To save some time, you instruct Yasha to head directly from Scheall to Nil'kvee. It is perhaps the worst decision you have made to date.

The trip should have taken six days.

Twelve days into the trip, persistent rumors of ship-ghosts start circulating. Morrigan doubles down on patrols, and Adam's sermons are far more heavily attended than usual.

Eighteen days in, the Aegis' seams start showing undue strain. Jace and his underlings are working overtime replacing components that should have had hundreds of hours left on their clocks.

Twenty six days in, all hell breaks loose. Literally.

Cargo Holds Seventeen through Twenty-Three, thankfully empty of cargo and most human beings, explosively vent into the Warp. Ventral Docking Bays Four and Five follow suit, The Gellar field flickers for the tiniest of moments, and there are reports of things clawing at the emergency bulkheads. Morrigan and Adam lead teams of hand-picked armsmen to investigate.

Two hours later, Adam sends word that Morrigan is in the sickbay, half the armsmen are dead or worse, and that the intrusion is contained, for now. For the first time in a long time, fear dances its icy fingers along your nerves. All you can do is pray to the Emperor.

On the thirtieth day, the Aegis finally exits the Warp at the outermost fringes of the Nil'kvee system. You promptly order Jace to begin a full overhaul of the Gellar Field and Warp Engine, on top of the damage survey.

The results are a testament to the construction of the Aegis:

The Warp Engine is operating well within safety margins, but Jace is considering overhauling it anyway on general principles, if he can get the parts. The Gellar Field generators, every last one of them, need new haemolubricant coolant before they can be considered properly operational. The affected Cargo Holds and Docking Bays are a total write off for the moment. They need complete reconstruction and reconsecration. The Aegis' armor is simply gone aft of the prow. Not shot away, as you would expect, it’s been chewed on and clawed at.

The only things in the Nil'kvee system that the Aegis' sensors can detect are a single red dwarf star, a single war-stained planet that used to be a garden world, if the charts can be believed, and an extensive orbital platform. According to what you long-range sensor sweeps can tell you, it features the same sea-creature-esque construction that the Cambrian had, all sweeping curves and rounded edges.

With the Gellar Field generators in need of overhaul, heading back to an imperial shipyard for repairs is looking mighty risky. So you need to repair the Aegis out of local materials and resources.