You wake, stretch, drink your breakfast(?) tea, and check in on Mu'randa. You've lost track of the day/night cycle and even what day it is after so long without seeing the stars. She is awake as well, the cut above her eye already scabbed over and stitched shut. You offer to let her rest and heal, taking some guardsmen in her place, but she refuses.

"It's just a flesh wound, it’s already sealed over and I've got a bandage to put on it. Face it Tristan, you aren't going without me."

You raise an eyebrow as she uses your first name to address you for the first time ever. "I commend your loyalty, but there is no need for you to risk yourself needlessly on my account."

"Bullshit."

"Eh?"

"I said 'bullshit' Tristan. There is no logical reason for you to be here either. You have people you hired specifically to do stuff like this. The Deathwatch and the Ordo Xenos is incomparably better trained and equipped for this than we could ever be. But here you are anyway, unable to sit on the sidelines and do nothing. So here I am, making sure that you come back in one piece. Because you are a better boss than any I've worked for before. Because you are a better individual than many I've known. Because, dammit, you actually give a crap about your people and show loyalty to them. Morrigan was headed over the deep end into a shambling wreck. You got her the long-term help she needed, set up an entire trade-post on her home world, and stationed here there so she could be at home for all of it."

"You know full well that's not the only reason I set up the Dagda Offices..."

"So? Don't try and tell me that her condition didn't play a role in it. Vir, Yasha, Jace, Dasidas. Every one of them had ghosts, specters of the past that they couldn't erase on there own. You haven't always been down on the underdecks, taking the pulse of the crew, but you care and it shows. I may be a newcomer, but I asked around before I offered to join your crew.

"Vir went from a scared, used, and abused kid to a loving husband and father. Jace was a plodder, unwilling to take too many risks and with no self confidence to speak of, and yet here he is, issuing orders to the very Magos that drove him to request a transfer in the first place with total confidence. Dasidas came aboard half-way into the bottle and drinking his way on down to forget the things he saw and the night-terrors that plagued him. Now he's commanding a full regiment with panache and style, kicking ass and taking names in a space hulk hard enough that even the Deathwatch are according him respect. And Yasha? She isn't hiding in her room or in the Navigatior's Vestibule any more, is interacting with other people on a regular basis, and is off her sleeping meds and mood-fixers.

"And it's all because of you." Mu'randa jabs a finger into your chest. "So if you are going to stick your fool neck out where it doesn't belong and lead from the front, then I'm going to cover your ass and bring you back home alive."

You stand speechless, your brain running in overdrive as you think back over past events. Morrigan and Vir standing up for themselves and tearing the old House Saurlance to pieces. Dasidas jogging past you in the hallway, leading his officers by example and getting himself back into shape at the same time. Jace straightening his back and squaring his shoulders when you confirmed his command of the Terra Incarnadine, a just reward for all of the hard work he but into her. All of your talks with Yasha. The fact that the two of you are all but married, excepting the paperwork and ceremony, even after you had to kill her mother back when you were salvaging the Aegis. You shake your head. This is shaping up to be a wake-cycle of realizations and revelations, and you haven't even left the Beachhead. "Alright then, who am I to argue with that. But put a helmet on this time perhaps?"

Mu'randa gives you a crooked grin. "Yes Sir!"

You shake your head and wander off to gather the rest of your team.

Ten Minutes Later…

Your team is gathered around a portable holotable, studying the scant data available on the ship-hulk in question. Without even looking at the hull composition, you can tell its not imperial. It has an arrow-head bridge perched atop the shorn-off stub of a massive weapon of some sort. Everything back of the bridge, including the engines, is just gone; either shot away before the craft smashed into the space hulk or torn off by a subsequent crash.

You get the sneaking suspicion that the ship was of Eldar origin. But with it being so smashed up, there is no way to be sure. You also remember that their ships were made out of some sort of psionically crystallized bone, but that should turn up as an organic or post-organic on a scanner. And the scan tech's notes indicate that the hulk in question is non-organic and non-ferric. When you ask Jace what non-ferric means, he responds that it means the ship isn't made out of iron or steel. Even Imperial ships, with their massive adamantium armor plating, have iron in their bones. But that is all you can tell from here. It’s time to hit the proverbial road and go see what the ship is made of in person.

Four Hours Later...

You pathway isn't well mapped-out, but you are cutting through areas that are already flagged as minimal threat / minimal hazard after the Deathwatch sent a few scouts through the area. Which is why this ship got pushed to the secondary objectives list instead of the primary. Well, that and the Deathwatch are clearly getting ready for a major push into the heart of the station at or after whatever they found there. But all such musings quickly vanish from your mind as you get you first eyes-on look at the ship-hulk in question.

By chance or by fate, it had partially crashed into an escort bay: a rare landing bay variant intended to shuttle Destroyers or System Defense Monitors around inside the hold of a mothership. What this means is that you first glance is of the top two-thirds of the arrowhead bridge form a range of about three hundred meters. The bulges of several weapons-blisters are evident, as is the ivory-chrome coloration of the hull. Already you can go ahead and report that the hull is definitely of Eldar origin, but the coloration looks wrong somehow, even form three hundred meters away. Closer investigation is warranted, cautiously of course.

You close the distance to about fifty meters before the reason for the coloration becomes apparent. The base hull is ivory-bone in coloration, with flecks of sky blue paintwork still attached here and there. The chrome comes from something metallic that looks like it grew into the structure of the ship, though you have no idea what it is. You have a sneaking suspicion that you have seen something similar before. Something about Kamas' weapons perhaps?

Your instincts are divided at this point. One one hand, you want to push forwards and find out more, and damn the danger. On the other, you have enough data to report back and get this hulk kicked pack to the primary objective list.