"Of course I'm part of the expedition. Jace, is the Olri combat ready?"

"The last coat of paint is drying as we speak. Her macro-bombs aren't ready yet, but that won't be an issue in a void-landing scenario. landing zones would be too cramped."

"Then let's get these ships off the field. The Terra Incarnadine, Ebonheart, and Chrysus will begin scanning the Malignus Maximus in preparation for phase two. Jace, please have the Olri prepped and ready for launch. Mabis, you know your regiment best, so I'll leave their disposition in your hands."

Several Hours Later…

The scans of the Malignus Maximus are coming up suspiciously empty. No life-signs bigger than a terran rat, scattered power and heat signatures consistent with backup or emergency generators, and minimal warp-energy signatures. Rex wanted to declare the hulk clear and simply move in to start scavenging, but Jace sat on him, probably sharing some of the details about what happened aboard Gibli. The Ebonheart fires up her teleporters and sends a wave of CATs in to start poking around while the Deathwatch teams work to pry open a landing bay aboard one of the hulked ships making up the outer crust of the Malignus Maximus. Jace starts off a set of deep scans, trying to get at least some idea at the core structure of the space hulk. What he finds is a touch unusual.

The core of the Malignus Maximus is an abandoned human orbital defense station instead of the usual asteroid or compressed ship-corpses. It may even contain sensor records of the events that lead it to become the core of the Malignus Maximus in the first place. Such data would be quite literally invaluable to the Imperium. It would allow ships and stations to be constructed in such a way as to be less likely to become space hulks in the first place. It would allow defensive forces to destroy drifting Space Hulks more easily, and reclamation teams to scavenge them far more efficiently.

But it does leave you with a bit of an issue. You can no longer simply destroy the Malignus Maximus. You are going to have to clear her out, one ruined ship at a time, deck-by-deck and room-by-room.

Finally the word comes back that the landing bay is cleared and ready. You make your final preparations and strap on all of your wargear and head for the Olri. Yasha, Mu'randa, and Jace join you, with Frank, Simo, and Kudo staying behind to keep an eye on the Terra Incarnadine.

Securing the landing zone is anti-climactic. Nothing comes scuttling out of the shadows to greet you, and Mabis sets his men to securing the area and surrounding compartments without much fuss or bother. He makes sure to go up and down a deck as well as simply spreading out on the existing one, his experience in city and hive fighting standing him in good stead. The presence of the Olri does raise more than a few eyebrows among your fellow explorers, but given that two more stormbirds are sitting abandoned in the landing bay for them to claim, they can't really object.

Jace releases the second wave of CATs, and Rex also unleashes a set of hovering survey drones. Mabis details a recon platoon to scout the immediate area. Helheim and four other Deathwatch Marines head for the deeper areas of the Malignus Maximus, probing for passages and threats deeper in.

Not even a half hour later, with the primary objective of finding a path deeper in not yet met, three secondary objectives have already become apparent. Lord Pyrus and Rubicon are both preparing squads, but you have been tapped to lead the third party.