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Lord Captain Kuzym (Pronounced Koo Zeem) Gavrilovich, newly annointed with his warrant and having partially resupplied the Penitent Rising (a Dictator-Class Cruiser) after the events of a Dark Voyage, docks at Port Wander. He is informed that the Maw has been temporarily blocked by vicious, potent warp storms. The command crew board the station and spread out:
Vorden Steel, Explorator, uses his MIU to commune with the machine spirits of Port Wander, and senses that Port Wander's ramshackle nature (I don't know if this is official fluff but our GM described it as a sort of Imperial Space Hulk, where the station has bloated far beyond its original design as new bits have been welded on over the age) has left it with dozens of machine spirits that're bickering and arguing amongst one another. He heads to the lower decks to investigate the source of the machine's pain and runs into a swarm of mutant abominations, who eviscerate the junior techpriests accompanying him as they flee in terror.
Xanatos Gilbert, Astropath, and Rook, Navigator, accompany the Rogue Trader Gavrilovich to the promenade, where he gives a brief speech urging the voidborn to join his ship and see the void unwalked and serve the emperor, etc. Xanatos accompanies the new recruits back to the ship, where he uses his telepathic abilities to search for any crew who might be heretical or at least disloyal (of course, they're the same thing.) He finds an astonishingly large portion of them are, in fact, dangerously tainted, and executes the worst of them himself before herding the rest of the tainted ones off to the Arbites.
Meanwhile, Gavrilovich and Rook visit The Sweet Life, a small exclusive gathering of rogue traders. There they encounter Commodore Derringer, a fat, pompous sack of hot air with tremendously more money then them. They compare ships and trade barbed comments as Gavrilovich, a rear-admiral's son and a fighting man, reacts with disgust to the bloated aristocracy of a glorified merchant. A peculiarly tall man who identifies himself as Elijah enters the conversation on the side of Kuzym and extends his friendship to the young rogue, saying that anyone who can make enemies that quickly is a valuable friend to have.
Vorgen, still fleeing the mutants, stumbles into a twist bar, and gets into a gunfight with the locals. The fight rolls outside, and after Vorgen dispatches the mutant thugs he manages to grab their weapons and scurry inside before the abominations return to claim the fresh meat. The party arrives, hears his story, and then absconds to the upper decks, where they explain to the local Arbites that the lower-decks mutant population has gone far beyond acceptable levels of freakishness. The Arbites are uncooperative.
A messenger arrives with a note for Gavrilovich, which informs him that a convoy of fifteen ships is attempting to brave the warp storm to resupply a rebel world on the far side of the maw. The supplies would be free for the taking were someone to dispatch the smugglers, although the sender of the note does request a 10% finder's fee. The party sets off for the maw, intent on either arriving first, or braving the warp storms as well.
Upon arriving in The Battleground, the party picks up multiple engine signatures, and discovers that Commodore Derringer is on the trail of the same smugglers. He offers a wager- Whichever captain finds and kills the leader of the smuggler in personal combat shall win the other's ship. Gavrilovich agrees.
Vorgen detects suspicious engine signatures and announces that Derringer's cruiser, the Star Galleon, is planning to go to warp while his two frigates move in to attack. The Penitent Rising fires on them, crippling one. The frigates vox their astonishment and the commodore voxes his outrage, explaining that they were moving to *escort* the Penitent Rising, not ambush. More barbed comments are traded. Gavrilovich grab's Vorgen's laspistol and puts a round into his chest, letting his smoking torso fall offscreen (I'm not sure if 40k ships traditionally have video chat, but we do apparently) as he apologizes to the Commodore for the idiocy of his head enginseer. Vorgen gets up and stalks off, having suffered no real damage from the shot that did not penetrate his armor. (Credit where credit is due- I got the idea from another story on the forums where the captain periodically shoots his explorator as a way of expressing displeasure)
The Penitent Rising deploys an attack boat full of techpriests to assist with the repairs of the damaged frigate, and moves to warp. During the journey to the next safe haven, the other frigate is consumed by the warp storm. The Penitent Rising drops out of warp at the Witch World to see the Star Galleon already engaged with the fifteen convoy ships (thirteen now, plus two wrecks.)
Hoping to eliminate the tedious process of boarding and personally slaying the captain of every ship, Gavrilovich hails the remaining ships and demands to speak with their leader. Upon receiving a response, Vorgen is able to triangulate the location of the primary ship. Armed with this knowledge, the rogue trader invokes his right as the voice of the emperor, and demands to be allowed to board and inspect the ship for heretical materials. The ship agrees, and the party boards with a hundred ex-navy guardsmen. They put up no resistance, and the bridge is secured easily. In a blitz of psychic power, Xanatos rips the required information out of the smuggler captain:
On closer inspection, the ships were not moving to resupply a rebel world, but the shrine at Hermitage. They were, however, moving through the warp using witches rather than sanctioned navigators, hoping that by hiring psykers with a stronger warp connection, they might fare better. Gavrilovich deals out the Emperor's Justice: He commends the captain for attempting to resupply the shrine, but demands the death of the witches upon arrival. He also takes the liberty of executing the nearest witch immediately, to prevent it from communicating this verdict to its brethren. The party takes the captain aboard their own ship and voxes the Star Galleon, explaining that they've been played for fools.
Vorden, who was left onboard the Penitent Rising, reports that he's traced the source of the warp storms to the Witch World itself, and is conducting orbital bombardment to attempt to destroy the cult that's causing the disruption. Also, a fleet of Chaos ships emerges from the Warp. Gavrilovich organizes the transports into a defensive formation to buy them time to eliminate the planetary sorcerers. This occurs.
With the Warp once again available for use, the transports and Penitent Rising attempt to breach the Chaos fleet and bypass them for a safe escape. The Star Galleon, in a terrific display of bravado, manages to blast a huge hole in the enemy lines while taking tremendous structural damage. Kuzym realizes his duty, and has the Penitent deploy all attack craft in a desperate rescue mission, with fighters and bombers holding off enemy boarders while assault boats attempt to evacuate as many survivors from the Star Galleon as possible. After a brief skirmish with the few heretics onboard, they successfully rescue Commodore Derringer. During the skirmish, Vorden is able to download a part of the ship's data files and persuade the Star Galleon's enginseers to rig the ship's engine to overload. Our heroes dodge anti-craft fire as the explosion ripples through the void, and fly off into the sunset.
NEXT TIME, we'll see how the Commodore rewards us saving his life and preventing the capture of his ship! We'll find out what data was recovered! And most importantly, we'll do our damndest to see that the convoy makes it to their shrine!