Rogue Trader by Andy Hoare

Author:Andy Hoare [Hoare, Andy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-01-03T13:43:21+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

The cramped bridge of Korvane’s scout vessel was dark and silent, every member of the bridge crew intent upon the operation of their sensor equipment. Korvane sat at the rear of the bridge space, the crew arrayed to his side and the pilot occupying the station below him. He stared out of the multi-faceted cockpit canopy, brooding at the system before him.

His hand trembled, and he gripped the seat’s arm until his knuckles turned white. He forced his mind onto anything other than the pain and the substance that would mask it.

The crusade’s charts listed this place as the Kendral sub-sector. It was a meaningless appellation as far as Korvane could tell, in all likelihood named for one of the explorators who had passed through six millennia before. Whoever Kendral was, he had not returned to settle the region named after him, and so no one would ever know what deed had earned him the right to have an entire region of space share his name. The system had no name, just a designation within the sub sector: KX122. Even now, Korvane’s scout wing was edging into the system’s outer reaches, each vessel on silent running lest they give away their presence to any tau in the locality.

‘Report,’ ordered Korvane.

A crewman, hunched over a glowing terminal, answered, ‘Passive readings confirm the presence of at least a dozen stellar bodies, my lord. We are approaching the nearest as ordered.’

‘Good,’ Korvane replied. Looking through the canopy, he caught his first glimpse of the world in question. KX122/13 was expected to be a small, dense world consisting of little more than rock and ice. With only the passive sensors to rely on, the scouts would need to make a close pass in order to gather much more information, and this they would do as the world came into view.

Very little light fell upon KX122/13 this far from the system’s single, cold white stare. Only the blue of the surrounding nebulae glinting from its icy surface caught Korvane’s eye.

‘Take us in low, pilot,’ Korvane ordered. ‘I doubt there’s anyone about, but if there is, I don’t want them to see us coming.’

‘Confirmed,’ replied the pilot. ‘Activating ground following radar in point…’

‘Denied!’ snapped Korvane. ‘I ordered passive sensors only and I meant it.’ Korvane’s rage was growing as the pilot turned to look up at him.

‘Sir, without the…’

‘I said,’ Korvane said through gritted teeth, ‘denied. You will follow my orders to the letter, or you will stand down. Do you understand?’

Correctly deducing that the question was entirely rhetorical, the pilot turned back to his task. Korvane stared at the back of the man’s head for a moment, before looking out of the canopy. KX122/13 was coming into view, its blue, cratered surface dimly visible against the blackness of space. The pilot instigated a change of course that levelled the small vessel out. The horizon reared up from below, filling half of the view, the light of the distant star casting a ghostly halo above. Korvane leant back in the acceleration couch and scanned the read-outs around the bridge.

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