Thread: Tales of the Expanse (me and DuxT)

I know you're used to iron-clad military regulations, but I assure you that you'll be hard-pressed to find a finer crew in the Expanse when it comes to getting the job done, Jacob said, and I expect you'll be seeing a lot of that while we're on Damaris. They'd picked up a message from Damaris while they'd been resupplying at Footfall - the Imperial colony was smack-dab in the sights of an ork invasion and they were seeking help from anyone willing to assist. That the world was home to a relic of Saint Drusus was just further incentive to keep the orks from claiming it. Not to mention that they would be in serious need of construction materials afterwards that Jacob could turn into a rather lucrative trade route - House Morek was not in the best financial position at least not by the standards of an ancient Rogue Trader Dynasty, they were still wealthy enough to require small armies of accountants to track it all so any additional revenue sources were desperately needed. Got the signal for translation, Captain, Helmsman Blensk called out, just give the word. Take us out, Blensk, then set course for Damaris. Jacob replied, the order giving the church acolytes the signal to double the volume of their hymns, adding to the cacophony of organised noise that all starship bridges were filled with when it came to entering or leaving the Immaterium. Every man, woman and servitor on the bridge knew which voices to listen for and which to tune out, letting them operate efficiently despite any non-voidfarer hearing it as nothing but random noise. All hands brace for real-space translation, Blensk signalled across the ship's vox network, translation in thirty seconds. In real space, a purple hole in reality formed in the void, bolts of energy licking out into the Materium as though desperate to gain purchase on the physical world. Out of this came a shining beacon of pale-blue light, visible even though the last remnants of its Gellar Field. Running from the bilge-deck all the way to the highest spires of bridge and navigation, His Light Triumphant blazed with spotlights and null-flames beaming proudly into the eternal night. It would be easy to think that she was afire on all decks, if the holographic flames didn't flicker as they licked into the void. None would mistake the vessel as anything but a cruiser - five kilometres of adamantium and ceramite with screen guns that could swat a hab block out of the void - but she's got the lines of a destroyer and the moves to match. When her engine roars and hurtles her through the void, she moves like a vessel half her size and a tenth her age and isn't ashamed of that fact. It's not until one is looking at the vessel from up close that one realises why members of the Mechanicus consider this appointment a great honor, despite the taint that still hangs over her owners. Her plasma drive, a thing from when Man conquered the stars with courage and arrogance that the Morek's still lay claim to, is visible clear through her skin. One can make out the outline glowing straight through God-Emperor knows how many layers of armour and hull, and the main power relays snaking out along the whole length of the ship give off their own bright afterglow. How visible light can get through that much is unknown, but the old deckhands say that the light she gives off isn't just excited photons jumping about. Her light, they say, is His light triumphant. As the hole in space closed behind them, the bustle of activity settled. The various priests finished their hymns - which for the Tech-Priests meant an ear-splitting squawk of Binary - and departed the bridge, their tasks completed for now. As they moved, Jacob stood and walked to the holo-table in the middle of the bridge as it fired up one Tech-Priest obligingly giving it the Rite of Percussive Maintenance as he passed to bring the images into focus, augur operators already feeding long-range information to it. As the planet and the ships in orbit came into view on the table, Jacob was already getting a bit worried. Now I'm certainly no von Ravensburg , but even I can tell that that is not a proper defensive formation. He was sure that Lauren would notice it as well. The vessels in orbit over Damaris should have taken up a defensive and mutually supporting formation, but were instead split into separate, distinct squadrons. A separate panel appeared near the vessels on the table, showing details of detected vox traffic - and showing that there were at least three entirely separate vox-nets in use by the defenders when a single, unified network would do the job far better. The defenders may have all wanted to keep the planet safe, but it was pretty-damn clear that they weren't working together on it. I have the sneaking suspicion that we're going to be the ones sorting out this mess.