Sitting on the command throne on the bridge I survey the stations below me. When I first sat in this ridiculous chair, every seat, control, and screen beyond it was empty and unattended.

Now the whole room is brightly lit with soft white light. The machinery and panels are shiny and polished and every seat is occupied. Additional personnel, stand over the shoulders of the others keeping an eye on their work and occasionally pointing out additional information on the screens in front of them

First officer, Eire Lobhdain stands on my right, her left hand gripping one of the handles on my throne. A small tether between her utility belt and a loop in the floor secures her in place.

“Begin the exercise, officer Lobhdain,” I say.

“Acknowledged, Magos. Initiating manoeuvre and brace drill.” A single, foghorn-like boom echoes through the bridge and the rest of the ship. “Any words for the crew?”

“Not today.” I check my internal chronometre: X759.031.M42. 06:59, local time.

Aruna’s voice growls from the vox, “All crew brace. Damage control simulation underway. Planned, randomised power failure in one minute. All assigned repair teams stand by. Evasion drill underway. Brace, brace, brace.”

The clock hits 07:00 and two of the control pits below me go dark while dozens of power failures are reported all over the ship as Aruna randomises a whole series of errors. Two of the four teams along the wall stomp towards the failed stations, careful to keep at least one magnetic boot on the floor at all times.

Simulated incoming fire hits the front quarter of the ship and a report is pushed to my screen: Fore void shields eighty-three percent and holding. There is no shouting as everyone has helmets on and are sending information through the noosphere or vox using their implants or suits. Only those who need to hear you speak will do so, though there is a slight murmur as the helmets are not completely soundproof.

My voice, however, is heard over the whole bridge. “Helm: rotate us ninety degrees on our current axis.”

“Rotating vessel ninety degrees Captain,” a calm male voice sounds inside my helmet.

The Distant Sun vibrates as the manoeuvring thrusters fire, steadily picking up speed over a minute. Near the centre of the ship, and with the grav plates active, we really don’t feel much. After three minutes of coasting, the thrusters fire again, this time in the opposite direction.

Reading the reports as they come in I notice we have casualties. A quick look at the vid-feeds and the crew members’ bio-monitors shows forty people being hit by stray objects, and one of the repair crews’ members had their mag boots fail and weren’t tethered and got thrown about. Nothing crippling, but they will be feeling it for sure.

There’s also some crates that have smashed open and a lot of unhappy fish in aquaponics, floating through the air in and out of bubbles of water. Checking the logs I see that the servitor who cleaned the tank didn’t secure it properly and the error message hadn’t reached the top of the supervisors task list yet, even if they were going through problems at the expected rate.

Well, I know who he’s sleeping with until he gets that mess cleaned up.

I update the priority of improperly secured hatch messages to all supervisors across the fleet. Yes, it will annoy a lot of people, but that could have been a crate of grenades or an airlock. It may seem like a small thing, but that’s exactly the sort of thing these exercises are supposed to uncover. You just don’t think of it until it does go wrong and I don’t want to find out during a real battle.

Down in the pits, the repair crews have got one of the stations running again, but the other is being rapidly disassembled. Each removed piece is secured in foam inside mag-lock cases as the crews work.

Another simulated hit slams into the vessel. ‘Aft void shields fifty four percent. Local breach probable,’ appears on my bank of screens.

“Helm, take us away from Marwolv at three gravities, heading to Marwolv Tertius. Full speed.”

“Starboard twelve degrees then accelerate to three gravities. Full speed. Confirm.”

“Confirmed helm. Keep that plasma plume away from Marwolv.”

“Will do, Captain.”

The increase in velocity is gradual and it will take at least ninety minutes to reach three gravities. Still rather impressive, considering the weight of the vessel, but it does show how difficult it is to avoid incoming fire.

There are no dramatic, last minute adjustments to avoid a hit when gun turrets can move faster than you can, but you can limit how many guns an enemy can track you with at any one time and keep your prow facing the enemy as much as possible so they have a smaller target, then manoeuvre in an S-shape rotating your port and starboard guns on target in time for each fire and reload cycle.

Distant Sun steadily climbs in speed and we break orbit. I continue to watch things fly about the ship as the random power failures mess with the gravity plates and make it steadily more difficult for the crew to get around.

This is the first physical simulation the training watch has done and so far they’re doing OK. I’m not happy with how much stuff is breaking, especially in hydroponics and with the terrariums lining the corridors of Distant Sun. It’s going to need a little tweaking before we get it right and I will be handing out a lot of safety drills to all the people who forgot to secure objects and machinery properly.

“Sensors: Captain we have an unscheduled contact on our scanners. Looks like a tau transport.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Vox, hail the tau,” I say.

“Hailing tau, Captain,” says an old, male voice.

Envoy Lynu appears on a screen in front of me. Her clothes are rumpled, she’s almost skin and bone, and there are faint traces of tears on her cheeks.

“Envoy, why do you approach?”

“I have three hundred civilians and scientists with me. We wish to surrender.”

I don’t bother keeping the surprise from my tone, “To an imperial?”

“Even the brutal mercy of an imperial is better than the fate Ethereal Aun Lhas'Rhen'Na has in mind. He intends to sacrifice us all. For a cause, we could do it! For a bloody ritual? Never.”

“Ethereal Shattered Jade? Do I have the meaning right? Doesn’t that mean great sacrifice?”

“He has changed his name, ever since the demons tore through our halls he has sought to repeat it! At first it was animals, then it was humans, and now he turns on the tau. He is determined to trap your fleet here like you have trapped us! Most follow him, bitter with defeat, but this is not the teachings of The Way. How can blocking paths lead us forward? You have won, Magos.”

“Tell me Envoy, why should I accept such a bargain? You did not keep your last agreement.”

Lynu grimaces, “What choice did we have? You would never have sold us the means to travel home and we cannot survive alone, cut and drifting from our roots.”

“Even as you beg you still try to deceive me! The tau were here twenty years before me. In all that time you could have at least started to build a new vessel. With a new void ship you could have bargained with the eldar for passage through the webway, or purchased other means of travel from the many races in the Koronus Expanse yet you did nothing of the sort.

“Your leaders saw a unique ecosystem and a massive population of workers and sought to conquer your own little slice of the galaxy by peddling your Way, thinking you could exploit the ignorant humans as you wished. Instead they were wary of hidden gifts and had enough trained psykers to make a hostile takeover an excessively costly endeavour, and so you hid gnawing at our world, hoping to one day make it your own, rather than truly live in harmony like you preach.

“I ask you one final time, Envoy Lynu, what do you offer?”

Lynu’s face turns purple and she grits her teeth, “We offer our labour and expertise to your endeavours.”

I scoff, “Terminate the call.”

“Wait! We have specialists! Plasma, automation, closed environmental loops.”

“I have those things or do not want them.”

Lynu sighs, “Then make it quick. I do not want to suffocate in a wrecked shuttle.”

I tap my finger against my throne, “Do you have any genetors?”

“Yes! We have two geneticists and six students of the life sciences.”

“Are they the ones responsible for the hybrids?”

“Only one of them, the remainder of that research team remained with Aun Lhas'Rhen'Na.”

“Your surrender is accepted. Turn off your deflector shields and keep your weapons unpowered. You may approach.”

“Thank you, Magos, for your generosity.”

“That remains to be seen. Purser Brigid Mac'Ille na Brataich and Master-at-Arms Thorfinn Ursus will meet you at the airlock coordinates I have sent you. There, all your passengers will disembark where they will be escorted then confined to the guest quarters.

Your transport’s crew will remain on board and accept a squad of heralds aboard, two enginseers and a pilot, who will direct your transport to the correct hangar where it will be impounded indefinitely. Your passengers may not bring anything. Personal goods will be returned after they have been examined. Any objections?”

“No, Magos. That much was expected.”

“We will talk in an hour.” I cut the call.

Eire messages me, “Are we continuing with the exercise, Magos?”

“Yes, we will continue. Aruna, please keep any errors away from our guests.”

“Aruna obeys.”

“First officer Lobhdain, message Commander Maeve Muire and have her prepare for emergency deployment within the next four hours. Include me in the order of battle. I want to get at least one punch in on this so-called holy one myself.”

“Yes, Magos. I do love commanding the Distant Sun in your absence, but perhaps next time you could give me a chance to get in a few hits of my own?”

I chuckle, “I’m sure you’ll get your chance, Eire, likely when you are least prepared and most annoyed about the interruption.”

“That does ever seem the way of things, Magos. Nothing like how the tau would imply.”

“Aye. It may be rude to trample on other beliefs, but damn if they don’t deserve it.”

“I’m sure Ship’s Confessor Owen Broin can debate that with you further. Your next manoeuvre, Magos?”

“Let’s practise the subtle ones until the tau dock, then we’ll flip and snake back to orbit. Helm: jink to starboard.”

“Aye Aye, Captain, jinking starboard.”

The port thrusters fire along the vessel, pushing the Distant Sun sideways along the horizontal access. When your ranges are measured in ten thousand kilometre chunks, you only have to move a bit to turn a direct hit into a glancing one.

For a macro cannon you get about a third of a second, for every ten thousand kilometres, to be somewhere else. You can’t dodge lances though as you can’t see them coming, only predict their firing cycles.

Torpedoes are much slower and, at a hundred thousand kilometres, take over twenty three minutes to hit, fortunately they are smart and excellent at tracking while being quite nimble and well armoured and shielded. It isn’t uncommon to have them accelerate much slower so that they can travel with a fighter escort, or not fire them until you’ve busted the opponents strike craft.

Two hours later, Lynu discloses the location of Aun Lhas'Rhen'Na and his next ritual and it will be happening at midnight, tonight or even earlier once Aun Lhas'Rhen'Na notices some of his people are missing.

It’s planned to take place on a large sandbar, off the northern coast of the Gael Democracy, near the Spòg-chait mountains and the mechanicus enclave that I dismantled when I first arrived on Marwolv.

The sandbar moves with each tide and is obscured from auger by the tau’s stealth technology so we can’t just blast it from orbit and I really want confirmation that the ethereal is dead, which I can’t do if I smother the coast with a kinetic bombardment.

We don’t want to spook them either, so our ocean navy won’t be participating and Commander Muire has arranged an orbital insertion with reinforcements setting off from Dimpsy Fortress the moment the altercation begins. The ocean navy will move in once the altercation is complete.

A deathstrike missile is on standby, just in case.