“Speak, Karisan.” Lucian ordered distractedly, “but make it fast and get back to your quarters. We make warp any moment.”
The astropath stood before Lucian, blocking the forward viewing port. The old man fidgeted and wrung his hands, a motion that instantly irritated Lucian.
“Report, man,” Lucian barked.
“Well, it’s this…” Karisan cleared his throat before continuing. “Not only has every world for twenty light years announced its secession from the Imperium of Man,” Karisan said, evidently catching his wind, and barely able to contain himself. “Almost every such world has announced its joining of a new…” he paused.
“…empire.”
“Go on.” The astropath now had Lucian’s complete, undivided attention.
“The forces of these aliens are even now flooding the entire region—everywhere to the galactic east of the Damocles Gulf. The secessionists are announcing, to all who will hear them, their joining of this alien empire: this tau empire.”
“But,” Karisan continued before Lucian could interrupt, “but, I have been monitoring the distant voices of the Imperium.”
“What of them?” Lucian asked, sensing that life in the Timbra subsector was about to get very interesting indeed.
“A crusade!” The astropath’s voice cracked as he yelped with something resembling religious ecstasy. Lucian had never before seen the old man so animated.
“A crusade is being preached even now my master. Cardinal Gurney preaches war against the tau. He denounces their lies and already, others have pledged aid or service to him.”
“Who?” Lucian’s mind raced as he considered the possibilities unfolding before him. “Who pledges aid to this Gurney against the tau?”
“Why,” replied Karisan, “the fleet, of course, and Brimlock musters even now. Five regiments and more.”
“Five regiments of Guard have no hope of—”
“Not just them,” Karisan interrupted. Lucian let him continue. “Inquisitor Grand of the Ordo Xenos! The Astartes! The Iron Hands! The Emperor’s Scythes. Even,” and here the astropath leaned towards Lucian, “the White Scars.”
Lucian leaned back in his command throne, feeling an exhilaration that he had not experienced for many years wash over him. Thoughts of the tales of old Abad and the others came to him, tales of his ancestors penetrating the outer dark at the head of vast, all-conquering fleets, Navy, Guard and Marines rallied to their Emperor-given banner.
Here, now, he, Lucian Gerrit of the Arcadius found himself uniquely placed to make such a thing a reality once more. This preacher, this Cardinal Gurney might prove troublesome, but Lucian could scarcely believe his luck that a contingent of the White Scars Chapter was present. The White Scars, those savage sons of Chogoris, who called the very same world home, as had Bridle’s mother, and he was not without contacts there still.
“Master?” Helmsman Raldi turned towards Lucian, his hand still gripped upon the Oceanid’s tiller. “Are we to make way?”
“What?” Lucian’s attention was brought back to the here and the now. He looked to his helmsman, before addressing the whole bridge. “Belay my previous order. We are not to return to the west.”
“Your orders then, my lord?” Raldi asked. Lucian saw the glint in his eye.
“East.” He glanced at a star map, taking in those systems that Karisan had indicated were now in the sway of the alien tau. He picked one.
“Kleist.”
As the bridge crew went about the business of enacting their new orders, Lucian smiled to himself. Perhaps the Arcadius would stay around for a while. It looked to him as if the Damocles Gulf was about to become a very interesting, and very profitable, place for a man such as he.
Scanning and basic
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[Rogue Trader 01] - Rogue Star Page 23