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 Escalon Seven; 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 planet, a mass of colour that formed into all manner of continents of varying size, a civilised planet of the Emperor's Imperium that was both without law and prime hunting-grounds for the more...unscrupulous inhabitants of the galaxies fringes. Briefly he pondered, would the Imperium ever try to reclaim this planet from the clutches of corruption and vice? Why, it was only a few light-years 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 planets largest landmass, 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 Escalon Seven, 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, and tell Missionary Barkov and to meet me in the hangar."
"Aye lord, as you wish."
It took half an hour for Drake to fully prepare himself, giving his resident religious fanatic time to ready his things and head toward the hangar bay, a small shuttle - able to carry Drake, Barkov and a dozen Armsmen - 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, one that would be his three-eyed passenger, 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 Missionary as 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 former Drill-Abbot with a smile, one hand gesturing to the shuttle, the other resting on the butt of his stubber.
"Tell me Artyom, are we ready to go? Are you ready to go?"
