Rogue Trader

by Andy Hoare

  The group found itself stepping out onto a landing, an expansive space to the top of a vast flight of stairs. These swept down many hundreds of steps to a wide floor, and beyond that another raised area appeared to house Luneberg’s, currently empty, throne. The entire area was enclosed in a chamber several times taller than it was wide, and vast pillars of stone supported a roof that was entirely lost to the eye in shadow and incense haze. Every surface was caked in pealing, tarnished gold leaf, dust of countless centuries built up in drifts and tumbling in powdery falls from recesses. Gossamer webs, presumably those of spiders, or some local equivalent, stretched from one leering gargoyle to the next, the light of hovering electro lumens twinkling where it reflected off the thin, silken strands.

  Lucian strode to the top of the stairs, taking a moment to cast his glance around the vast space. The hovering lights swarmed the chamber, their flight describing random patterns across the space and creating bubbles of flickering yellow light within the gloom. The floor at the bottom of the steps appeared crowded with figures, although Lucian could make out scant details from his position.

  So far, little of what Lucian had seen surprised him in any way. Being a rogue trader, he and his kind occupied a unique position within the upper echelons of the Imperium. Unlike the teeming billions of Imperial subjects crowding the million and more domains of the Emperor’s rule, rogue traders had cause to escape the worlds of their birth and go forth to visit others. Most worlds in the Imperium were largely self-sufficient, or at most inter-dependent with others in the immediate region.

  It was only the most privileged who would ever leave his world, unless he was conscripted into the Imperial Guard and sent to fight some far-away war, never to return home again. Rogue traders carried their Charter of Trade as a badge of office, with it gaining entrance to places others would be executed for visiting. Lucian had participated in the ritual currently playing out on scores of occasions. The places and the people differed, as did the grandeur of the surroundings, but whether mud hut, rad-shelter, chapel-city or xenos-nest, the pattern was invariably a familiar one.

  Half way down the flight of stairs, Lucian was able to discern some details of the milling crowds at its base. The courtiers, for Lucian could now make out that these people were at the least minor nobility, wore elaborate costumes of the most rare of materials, but the fabrics were faded and tattered, as tarnished with age as the architecture all around. At his approach, periwigs turned, small clouds of powder or dust, Lucian was unsure which, puffing around the nobles’ heads and causing them to cough demurely. The women wore their hair in elaborate steeples, but rogue strands lent them a bedraggled appearance quite at odds with the pomp and ceremony of the event.

  Approaching the bottom of the stairs, Lucian could now examine in closer detail the nearer of the courtiers. Many wore exquisite jewellery, tiny gems that twinkled and cycled through all the colours of the spectrum. Lucian supposed they may be some locally manufactured curio, but had an inkling they were procured off-world, for Chasmata was not known for the manufacture of such fine jewellery; had it been so, he would have known. Many sported bracelets and necklaces fashioned from some unfamiliar resin or ceramic; again, unlikely to be of local pedigree. He examined the faces even closer. Both men and women appeared bored, as if the proceedings unfolding around them were in some manner tiresome. Was this some highborn affectation? Lucian had certainly encountered those who feigned haughty disinterest in the goings-on around them, but rarely in an entire crowd of people. He sought to make eye contact with those closest. A nearby man turned away from his gaze as soon as he met it. A woman fluttered spidery eyelashes before turning pointedly to engage her neighbour.

  As Lucian and his offspring stepped on to the wide, polished floor, the functionary still following a polite distance behind, the crowd of milling courtiers slowly parted, creating, as if by coincidence, a clear route to the podium housing Luneberg’s throne. Definitely affectation, Lucian decided; these people were evidently masters of highly refined, and completely manufactured disinterest. Though they showed no outward interest in the rogue traders, Lucian saw that their movements betrayed exquisite and, no doubt highly ­choreographed ritual.

  Heads turning away at their passing, the trio approached the high throne, and stood before it, as a hush descended upon the chamber.

  The robed functionary stepped forward, ascending a short flight of stairs at the side of the podium. He pulled back his hood, and turned to address the chamber at large.

  ‘My lords!’ his voice rang out loudly, picked up, Lucian guessed, by the servo-skulls orbiting the podium, and amplified by speakers lost amongst the statuary. ‘All will heed the coming of our liege, Imperial Commander Culpepper Luneberg the Twenty-Ninth!’

  At these words, every perfumed hairpiece in the chamber turned towards the podium. Previously vacant faces showed sudden, near rapturous attention. The shadows at one side of the raised area stirred, and Lucian received his first glimpse of the Imperial Commander of Mundus Chasmata: the man with whom he had come to do business, the man on whom the survival, for the next decade at least, of the Arcadius might depend.

  A massive figure stepped from the shadows. Culpepper Luneberg the Twenty-Ninth was almost as wide as he was tall, and radiated a palpable aura of authority.

  ‘Culpepper Luneberg, Lord of Mundus Chasmata and the three Dominions!’

  Lucian took the measure of the man who ruled this world. As large as he was, Lucian judged it was not all the fat of the idle rich.

  ‘Culpepper Luneberg, Commander-in-Chief of the Legions Chasmata!’

  He wore a uniform of exquisite cut. Gold braids edged his heavy, long, black velvet coat, its high collars fluted behind his bald head.

  ‘Culpepper Luneberg, twenty-ninth in the most noble line of Harrid!’

  He wore more medals than Lucian did, and the epaulettes upon his broad shoulders made plain that he held the highest possible military rank.

  ‘Culpepper Luneberg, Son of Boniface the Just.’

  As Luneberg approached his throne, every step in time with the recital of his status, a cavalcade of followers emerged from the shadows behind him.

  ‘Culpepper Luneberg, Deliverer of the Outer Nine!’

  A line of women, courtesans Lucian saw immediately, followed in the Imperial Commander’s wake. Each wore little more than an elaborate, tall, teetering white hairpiece, their bodies accented by the same multi-spectral jewels sported in far more modest quantities by the courtiers.

  ‘Culpepper Luneberg, Scourge of the outcast Janykho!’

  Luneberg reached his throne, and lowered himself into it with a grace that belied his bulk. His harem arranged itself languidly at his feet, each courtesan reclining with an expression of studied disinterest that made the courtiers’ appear positively amateurish. So distant were their expressions that Lucian briefly entertained the notion that they might be drugged, or perhaps even lobotomised; it certainly would not be the first time he had encountered such.

  Silence descended once more. Although mere seconds in duration, the interval seemed to last an eternity. Eyes open, mouth shut, Lucian reminded himself, and was rewarded for his patience as, for a second time, the functionary addressed the chamber.

  ‘My lords!’ The crowd’s attention switched to the functionary once more. Luneberg, who had thus far paid no visible attention to the proceedings, turned his head and nodded subtly to the functionary. ‘I present to you, the Lord Arcadius, Lucian Gerrit!’

  Every head in the chamber turned towards Lucian, sudden fascination writ large across each face. It was as if the crowd had noticed them for the first time. Men bowed in salute; women pouted behind quivering fans. The transition was quite startling, and Lucian struggled to retain his composure lest the slightest hint of surprise cross his face and insult his host.

  Luneberg turned from his functionary to look directly at Lucian. His court
esans, suddenly attentive, leaned forwards, dark, predatory eyes and parted lips betraying no-doubt feigned attraction.

  Luneberg spread his arms wide. ‘Let the talks begin!’

  Chapter Three

  ‘Archeotech? You’re sure?’

  Luneberg had led the rogue traders straight to his private audience chamber, displaying a haste to dive into negotiations verging on what Lucian considered impolitic. Furthermore, Lucian noted straight away that the Imperial Commander appeared unwilling to trust even the slightest detail of the talks to a chancellor or attendant. So be it, Lucian had thought; we’ll do things his way.

  Lucian leaned forwards in his seat, his elbows resting on the ancient wood of the table. Across from him, a gaggle of powdered flunkies crowded around to attend their master as he held court. Luneberg waved off a fussing servant.

  ‘Quite sure. My agents located the source whilst pursuing privateers in the employ of a troublesome neighbour. I have since entered into an arrangement with the… locals, and opened up a trade route.’

  Lucian’s interest was piqued. So, Luneberg had come into a supply of ancient technological artefacts pre-dating the Imperium. Known as archeotech, Lucian knew, as only a man of his station could, that such items were the remnants of the first wave of human colonisation of the galaxy, leftovers from a golden age long lost to the men of the forty-first millennium, and valuable beyond measure or imagination, even his.

  He glanced towards Korvane, and then Brielle, glad to see that both were keeping a straight face, before continuing.

  ‘So you have a supply–’ Lucian said, ‘but you need a broker; someone with the contacts to turn that supply into demand.’

  Luneberg lifted a wide, balloon-shaped glass and took a hefty swig of what Lucian saw was imported amasec of middling pedigree. ‘Quite so, my dear Lucian. I offer you exclusive brokerage. Name your rate.’

  Now it was Lucian’s turn to feign indifference. Behind his neutral facade his mind raced, calculating a thousand and more possibilities; a steady supply of archeotech that he and he alone could sell on to those who had an interest in such things. It was in total contravention of the laws of the Imperium of course, but Lucian was a rogue trader, and to all intents and purposes above such constraints. On many occasions that an Arcadius had conquered a new world, certain items of ‘specialist’ interest had found their way back to the Imperium. Many and varied were those who would pay extremely well for pre-Imperium or xenos artefacts, ranging from the arcane researchers of the Adeptus Mechanicus to the highborn dilettantes for their private collections. Such an enterprise might save the Arcadius from short-term bankruptcy, keeping them afloat until Korvane came into his inheritance.

  ‘Thirty-three per cent, to be reviewed after the first shipment; I collect.’

  Luneberg placed his glass on the table before him, his movements calculated and deliberate. He made a show of studying the vessel for a moment before replying. ‘Twenty-five, and you don’t.’

  Lucian had known that the Imperial Commander would never accept his opening offer, but was curious as to how he would react to Lucian collecting the artefacts himself. Would he try to protect his source, did he trust Lucian enough to factor it into the deal?

  ‘Thirty. I collect.’ Lucian heard Korvane cough at this. His son was no doubt trying, in his way, to warn him against pushing Luneberg too far. Korvane knew as well as Lucian how threatened the dynasty’s fortunes were.

  ‘I see you for a man who trusts only his own skill, Gerrit, and I can sympathise entirely. The burden of command of a world of the Imperium is perhaps not so different to your own position as head of your dynasty.’ If Luneberg was trying to get a reaction out of him he would fail, thought Lucian, although, despite himself, he felt his hackles rise.

  Luneberg leant forward, locking eyes with Lucian. ‘Twenty, and you may collect. That’s my final offer.’

  Lucian held the Imperial Commander’s gaze, acutely aware that his son was squirming with discomfort at the deal on the table. ‘To be reviewed upon the first collection.’

  Luneberg raised his glass. ‘To be reviewed upon the first collection.’

  ‘That’s it, Father?’ Korvane almost stumbled as he ran to keep up with Lucian as he strode to the waiting shuttle. ‘That’s the negotiations over?’

  Lucian halted, turning to face his son in one fluid movement. ‘Over? No son, that’s just the beginning. Even now, we’re deep in negotiations. What you just saw were only the opening moves. Luneberg’s up to something. I know that, and he knows I know that. Depending on what we bring back from the first run, that’s when we really start doing business.’

  ‘That’s why you refused to be drawn on us collecting the goods?’ Korvane asked as Brielle caught up with him and her father.

  ‘Correct. So long as he’s open to reviewing the deal after the first run, I don’t care what margin we make at this point. I need to ascertain exactly what we’re dealing with before we make any commitments. Luneberg knows that too, so he’s letting us do things on our terms for the time being.’

  Korvane considered this, while Brielle asked, ‘Does he know what he really has, with this so-called archeotech?’

  Glad that at least one of his offspring was paying attention, Lucian said, ‘I suspect not. Most likely that’s for us to worry about. If we find he’s on to something good, he’ll know that by our negotiating stance.’

  Brielle nodded, her face thoughtful as a gentle wind stirred her long black braids. For an instant, Lucian was reminded of her mother. He dismissed the image as soon as it appeared in his mind.

  As the breeze built, the three boarded their shuttle, to return to the orbital and their vessels. Lucian hesitated for a moment, however, before raising the ramp, compelled to cast a glance behind him at the brooding form of Culpepper Luneberg’s vast palace as it dominated the jumbled skyline of Chasmata Capitalis. He was struck by the notion that all was not well on the Eastern Rim, and that events might soon get interesting. Not for the first time in his long life, Lucian savoured the thought that few led as remarkable a life as that of a rogue trader.

  He slapped the ramp control, and stalked from the portal as the shuttle lifted off.

  Lucian reclined in his command throne as he studied the star maps of the surrounding region of space. The flotilla had exited the warp, its Navigators maintaining formation with such skill that within half a day, all three vessels were inbound to the world upon which they were to obtain Luneberg’s archeotech – Sigma Q-77.

  The Q-77 system lay upon the very shores of an area of space referred to as the Damocles Gulf. Fifty thousand light years from Sacred Terra, the region had barely been surveyed, even ten thousand years into the Age of the Imperium. Many systems along the outer edge of the eastern spiral arm were isolated and inward-looking, wracked with self-interest and paranoia, as fearful of attracting the notice of the Administratum – the Imperium’s impossibly vast bureaucracy – as they were of hostile alien attention.

  Lucian considered such a mindset perfectly appropriate for the teeming, planet-bound masses. The common man had no business with space travel, Lucian held, and it was certainly true that a great many worlds within the Imperium kept their subjects in ignorance as to its nature. Some populations were so efficiently ruled that the common man had no inkling that the Imperium existed beyond his own, planet-bound horizons. Rogue traders however, had an Emperor-given right, indeed, a responsibility to pierce the outer dark, shining the light of civilisation into the vast, uncharted reaches of space, and, inevitably, to amass power and wealth beyond measure along the way.

  The region into which Lucian and his flotilla travelled was one rarely visited by the agents of the Imperium. Few had any business this far out, except for outbound Explorator fleets and rogue traders such as he. Those that did pass beyond the Imperium’s borders rarely returned, for horrors beyond imagining lurked about the ancie
nt stars at the very galaxy’s edge. The archives of the Arcadius were full to overflowing with accounts of contact with creatures the like of which the preachers of the Imperial Creed denounced as utter blasphemies. Yet Lucian’s ancestors had always returned triumphant from such encounters, their cargo holds groaning with booty. Some had conquered through war, others through trade. To the Arcadius, each was but one side of the same coin. Lucian yearned for such days again, and held on to the precious notion that his fortunes would soon improve.

  Yet, out here, such dreams rang hollow, thought Lucian, as he cast his gaze through the forward viewing port. There was something about the region that left a chill in the soul, a deep-seated impression that something was… somehow wrong. The stellar cluster that contained Luneberg’s world, as well as the domains of several dozen other Imperial Commanders bordered the gulf on its coreward side. Then, to the galactic east, nothing, for light years – not even the most insignificant of nebulae. It was as if the galaxy itself shunned the depths of the gulf, only the light of the stars on its far side daring to cross it. Those stars were densely packed, but never surveyed, according to the archives of the Arcadius, although that did not mean an Explorator fleet had not passed through at some time in the past millennia. The records of the Imperium were simply too vast, too sprawling, too incomplete to record all such information.

  ‘Entering upper orbit sir,’ called the helmsman, snapping Lucian out of his reflections.

  As the Oceanid came about, entering her station-keeping orbit in as stately a manner as the most grand of Imperial Navy battleships, the world of Sigma Q-77 climbed into view. The archives spoke little of the Q-77 system, and Luneberg had provided most of the data that Lucian was expected to rely upon. That meant Lucian would not rely upon it – not yet at least. The records stated it was a barren, lifeless world, with an atmosphere only barely capable of supporting human life. What business life had needed Q-77 to support there, Lucian could not tell. From orbit, he could see that airborne particles choked the skies of Q-77, swept along in kilometres-high streams. The dust storms raging across the surface were so dense that not a scrap of land was visible, not even the landing zone, and that was apparently sited in the area least affected by the foul atmospheric conditions.