NavLog01

Chief Gunners Log -

Today I meet the Command crew of my new posting aboard the Final Offer. I took the opportunity tohave a look over the files I was sent and she's a beauty. 1400 meters of speed and destruction the vessel would not look out of place leading a Naval strike force.

My first task was to ferry up my new shipmates. Lord Captain Marconi, Navigator Patronus.

Patronus was the easiest to understand. His disdane for those not born to privillage is as obvious as a Grand Cruiser in your bunk. Refusing even the courtesy of a greeting. I suspect staying out of each others way will work out best for both of us.

Lord Captain Alabaster Marcone is altogether more complicated, I have been trying to puzzle him out since we met on that fateful shuttle ride. On the one side, it is painfully clear that he doesn't know the first thing about void travel. However he at least recognises his limitations and seems to be a team player, a rare combination among the nobility along with a firm but genial dispossition. I think we should be able to work together quite well.

Shuttle ride up to the Final offer was uneventful, I decided to take a wide sweep around her as we approached It's a true thing of beauty. Ancient and powerful with a distinctive dome on the starboard side. The lance array was a little lacking, but it's impressive that it could fit at all on such a ship and the Macro batteries more than compensated for the shortfall. The focussing crystals glistened on the hull like a gas giant's crystaline rings.

Onboard we met with Colonel Jayne Walker.and Engineseer Mathias "Gears" who were standing nearby to greet us. Well the Colonel did at least. Gears did not speak much, for like many of the Tech-priesthood, his thoughts were somewhat disquieting.

Colonel Walker on the other hand had the air of an experienced officer, ready with her reports and a staff of junior officers to act as our guides. The captain agreed to convene at his quarters in an hour and we were each guided to our quarters. She seems like the person to bring my concerns to.

In the meeting the Lord Captain went over the plan for our maiden voyage. A simple yet profitable enterprise shipping colonists out to start a mining colony on a platinum rich rock in the neighbouring system.

There was a proposal for a surprise drill at some point from Colonel Walker, a summary of our supplies and other essentials, she mentioned that morale was low. Our course takes us in a slingshot path out of the system and I broached the subject of letting the Captain take the helm personally as we maneuver around a distant gas giant partly so that he can get a feel for the helm, but also to bolster the confidence of a crew in a new captain.

As we met and were waiting for Patronus, we were interupted by the door opening, and there was a las-gun wielding servitor there. I unholstered my bolt pistol warily, but it looked at us with dead unfeeling eyes and left just as quietly.

I almost felt sorry when Patronus came through the door a few moments later and I still had my gun drawn on him. Almost.

After dispensing with the minutae of the journey and agreeing for a celebration for the maiden voyage (for those crew who had no sanctions or punishments on their records for the last year) in the main observation dome, we broke up and I went to find Colonel Walker.

I expressed my concerns about the "faults" found in two shuttles featuring two Lord Captains of this vessel. Sabotage is a dirty and dangerous word in a void ship, but it is something to be wary of.

Then the Astropath called to announce an incoming message. The Sub sector Governor appeared to have misplaced one of his Eldar hunting expeditions, a vessel called Entropy's Reversal with a small research team of about 20.

We met before formally responding, each of us had our reasons for wanting to at least investigate. However most of them are planet huggers and didn't understand the horrors of a stricken vessel in distress. It is the sacred duty of all void-farers to come to the aid of a distress hail because the people whose lives you save now, may be the ones who save yours tomorrow and abandoning Imperial Voidsmen to their deaths would cause an uproar on the lower decks. Others had more mercenary attitudes, but all were in agreement that we should go.

So we set course, and burned at flank speed toward the Icy world of Nix. The high speed necessitated some shooting practice at the asteroids that occasionally threatened to be in our way. The batteries felt good beneath my fingers, burning hot and clear.

Eventually we hit orbit.

The vessel Entropy's Reverse was slow to answer the vox hails, so I trained a lance battery on it, just in case. Massive overkill, but the circumstances were suspect. The distress call took 11 days from disaster to our receipt of the Astropathic message. Too long. Either the vessel was unable to call in its situation until recently or the Subsector Governor knew about this before we even left the planet and waited until now to tell us. Either way, it's a bad omen.

A party had taken their only lander to the planet and had not reported back.

Colonel Walker led an expedition of armsmen, reporting back that she had found the dismembered remains of the expedition and a black monument like an inverted spider that was painful to focus on. Definitely not a good omen. She also reported a cave, and the Lord Captain had to pull her back before she went off into the unknown without reliable vox communications.

A shuttle was preped for the rest of us to go down.