Lord-Captain Horatio Drake - maligned and recently ostracised scion of House Drake - squatted like some grotesque upon his command-throne, his pale and aristocratic features fixed in an expression of extreme pensiveness, while his mind roamed hither and thither; even now he could still recall, all those months ago, the joyous moment when his father had announced that he would become the recipient of his very own Warrant of Trade. That moment had swiftly passed as soon as he had departed holy Terra, given a single vessel from his families miniature armada of ships, enough wealth to show that he was not completely destitute, and once drifting through the empty black of space he had only then fully understood why he been given the Warrant...and how final his exile was. It was true, he had never believed that his hedonistic ways and lack of interest in family matters would amount to anything, but as the twelfth son he soon discovered that he had been termed 'expendable' by his progenitor and selected to spread the honour of his House or die in the attempt - for the House of Drake it was a situation in which they could not lose!

Even the chariot which would allow him to make his way through the cosmos was of the lowest quality, at least in terms of what his father may have been able to gift him. It was a Cobra-class Destroyer, one of the most common ships in the Imperium, one that could accurately be termed as 'mass produced' by shipyards galaxy-wide, five-point-seven megatons of Terran craftsmanship and equipped with a crew of some fifteen-thousand. For ease of use, and to lessen expense, at least ten-thousand of those crew were servitors - blank minded fusions of man and machine, thoughtless slaves to his every whim - the remainder being living beings who made up up his closest advisors, a cadre of Armsmen who bore his family crest on their uniforms, and many he could truthfully not care less about. Perhaps the only advantage of the ship, that he had named the Golden Aquila, was the speed with which it could travel and manoeuvre, and the torpedo tubes that he had removed to make room for larger cargo holds.

Eyes half closed, he listened intently to the soft humming of the ships engine, the vibrations moving from the deafening epicentre of origin and up to his ears; he enjoyed listening to them, for they soothed his constantly frayed nerves and eased his troubled mind. This was because, deep down in his heart and soul, he knew that he was no explorer...no Rogue Trader...he was just some shaving from the block of wood that was his family, whittled away with a knife and thrown onto the fire that was his current state.

"My lord," spoke a voice, seemingly far away but actually right before him, the gruff First Mate of the ship causing him to tumble back into the world of blinking lights and shifting figures, of sights, sounds and Astropath choirs.

"Mister Briggs," acknowledged the slender man in his clipped Terran accent, one slender hand adjusting his deep green uniform while his other brushed the jet-black hair back against his skull, "what is it, that you must disturb me in the middle of my musings?"

First Mate Briggs sighed inwardly, looking at the figure that was his master and sighing again, "forgive me lord, but we have come into orbit of Footfall; I thought you might like to know." Briggs had the air of a former Naval officer, straight-backed and straight-talking, and never yet had he failed House Drake or its offspring.

"Quite right," agreed the attentive noble, "please, let me see it."

Buttons were pressed, and the command-throne whirred about to look directly out of the viewing window, Drake narrowing his eyes into no more than slits as he rested an elbow on a knee. For moments that seemed to last forever he observed the slowly turning station, a mass of metallic colour that formed into all manner of buildings, a great edifice of the Emperor's might emptied in a time of war and never filled again by its rightful inheritors. Briefly he pondered, would the Imperium ever try to reclaim this place? Why, it was only a few lightyears from Port Wander, and he had seen first hand the efficiency of the Imperial Navy.

"Lord?"

He had known this moment would come, the moment when he was required to leave his ship and descend to the station, but it was not as easy as he had imagined it would be to remove himself from the relative safety of his floating fortress and the protectors aboard; he knew he must go though, for he did not know the Koronus Expanse - into which he intended to travel - and knew full well that most of his bridge crew, as handy as they were with a ship, would not be able to assist him with those duties he could not do himself. Finances for example, one of the greatest joys for many Rogue Traders, was something completely alien to him - Horatio Drake spent currency, he did not study it! Then there was protection from raiders and pirates, networks of contacts to form across the Expanse, as well as issues of not entirely legal nature, and so forth. All these things could go smoother, faster and with greater efficiency if he could find personages more capable than he to work for him; in order to do this he had been directed to Footfall, for he was told that in all the sector there was no more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

"Have my shuttle prepared, Mr Briggs."

"Aye lord, as you wish."

It took half an hour for Drake to fully prepare himself, a small shuttle - able to carry Drake and a handful of Armsmen (for the moment) - would be waiting there, bedecked in his House crest and their colours of black and white. Now, bedecked in his deep green uniform, trimmed with black at the epaulettes and lacing - one in the style of a Colonel of the Imperial Guard no less - and his fine trousers with there broad central stripe of crimson, he took long strides through the corridors of his ship; beneath this uniform he wore carapace armour, an auto-stubber on one hip, his family chain-axe, an heirloom handed down from the times before the Horus Heresy, on his other.

Upon entering the hangar, a vast expanse the size of a cathedral, he noticed not for the first time just how small he and the multitude of servitors seemed in comparison. "Indeed," he quipped to himself as he moved, "the Emperor does like to make us feel small..." in the distance he could pick out the shuttle and at least a dozen figures around the open ramp at the rear, his steps echoing loudly as his boots clanged against the metal grating of the floor, noise blocked out by the sheer amount of activity taking place around them; here some servitors were lifting and moving empty storage crates, others making snap repairs on otherwise functioning pieces of venerable technology, and above all the all-pervading thrum of the engine.

Picking out the escort he made his presence felt - the Armsmen moving aside to flank their superior, salutes thrown up by every man of them, each then forming the sign of the Aquila - Horatio greeted the usually aloof men with a smile perfected on women and blue-bloods, one hand gesturing to the shuttle, the other resting on the butt of his stubber.

"So, let us see what Footfall has to offer."

It was no secret as to the sheer volume of pirates and mercenaries that came through Footfall nor their ever present need for armaments. Jerricho fit the niche of illegal arms dealing like a puzzle piece and that suited him just fine. Calling him famous would be an overstatement, but his reputation for reliability and quality merchandise had quickly spread b word of mouth. He’d even needed to hire a few employees to deal with the ever increasing number of orders. Jerricho actually preferred dealing with pirates and the like. More organized criminals were too demanding and petty thugs were often stupid enough to think they could pull one over on him. The worst were legitimate customers who asked annoying questions like “is it safe?” and “is that dried blood on the receiver?” However, sometimes he needed a bit of extra coin to afford new stocks and currently he was stuck dealing with a pair of those aforementioned idiot-variety thugs.

“C’mon mate can’t we work something out? We’ll pay you half now and--”
"No."
“But you di--”
“No.”

The more he looked at the two men the more irritated he was. The one flapping his gums trying to bargain had his blue dyed hair up in a mohawk with the sides of his head shaved. Jerricho wondered if he could peel his eyebrow off like masking tape by pulling on one of those ridiculous piercings and became more inclined to try with each passing second. The other man was mercifully quiet but still looked moronic with those spiked goggles on his forehead.

Jerricho sighed and pointed to the door of his shop.
“What does the sign say?”
“Uh... open?”
“The other one you tenth wit. It says “no bargaining” right there on the door. So why are you wasting my time? Actually, I don’t care why. Pay or leave.”

Mohawk’s face twisted into a furious snarl as he leaned over the counter and began to shout in Jerricho’s face. Emphasis on began. The moment his spittle touched the arms dealer a shot rang out. The man let out a strangled gurgle and fell back, hitting the floor with a thump, a fist-sized hole in his gut leaking both blood and shredded bits of intestine. His partner jumped and went for a laslock but received an instant lobotomy for his trouble. Jerricho sighed and holstered his scatter pistol, pinching the bridge of his nose. This was going to be a pain to clean up. He tried to be professional and orderly, he really did, but it seemed half the settlement was hell bent on preventing that.

“What a fucking mess,” he grumbled as he turned to open the closet behind the counter and retrieved a mop, bucket, and some plus size trash bags ready to go, “and after I just had the floor scrubbed yesterday.”

Jerricho started piling the near headless corpse into one of the bags before he turned at the sound of a wet cough from the other body. He met the man’s eyes and saw the indescribable pain and fear they held. Jerricho stood, making his way over to the survivor and ended his life in a swift angled stomp that wrenched his neck to the side with a wet snap. As he dragged the first bag out the front door, the arms dealer couldn't help but wonder where all these idiots came from and why they felt so inclined to enter his shop.

Jingo sat huddled behind her makeshift altar, fiddling at and comforting the servo-skull in her lap as pistol shots cracked through the air and chipped away at her ever decreasing shelter.

“There, there, Matteo, we’ll soon have buzzing around like usual.”

Things were not going according to her projections.

She’d arrived on Footfall months ago, ready, willing and eager to transfer to to the Rogue Trader Julius Montleban; honoured to serve as technical and spiritual advisor to one of those brave entrepreneurs that explored the wild unknown of the galaxy.

Unfortunately, the dock she’d reported to had been empty. The Administratum had suggested that Montleban might have been rescheduled, lost in the Warp, taken by Xenos or may not have ever existed in the first place. They’d promised to have a definite answer for Jingo in the next 18-36 months but had been suspiciously vague on which solar systems months they’d been going by.

Still, Jingo was never one to let a little thing like having her whole life’s plans go awry to get her down!

She’d spent some time in the Shield Shrines and marvelled at how the Omnissiah worked to keep Mankind safe even in such hostile places like the void. Travelling through the Void in a ship was one thing, but only the Machine God would be capable of allowing life to thrive in the crude stone structures of Footfall.

And thrive it did! Jingo had been thrilled at all the wondrous cultures that had grown up isolated among the emptiness. Thrilled and a little disappointed, too. These people lived in an impossible reality, even more so than the world Jingo had grown up on, but they all seemed to take it for granted. Yes, there were the cathedrals to the God-Emperor and, yes, there were the shrines to the Omnissiah, but the slavers and the criminals and the drug addicts and the drug dealers and everyone else seemed more interested in their own petty concerns than spending just a few moments each day in thoughts of praise for the God-Emperor, Holy Terra, the Throne and the Omnissiah.

So Jingo had set to work.

Initial attempts at preaching at high-traffic junctions had yielded an unsatisfactory return.

Efforts to herd together a congregation by her servitors had only succeeded in creating varyingly violent mobs.

Finally, Jingo settled on a method that worked. Little servo-motors that clamped into the base of the skull, with Machine-Spirits instructed to hyper-produce endorphins whenever the user listened to or preached the glories of the Omnissiah. It had been a great success! Jingo had been happy to distribute the device to anyone who asked and her flock had swelled considerably in short order. All of them devoted and desperate to practice their faith. They’d all been so happy and attentive and loved to listen to Jingo!

And now, for some bizarre reason, the Narco-tribes and drug barons were accusing her of invading their territory! Just because she’d chemically altered a few dozen people into feeling ecstatic whenever they express their faith! She was just spreading the good word and now people were attacking her!

Jingo smacked the base of Matteo’s skull a few times, trying to wake up the dormant Machine -Spirits inside the servo-skull to no avail. Her voxcaster let out a screech of Holy Binary, commanding one of the servo-motors on a member of her congregation to stand up. The bony woman managed to let out a gasp of surprise as her traitorous legs lifted her into view before three separate gunshots honed in on her and extinguished her life.

The three shooters did reveal their positions, however, and were promptly taken down by Jingo’s flock in a barrage of gunfire.

Still, from the acoustic and visual reports, it seemed the Narco-tribes had no shortage of troops to send her way. She couldn’t spend all her flock like that and still come out on top. It wasn’t the way she’d like to exit this situation, but Jingo had no choice but to let out another screech of Holy Binary, boosting endorphin and adrenaline levels in all her flock.

She heard the faithful scream in excitement, joy, anger and pain as they rushed the drug gangs of Footfall; and Jingo scurried deeper into her makeshift chapel, ducking into a back passage and hopping onto her servitor, Otto, commanding it to carry her away from the conflict zone.

It was a shame it had turned out like this, but she’d gathered a lot of good data that would help her next attempt at spreading the good word.

Maybe it was time to find somewhere a bit further afield, though.

@Jbcool

Rupert looked up from inspecting his flamer to have a quick glance at his rather underwhelming new lord and master, Lord-Captain Drake. He hadn't actually met the captain in charge before Lord Drake arrived on the recently rebranded Golden Aquila (He had actually asked some of the older crew members about the renaming. Much to his own surprise, their home being renamed like that was actually fairly common but due to their way of life often had no impact on them in the slightest), but from what stories and information that he had been informed of from the story tellers and elder crew members, Lord Drake was currently being viewed in a neutral light as far as captains went.

The fact that he clearly didn't seem to care about the inner workings of his ship or the interactions between the ship tribes/nations that had formed had actually been seen as a positive by most of the crew since it meant that he wasn't likely to get underfoot or try to change anything... removing the torpedo bays to replace them with more cargo space had caused an uproar among the ship tribes, but it hadn't been due to the action itself; The Spottar-Gunnar Coalition had been dedicated to operating and maintaining the torpedo bays and the change was forcing them to redefine who they were. It didn't help that Cargonia was making a case that the expanded cargo bays fell under their God-Emperor given domain and the members of the SGC would either be absorbed into Cargonia or at the least become a vassal state, but considering how large that would make Cargonia, none of the other tribes were having it.

It was doubtful that something as serious as a war was going to break out, but depending on how heated some things got there might be a few brawls, on honor duel or two... maybe even an assassination if things really started to get out of hand.

Still, that didn't exactly distract from the nervousness that came from boarding the shuttle with his new lord and master along with a handful of his junior Janitors. In all of his years he had never once set foot outside of his home, but having to escort Lord Drake on a recruiting mission while the diplomatic talks were taking place meant that he couldn't take the more veteran or diplomatic members of the Janitorial Union with him without risking things turning nasty.

Taking a filtered breath through his breathing mask, he finally decided to speak to Lord Drake as the current head of his defense squad "Lord Drake, what kind of personal are you hoping to find on this mission?"

Isaiah Hussian the Third sat in the corner behind a thick metal table that was currently being shot at. The young grumbling naval officer moved to the corner so that he could watch both approached from around the table. His eyes shot from either side of his make shift bunker as he was waiting for the small gang battle around him to end.

He had been marooned on this station for at least a month after being dropped off by a rogue trader that had technically kidnapped the young craven naval officer. A man came up to the table only to be blasted away by a shotgun in the young mans hands. His hands shook some as he awaited another person to arise but none did. The fight still continued around him, but his corner was somewhat quiet compared to the area around him. Only the eventual stray shot from a weapon landed near him, the table took most of the damage.

After about an hour or so of a small battle raging on a small head came from out of the corner with a laspistol coming with it. His vision scanned the room slowly as nothing but bodies, and marks of battle were left, the bodies mainly looted, except for a few near him. So he went to work, trying to find anything he could sustain himself on for another day or two on this hell hole of a station.

"Now... what did I do in the light of the Emperor to deserve this horrid fate of mine, going through this wasteland of a station... I had everything, only to be locked away on some traders ship... did his work and clerical things and then he just leaves me on this god forsa.." a lasbolt comes out of a door way and he ducked back behind his table, with a small ration bar as the battle began once again around him. But now with more lasfire and solid fire coming his way. It was his time to fight now, even if he just wanted to sit, he would do so, like a coward a shotgun pointed up towards the edge of the table awaiting, once again.

The door to the tavern swung open out into the streets of Footfall and a small hairy figure stumbled out, the various sounds of a packed and well soused tavern crowd spilling out from behind him. He was well lubricated, stepping out for a moment to enjoy the day and take a long drag off a cigar. His last trip with a Rogue Trader group had been sometime ago and he'd found Footfall relatively well suited to his interests. There was alcohol, there were women, and both in various flavors and strengths. Drugs of all sorts, depravities too. Perfect for him, yet he felt ready for a new trip as he almost always was, but then again there was a rather pretty stranger in the tavern. Buxom, loud, short and ripe, all in all just about right.

Holding the cigar in his mouth he combed through his sideburns and tried to set his hair right. Though it had started to go gray it was still thick and wild and not particularly keen to follow his commands. "Come on Roald," he muttered to himself as he fussed about, "we still got a few good years in us." He realized he likely needed a bath and had spent too long awake and in various cycling stages of drunkeness, but that was all part of his charm wasn't it? He wasn't the sort to be invited to meet a young woman's parents. Not his forte. He was more the curiosity quencher. He was half sized sure, but was he 100% half sized? Only one way to find out.

He took one last long look around town to see if he could spot any tell tale signs of coming adventures. As was so often the case there were gunshots sounding off from somewhere or other, ships burning through the skies to land from their last trip or set off on a new one, there just might be opportunities coming up short on the horizon. In a place known for it's vice there usually were. Still plenty of time to take his shot. If he wound up finding something for tomorrow he might as well make this night memorable. He licked his fingertips and used them to kill the cigar, dropped it back into a pocket, and pushed his way back into the tavern with a purpose.