial disbursement to change their minds. It was just one more unwelcome reminder of the failing power of the dynasty.

  The chamber was wide and low, taking the form of a blister upon the Oceanid’s underbelly. One entire wall was a mighty viewing port, beyond which the vessel’s underside and the blackness of starry space were visible. The room was cramped, but not for want of available space. Instead, every surface was crammed with what Lucian took for junk. Long-burned candles, crumpled parchment, dry, dead things and other unidentifiable rubbish littered the place. Master Karisan appeared entirely at home in this environment, for his own appearance was equally dishevelled. A halo of wispy unkempt grey hair framed his craggy face, from which his empty eye sockets stared blankly, his eyes having been burned away by the rite of Soul Binding. He wore a soiled robe of what was, once, lustrous dark green velvet. The telepath bowed as Lucian entered.

  ‘You have need of my services, my master?’

  ‘I do, Master Karisan,’ although I wish I didn’t, thought Lucian.

  ‘Quite so,’ said Karisan. ‘Please, be seated.’

  It took Lucian a moment to determine exactly where Karisan expected him to sit, before the telepath indicated a soiled cushion in the centre of the rubbish-strewn floor. He sat, disturbing something living as he did so, which scuttled off into a dark corner.

  ‘Rats,’ said Karisan. ‘They are ever attracted to the lower decks.’

  Lucian suppressed the thought that the vermin were also attracted to chambers full of stinking rubbish.

  ‘Master Karisan, I need you to attempt to reach the Rosetta or the Fairlight. I fear they may be–’

  ‘Adrift?’ Karisan cut in.

  Irritation flared in Lucian at the man’s interruption.

  ‘Or delayed, displaced. You know what might occur within the warp, Master Karisan.’

  The other man let out a high-pitched giggle, ‘Oh yes my lord, well do I know what awaits within the Sea of Souls. Well do I know.’ The telepath reached up and clutched a dried fetish from where it dangled on a leather thong. He sniffed it, and rubbed it along his cheek with a delicacy that Lucian found quite disturbing to witness.

  ‘I am asking you, Master Karisan, to do what you can to contact them. Are you able to do so?’

  ‘Able? Yes my master, I am able.’ The telepath cast about him to clear a space on the floor, and then drew his legs up under him into a crossed-legged pose. ‘Willing, you might say, yes? The object of our search might yet be beyond our reach, traversing, as you say, the empyrean. Never mind, for even there, they will be known to us.’

  Lucian had witnessed several rites of astropathic communication in his time. No two had ever been the same, but he knew better than to interrupt the man, and so settled back to await the result.

  Master Karisan began to mutter under his breath, the words just about audible, but entirely unintelligible to Lucian. The man’s breathing deepened, and he appeared to enter the opening phase of some form of trance. The muttering became more guttural, and Karisan’s head rolled back. At the same moment, the temperature in the chamber dropped sharply, a creeping sensation passing over Lucian’s scalp. The shadows in the gloomy chamber drew in, and Lucian felt the unmistakable notion that something hostile lurked within them, looking out, straight at him.

  ‘They cannot hurt you, master,’ muttered Karisan, Lucian forcing himself to keep his eyes on the other man, and not to fall to the instinct to look behind himself.

  The temperature fell still further, a thin skein of ice creeping across the viewing port, obscuring the view of space beyond. Karisan groaned, opening his mouth a number of times, as if attempting, but unable to speak.

  Then he burst out, ‘They are there!’ The telepath’s head rolled back to its normal position, and he looked straight at Lucian through empty eye sockets. ‘They are not where you feared my master, or at least, your son is not.’

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘The warp is calm now, but it was wracked as we crossed it. The Rosetta is certainly not within the empyrean, of that I am certain, although I cannot speak so surely of the Fairlight. I sense that the Rosetta is nearer, in real space, i
n the here and now. I shall seek her out.’

  Karisan sank into his trance once more, much quicker this time. He muttered what sounded to Lucian like nothing more than nonsense. The temperature dropped still further, and Lucian caught the fleeting scent of something sharp and acidic.

  ‘Voices!’ Karisan called, a childlike, wondrous expression appearing on his wizened old face. ‘Many voices… my brothers. The ether is alive with them!’

  ‘Alive with what, Master Karisan? Explain!’

  Karisan leant forward and took Lucian’s elbows in his gnarled old hands, shaking him. ‘Alive with the Song of the Ever-Choir, my master. It’s quite beautiful. I have not heard it sung so eloquently in many years, and never at all this far out on the Rim.’

  Lucian fought to keep control of his rising temper. Karisan was rapidly becoming a liability; that much was clear. He had been for some time in fact. Lucian took a deep breath nonetheless, determined that he would not lose control, not yet at least, not until he was in a position to negotiate with the guild for a replacement astropath.

  ‘Karisan,’ now Lucian leaned forwards, trying as hard as he could to engage the man in meaningful conversation. ‘Karisan, listen to me. I need to know what, by Saint Katherine’s holy arse, you are going on–’

  ‘Astropathic messages my master! The ether is alive with them. They are so–’

  ‘From whom, Karisan?’ asked Lucian, a dreadful idea already forming in his mind. ‘From whom?’

  ‘From everyone, my master!’ Now Karisan began to laugh, a genuinely gleeful sound, not the manic laughter of a madman that he had voiced earlier. ‘I shall add my call to theirs.’

  ‘From everyone?’ Lucian was prepared to strike the astropath, despite the severe censure from the guild that such an act would earn him when it was discovered. ‘What are they saying Karisan? Tell me this and I shall leave you to add your voice to your fellows’.’

  Karisan leaned in towards Lucian, normality, even sanity, apparently returning once more. ‘The voices belong to my brother and sister astropaths, my master, and the song they sing is of such beauty because they all sing the same message. Every astropath for ten, twenty, thirty light years sings the same message.’

  Lucian nodded his encouragement, determined not to interrupt the man now that he was finally making some sense.

  ‘They sing words of freedom!’

  Lucian sat back, rocked to his core by the news. They sang of freedom – a relative notion in the Imperium of Man, he knew, and invariably one much closer to heresy, recidivism or revolt. Every world within anything up to thirty light years, that might be dozens, scores even of civilised systems, each with a population of many millions. How? Who could have instigated such a thing? More to the point, he realised, who could have coordinated it? The logistics of the treachery were truly staggering, the possibilities stretching out before Lucian as he struggled to imagine them.

  His reverie was broken by a new sound, that of Karisan chanting. It was not the insane muttering that he had voiced as he had entered his trance, but something entirely different. The temperature in the room began to rise once more, the frost filming the viewing port melting in the space of scant seconds, to run in rivulets and to collect at the base. Lucian stood, and picked his way across the junk strewn chamber. He left without pausing to look behind, certain that the astropath would now be useless for some time to come. He had in fact been useless for some time past, but Lucian had had no choice other than to tolerate him and his strange ways.

  Ducking through the portal to the corridor beyond, Lucian was surprised to find a junior deck officer standing to attention, and awaiting his emergence with obvious discomfort. Lucian knew immediately that something was wrong.

  ‘What? What is it?’ Lucian glanced at the man’s epaulettes, ‘second lieutenant?’

  ‘Sir… sir, your presence is needed on the bridge immediately.’ The young man was quite obviously in some distress and had run from the bridge to Karisan’s chamber, his voice competing with the need to draw breath.

  ‘What is it man? Calm down and tell me.’

  ‘The… the augurs, sir, they’ve detected…’

  ‘Detected what, lieutenant?’

  ‘Detected a… a fleet, sir. A massive fleet, inbound on our position.’

  Lucian stood on the deck of his bridge, the holograph rotating before him. The static-laced, green-lit representation of surrounding space was incomplete, flickering in and out of focus, but despite this, he could clearly make out the augur returns of a number of capital-scale vessels as they closed on Arris Epsilon.

  ‘Times three, magnify.’ The holo blurred out of focus for a moment, before resolving into a tighter view of the incoming fleet. Lucian studied the vessels, reams of text scrolling next to each, as the Oceanid’s cogitator banks struggled to analyse what scant data the augurs could provide.

  At least seven vessels, all of unknown pattern. All, Lucian judged, of unknown origin. They were alien, he was certain of that, but where had they come from? He knew of no alien civilisation within one hundred light years capable of putting to space at all, let alone in such obviously spaceworthy vessels. He was a rogue trader, and it was his business to know such things, hence he had ordered his vessel onto silent running, augurs restricted to passive mode only, lest the xenos detect their questing spirits.

  ‘Systems?’

  The operations officer at station four turned, replying, ‘All steady sir. She’s displacing less than ten per cent. Not a bad turn for an old girl.’

  Lucian allowed himself a slight grin at the operations chief’s obvious affection for the Oceanid. He shared his appraisal that the old vessel was maintaining herself well. She had not been required to run on such a low level of operation for years, decades even, Lucian realised, and her continued existence may now rely on her being able to do so.

  Turning back to the holograph, Lucian watched as the xenos fleet moved into a high orbit over Arris Epsilon, the augur returns breaking up against the background of the planet. He didn’t know for sure whether his son was on the world, or whether Korvane’s vessel orbited it, perhaps wallowing in the darkness of the far side, but he offered up a silent prayer to the Emperor that he would be afforded some warning of their coming, that he would have time to go to ground before he was discovered.

  Realising there was nothing he could do from his current position, Lucian came to the decision that it would be better for all if the Oceanid retired to the Arris system’s outer reaches, where he would run less risk of detection, and from where he could await the arrival of his daughter. Only then might they be able to plan their next move.

  He turned to sit on his command throne, and a harsh electronic siren wail screamed through the bridge address system, before it cut out jarringly. Lucian turned, instantly, knowing that something was afoot.

  ‘Station four?’

  The servitor at the communications station squealed machine nonsense as its implanted appendages worked the dials and levers across its console. Indicators lit, telling Lucian that the servitor had isolated and intercepted a wide band broadcast from nearby. A moment later a voice rang out across the bridge, the signal perfectly clear, the words flawless High Gothic.

  ‘We come as allies to the Domains of Arris, and invoke the friendship of comrades in arms. This world, as per previous concords, is declared a protectorate. Your warriors are granted the honour of service to the Fire Caste. Your messengers and pilots will soar under the wings of the Air Caste. Your scientists will gain learning and purpose under the supervision of the Earth Caste. Your leaders and merchants will learn words of wisdom and mutual profit under the tutelage of the Water Caste; and all will endeavour towards the ultimate Greater Good, under the guidance of the Blessed Ones: under the protection of the tau empire.’

  Lucian stood, stunned. Not at the fact that an alien race was seeking to gain influence ove
r a human world, that much he had seen before. No, it was the scale of what he was witnessing. This was mass betrayal.

  Karisan had reported that dozens of systems for light years around were declaring their independence from the Imperium of Man. Here, he knew that he saw the instigators of that treachery. Alien fleets, no doubt closing in on dozens of worlds, declaring that the planets were under their control, and, presumably, being welcomed with open arms by the treacherous leaders of those worlds.

  He spat on the cold, metal deck. Someone would pay for this, he promised.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘You see the Mark IIIs of Five Corps?’ Imperial Commander Droon asked Korvane, turning from the railing to look back at his guest, lowering the magnoculars as he did so. ‘Nine entire brigades, a thousand battle tanks: the pride of the Arris Defence Force!’

  Korvane looked through his own magnoculars, following the expansive gesture that Droon made towards the valley floor below. He was stunned by the enormity of the procession unfolding below, although he was humble enough to realise that it was not for his benefit; it was long in the planning, that much was clear, and Korvane waited patiently for its ultimate purpose to be revealed.

  Many thousands of troops having paraded by, a column of mighty armoured vehicles cruised past, ten vehicles wide and a hundred deep, command tanks with their characteristic antennae leading each. The vehicles were a spotless, factory-applied ‘Codex’ grey, each bearing not a vehicle, platoon or company designation, but a multi-digit serial number. Korvane was not a man of a military background, but he knew these vehicles must have been produced with some haste. A thought occurred to him.

  ‘My lord,’ he addressed Droon, who was back at the gallery railing enjoying the spectacle unfolding below. ‘My lord, my fleet’s vessels will be hard pressed to berth the infantry and their equipment. I am unsure how we will accommodate the armoured units.’