Magos Binar bowed and his hologram flickered away, eager to return to the emergency repairs aboard the Q-Ship. A score of support craft swarmed over the molten, and in some cases, still burning holes in its hull. Macroshells that didn’t detonate inside had simply punched through, tearing through support struts, power lines, and crewmen alike.

        Gravity was sporadic. Life sustainers were shredded, and the Vivat was slowly warming because of it. One salvo had been aimed directly at its cargo hold, and the processed ores and foodstuffs bled outward from the ship.

        Anton carefully pressed down on a rune, lifting the opaque privacy field from around his command throne. Clad in his power armour, he stood on the balcony before his command throne, overlooking the bridge. The same runes on his command throne were cunningly built into the railings, though over-sized for his gloved hands.

        Four servitors carefully bore the adamantium casket on their shoulders. Gifts from the Magos, to aid him in the proper donning of the power armour, they were deceptively slender but strong and very dextrous. The gates to the bridge swung open as they returned to his personal armoury vault and to allow crewmen to enter.

        The Blessed Enterprise’s senior officers returned one by one, and station crews were dismissed and rotated, bringing in officers wearing their void-uniforms. It was an optimistic precaution to wear the void-uniforms. Any hits to the bridge would almost certainly lead in nearly everyone’s deaths, but giving the order allowed Anton to relieve the tired bridge crews with a fresh watch.

        Under orders, the previous watch, already overdue for relief, would eat, drink, and sleep for four hours then report to their secondary stations. They would relieve the watch currently attending to those stations who would relieve the ones on the bridge.

        Anton hated that schedule, remembering just how difficult it was to rest while the ship was at alert. All their battles so far had been short, brutal affairs. They’d been strained and stressed, but it was over weeks and months, not a true naval battle that could last for days and have dozens of engagements.

        No rogue trader fought this way. Not even the man who called himself a lord-admiral.

Lord-Admiral Bastille the Seventh was resplendent in his uniform. Honours overflowed from his chest, and the pommel of his power sword glinted even in holo.

        Everyone knew most of those ribbons were self-awarded. Only a few appreciated that the man had accomplished feats that were worthy of medals and decoration, though there were few organizations that could award them. Bastille the Seventh had few friends in the Imperium’s vast bureaucracy and the brutal man had fewer friends in the Expanse.

        Anton had hoped to be one.

        “Lord-Admiral,” he began. “Thank you for taking the time to speak with me.”

        Bastille nodded slowly in response.

        “I regret that we did not have a chance to meet in person. I’m afraid I was too preoccupied with the filth of Footfall to request an audience.”

        A smile.

“Congratulations!” Anton said suddenly, stunning the lord-admiral. “Your ambush was a masterstroke. Oh, I don’t mean the Eldar,” Anton held up a hand, “I would never insult you so, sir. Not many can launch a surprise attack with all their forces out in the open.”

“You are mistaken, lord-captain,” Bastille said finally. “On the contrary, I cautioned against this very thing.” The lord-admiral leaned forward. “I have heard of the Blessed Enterprise and her lord-captain, of course. One light cruiser and two squadrons of escorts? Out in the open void? Bah, they’re fools to attack.”

Anton feigned relief. “That is assuring to hear, lord-admiral. Ma’Kao I can defeat. Armelan I can crush. But I dare not pit a Dictator against a battlecruiser,” he added with a laugh.

Bastille returned it. “No, you’re no fool, Lord-Captain Strom. Though you did almost play us all for fools during that horrid auction!” Bastille laughed and Anton joined in. “How many years in the Battlefleet?”

“Thirty two, lord-admiral.”

“Hah! Two years more than I!” Bastille thumbed runes into his command throne without looking. “Will you kill Lady Belle for all of her treachery and plotting?”

Anton shook his head. “No, lord-admiral. But I will take something from her.” He paused to lend the statement some gravity. “But now that I actually have a chance to survive this, I had hoped to enlist your aid in another endeavour.”

Bastille’s smile grew. “Did you now? And pray tell, what kind of endeavour, lord-captain?”

“The kind we’re best suited for: War.”

A clang reverberated as the final halo barge, the Bucket Comet, docked with the Strom flagship. The Vivat was salvageable, and with months of work it could be rebuilt even in Footfall’s berths. It was time they did not have. Anton waited until the Magos reported before giving the order.

        Thirty megatons of voidship accelerated away from the jade vessels of House Ma’Kao, the ship turning to starboard at the sharpest angle it could manage. The flagship Nihontu was intricately adorned with a jade and gold dragon, and almost as ancient as the Blessed Enterprise. Under Lady Sun Lee, Ma’Kao had gained considerable wealth in the Expanse. Anton had studied her history well; her House was on the decline before she took command.

        He valued her instincts and cunning. She fought battles she could win, overwhelmingly. That was laudable as well, though in Anton’s limited experience, not always possible. The rogue trader had learned to call survival a victory on its own.

        As the cruiser leapt towards the Nihontu, the much closer Armelan frigates neared the broken Q-Ship, the other ships barely keeping formation. One destroyer peeled away, slowing relative to the abandoned hulk.

        Deathspike Squadron coalesced from the detritus of the Vivat. The recommissioned Cobra-class destroyer scrambled to fire its defensive turrets--Anton noted they had been upgraded at Vail, as thanks--but it was too late. The veteran squadron docked with the Blessed Enterprise twenty four minutes later, leaving behind another wreck to join the Vivat as noth drifted towards the system’s star.

        To her credit, Lady Belle Armelan didn’t flinch at the sudden loss of a ship. Another ship fell from the formation, already straining its engines to match the raiders and frigates at cruise, to see to the survivors of the destroyer.

        “Helm, ready Maneuver Four,” Anton said as the ship neared the plotted waypoint. He had worked out the maneuvers with Bain first before he had the commander bring it to the Helm. Ensign Kem took the instructions carefully, though Anton noticed Commander Iosef lingered to make sure there were no mistakes.

        On their present course, the Blessed Enterprise would enter the maximum range of its batteries in just under fifteen minutes. The enginseers had promised to make the engines sing, and it was roaring a ballad of plasma behind the cruiser as it accelerated at velocities to match the lighter vessels pursuing it.

        Lady Sun Lee adjusted her course, timing her approach just after the racing Armelan ships would reach the Blessed Enterprise’s range.

        The waypoint was near. Anton was about to give the order when two Stromgard suddenly seized the Master Helmsman. Ensign Kem tried to scream, but the armsmen wielded Nadueshi stun-staves, and he fell limp in his arms.

“Ensign… Nurovant,” Anton said with only a slight pause. “Take the Helm. Come to new heading! Now!”

The prelaid coordinates were perfect, as perfect as the cogitators would allow. The Enginarium had known of the maneuver and shunted the raging fire of the engines to the maneuvering thrusters. It was smooth, though Anton saw blowouts on several decks.

“Damage teams,” Anton ordered. “Focus on the fires first. Leave the dead thrusters for later.”

The course correction to starboard placed the Armelan ships directly at their aft, the Ma’Kao vessels a little to their port. Then the engines blared to life again and the Blessed Enterprise sped forward. It would lose to a chase, no matter how furiously the enginseers prayed.

A second engine cutout caught the pursuers by surprise. The starboard guns were firing as the engines returned to life again as the ship finished firing its maneuver jets, bringing them back the way they came. Back to the Vivat. Cruisers did not cutout their engines, they powered through and burned arcs in the void. The lighter ships attempted to copy the maneuver, overshooting or misfiring their engines in the mad rush to follow the tight turn.

Two bomber squadrons aimed for another recommissioned Cobra and a privateer of unknown origin. They too had their defenses upgraded at Vail, but the Fury flight crews escorting them knew and planned accordingly. Neither vessel put up enough heavy fire to worry the bombers; several interceptors sacrificed themselves.

Neither vessel survived the Starhawks’ fury.

Barrage after barrage of the Blessed Enterprise’s plasma batteries hammered the nearest frigate. It had leapt ahead, eager to pierce the cruiser with its lance. Its own macrobatteries were useless at this range, but it fired anyway as the plasma shattered its void shields, then its prow, its lance and forward instrumentation.

Pure white light struck the ailing Pride of Weslan from the Blessed Enterprise. Anton looked through the forward vista-panels to gaze at the massive weapon pouring baleful and unknown energies from the ship’s prow. The frigate, another former House Dasser escort, died quietly, tumbling over into the void as savior beacons littered its passing.

“My compliments to the gun batteries, lord-seneschal,” Anton said evenly. There was no doubt that the Mars-pattern plasma-cannon had been worth holding on to, despite what the Vail tech-priests had wanted. The cannon were carefully ensconced in armoured battery rows along the Blessed Enterprise’s port and starboard sides, just over a kilometre long and reaching deep into the ship. Even then, the heavy barrels protruded from the hull.

They were retracting now, Anton was familiarizing himself with the ship’s new sounds and reverberations, so many repairs and refits had changed the Blessed Enterprise in recent times. He noticed another course correction on the Ma’Kao ships in his personal displays.

“Aetherics, show me what Lady Sun Lee is doing.”

The merge happened almost as Anton had predicted it. He had counted on Lady Sun Lee using Belle’s ships as a screen for her own, but not the speed in which she would reply. She sensed blood, even as their ships tried to overcome their momentum and close in at the same time.

Regardless, the distress call came more or less on time. “--under attack! We’re being boarded! I repeat, this is the Grace of Sopha requesting help… By the Emperor! They have boltguns!--”

The Grace of Sopha was the former flagship of House Armelan. The same one Lady Belle had used to secure her current squadron, with Anton’s help and collusion. It had served her dynasty faithfully for millennia, and had been the only ship left in the ruined Armelan fleet.

Anton knew what it meant for Charlabelle Armelan.

It had broken off to render aid to the dying Cobra destroyer and in haste to rescue the crew it had not swept for any additional threats. Not that it would have helped. The guncutters had loaded themselves in the open wounds on the Vivat, magnetically grappling to the hull, deck, or whatever remained that was solid. The armsmen aboard those craft had one objective: to secure the Grace of Sopha for boarding.

An army had waited aboard the Vivat, patiently in their armoured voidsuits, carried over as the crew had been evacuated. The Q-Ship fired its thrusters one final time to bring it close to the ancient transport. Boarding lines snaked out and the Vivat grasped onto the Grace of Sopha like a many-limbed, fat-bodied insect.

Agonizing minutes of broadvox pleas for help ended with the static-wash of a close bolter explosion. Anton listened to the battles through the sanitized battle-cant of the Stromgard. He recognized Damaran and Svardi accents now, new recruits deemed worthy to serve by the Stromgard.

“This is Trelany. Lord-Captain Strom, the Grace of Sopha is ours. Shall we plant scuttling charges?” The message was broadvoxed.

“Ask Lady Belle,” Anton replied in the open.

“No,” came the cold reply. It was a denial more than an answer.

Anton waited for the surviving ships of House Armelan fell away one by one before giving the command to stand down, ending the broadvox. The surviving Armelan frigate and her escorts banked away, sullenly watching the Blessed Enterprise approach the Grace of Sopha as its bombers launched again towards the slowing Ma’Kao ships.

“Prepare to adjust speed and bearing, helm,” Anton called out. “Commander, how’s our rendezvous looking?”

Bain Iosef nodded his head. “Good, lord-captain. They’ll finish laying charges almost as soon as they finish looting her.”

Goddard Thraves was by the command throne in an instant. “You can’t!” the seneschal whispered fiercely, keeping his face and expression away from the rest of the bridge.

Anton did not look at the man. “I must.”

Lady Sun Lee looked down enigmatically at Anton. Both wore power armour, though the Head of House Ma’Kao wore a jade lacquered suit. She had the very image of a dilettante wearing a costume as ill-fiting as Lady Belle’s martial uniform. If it weren’t for the few records of Sun Lee’s personal skill with the blade that his seneschal had acquired years ago, Anton would have dismissed her despite what she had accomplished.

        “I trust the Orks were not too troublesome?” Anton was saying. “We were in no shape to pursue after breaking their main force at Damaris.”

        She smiled beatifically. “Rabble are easily divided. And destroyed.”

        “Quite so,” Anton agreed. He had truly run out of things to say to the woman. She pursued, or rather followed, with her ships in the hours since the Grace of Sopha had been boarded. The watch had rotated out, and Anton had spared an hour to lay rest, though his mind had not let him.

        The call finally came as Anton searched for another topic of conversation.

        “You heartless bastard!” Charlabelle Armelan broadvoxed. The aetherics crew quickly tied in Lady Belle into the conversation.

        Lady Sun Lee raised an eyebrow at him. “What have you done?”

        Anton leaned back into the command throne, careful not to strain it too much with his bulk. “I do not suffer rivalry well, Lady Sun Lee. I do not suffer my foes to continue either, not after they have drawn blood.”

        Sun Lee bowed gracefully. “So you slew the four in Svard, after all.” 

        Lady Belle held her tongue, staring furiously at them both.

        The rogue trader shook his head. “No, I slew one. The son of Jeremiah Blitz, Conway Tor.” Her eyes widened. “You’ve met him.”

        “I sold an escort to him.” Sun Lee paused, her inscrutability cracking slightly. “Nothing more.”

        “I killed Blitz.” Anton admitted. “In the final hours of the War for Damaris he plotted to take a Drusian relic and flee. A Traitor ship, the one I believe to be responsible for the whole invasion, went after him. I killed him because I refused to abandon the war to rescue him.” The lie rolled off easily, especially since it was almost easily the truth.

“He had believers among his crew who didn’t appreciate the relic’s holiness being sold for profit. Or to pay off gambling debts.” Anton wafted a hand. “They turned it over to me, and I returned it to Damaris and the ship to his creditors. For that, his son came to ambush me as we fought to free the forge world Vail. While Yu’Vath monsters crawled over the foundries and manufactoria. While crystal ships fought and killed his fellows. He turned tail and went after us as we were docked, killing an Avatar.” He stared at Lady Sun Lee. “These are his guns I’ve been killing your ships with, by the way.”

        The rogue trader gave time for his words to be heard. Not just by the two powerful women in front of him, but by everyone else in the system.

        “I warned him,” he continued after they did not reply. “ Just like I warned everyone who came to Svard. They didn’t listen.” He almost looked at Thraves. “Is it my fault they wouldn’t believe the augury logs?” Anton smiled. “Well, one listened,” he added, nodding to the fuming Lady Belle.

        “How many?” she almost screamed. “How many melta-charges did you plant--?”

        “One hundred,” Anton said. “Exactly.” The two were stunned to hear a seemingly honest answer. “It’s not the charges that should worry you.”

        “What is it, then?” Lady Belle spat. “What should I fear from the mighty ‘Yu’Vath Slayer’?”

        The rogue trader laughed. “Why Lady Belle, I do believe that’s the first honest thing you’ve called me since I got here.” He breathed in, still chuckling. “I am a Yu’Vath Slayer. And a Rak’Gol Slayer. Before that,” Anton paused, almost mentioning the pirates he had slain and was still killing in the Heathen Stars, “I slew Orks. All of them en masse.”

        Silence.

        “I did it with mostly one ship too.” Anton turned to the Head of House Ma’Kao, before returning his gaze to Lady Belle. He held up a leatherbound tome.

        The broadvox conversation ended. Requests for a private channel came in quickly.

“Sir? Lord-Captain?” Lt. Miri stopped just short of the command throne.

        Anton looked up from the dataslate and handed it back to his armsman. “Do what you need to,” he whispered. Then he turned to the soon-to-be-promoted officer. “Yes, lieutenant?”

        “How did you know, sir?” She took a step forward, unsure if the question would be welcome. He nodded for her to continue. “That House Ma’Kao--Lady Sun Lee--would back off? Over a book?”

        The rogue trader smiled. “You saw her, larger than life, holier than the Emperor, above there. Tell me what you think of her.”

        “She’s noble, a noblewoman. Born and raised in privilege.” She paused, searching for the words. “She probably thinks herself the Emperor’s Emissary?”

        “Hah, we all do, lieutenant! Every single rogue trader does. And we’re right.”

        Lt. Miri stood straighter.

        “Do you think her a fool? A popinjay or pretender?”

        “No--” Anton’s look stopped the lie immediately. “Yes. Yes I do, sir. She struts around in that power armour of hers and her fancy sword with her fancy armsmen, I wonder if they’ve ever even seen combat--” She stopped one more time as the senior officers on the bridge began laughing.

        “How fancy is my armour? Or,” Anton turned to face the nearest Stromgard, “that of my elite armsmen?” He held up a hand, knowing she had recognized that error but still missed his point. “What does it all point to? What kind of person is she?”

        “Proud. Like you.”

        Trelany, the Chief Astropath, snorted loudly. Anton saw the loss of decorum throughout the entire bridge and cleared his throat.

        “Yes. Proud, very proud. She had given her word, most likely, to join with House Armelan and Lady Belle’s attack. Honour would have bound her to die to us.” He looked at her then, as she struggled to keep her face blank. “You doubt we would’ve won?”

        “They were… close, sir.”

        He nodded. “A light cruiser and three escorts--two destroyers and a frigate--approaching from port-aft. Two of those ships would have died before they entered our range to our bombers.” She nodded, unsure. “The rest we would have killed in close quarters. We would have won, but at some cost.” His smile grew from reassuring to cunning. “In fact,” his voice rising, “all junior officers will prepare an after-action report as well as a tacticae on that possible engagement. Thank you, Lt. Miri.”

        The groans were muffled.

        The young lieutenant accepted the berating she would receive from her peers, but still a question remained. “‘Pride goes before a fall,’ is that it sir?”

        Anton’s eyes widened. Does she know where that is from? He shook his head.

        “The Emperor’s proverb is ‘Pride goes before destruction; a haughty spirit before a fall’, lieutenant.” Her nod confirmed her traditional education, which raised her far higher than even most Imperial Commanders.

“You, lieutenant, will give me the answer as to why Lady Sun Lee pursued us then broke away almost as if her ships run out of fuel.”

        The lord-captain nodded once and dismissed her. He had a dinner party to plan.