New Talent learned: Binary Chatter. +10% to command, program, question, etc. Servitors

New Skill learned (by DM fiat): Demolitions. May craft, place, arm, defuse, etc. EXPLOSIVES!

You take a nap before doing anything else, seeing as you have plenty of time to get your paperwork done. You wake and collect the dataslate alone with a nutrient tube. You crack open the tube and begin to insert the contents into your sustenance intake port while the dataslate boots up. Once it signals the completion of the ritual of activation with the usual chime, you pull up the file list to begin your paperwork. You notice a few garbage files left over from an improper data cleanse, but you ignore them for the moment. The paperwork proves to be the aptitude tests for your promotion to Mech-Wright. You are slightly startled as you are only just past your first quarter-century of life if you count from the date of your flesh-birth. You had expected to see this paperwork after your completed your current work-rotation, which would mark a quarter-century since the implantation of your Cyber Mantle and the beginning of your service to the Omnissiah.

You decide not to question your good fortune (or more likely, the adept that mis-entered your birth information into the great Database) and begin filling out the forms. There is no particular time-limit to the aptitude test, so you send some extra time brushing up on servitor commands before filling out that section. You score higher than your previous Binary Competence test, which is quite satisfying, and mark the paperwork as completed. But the other partial files grab your attention.

You remove all of the ones that are corrupted or otherwise fail to open, but that still leaves a small handful behind. Intrigued, you open up one marked QuickRef.txt and start reading. It is a manual on the art of Demolitions. You are enthralled and enlightened by all of the references in the document, and frustrated by all of the references to the docs you just deleted. You don't have all of the information you need to master the subject, not even close. But you do have enough now committed to memory (and inloaded to your personal dataslate) to make a decent attempt.

You spent the rest of the voyage, a period of about three weeks, trying to learn more. Your search proves futile however, as all of the references you do find are to external datapoints or hard-copy documents sitting in a vault on a Forgeworld somewhere. The Onyx-skinned man spent his time in prayer or meditation as far as you can tell, but you left him be given how engrossed you were in your studies. Eventually there comes a shudder, a twisting sensation, and a the voxhorn mounted to the bulkhead bleats something about passengers and disembarking. You ignore it and keep meditating over the proper ritual methodology of applying det tape to bundled blocks of explosive compounds.

A few moments later the Onyx-skinned man pokes his head into your bunk for only the second time since your journey began. "It's time for us to go."

You shrug and pack away the few things you have out, then follow the Onyx-skinned man and a guide servitor back to the shuttle bay and the same guncutter that delivered you to this nameless ship. You get on it and it takes off without any ceremony. You glance out one of the few windows and notice with utter astonishment that you are approaching the largest ball of wrecked ships that you have ever seen. You have no idea how such an assemblage of craft could have come to be, but you do know with absolute certainty (Gibil 2 being a shipyard after all) that most of the ships you can see are of Imperial construction, and that none of them were intentionally built into this... thing.

You exit the guncutter and stand in the small one-craft docking bay of the void habitation module attached to the monstrosity. The Onyx-skinned man is clearly discomforted by the 0.950 % gravity and the apparent thinness of the exterior plating. You know this kind of module however, having grown up in one. The gravity is within acceptable variances, particularly for a void-gaped hab module, and the exterior plating is habitually built out of escort armor-quality plating. It won't stand up to macrocannon fire, but micrometeorites and stray debris will bounce right off. You lead the way out of the docking bay, but pause when you see the woman with the black hair and two bolt pistols waiting. The docking bay gives out the distinctive rumble of venting atmosphere, the slight tremor of a departing craft (the guncutter), the muted bounce of another craft landing, and at last the atmos pumps whir into life to re-pressurize the bay so that the passengers can leave their shuttle and board the station. You are shortly joined by a fit-looking woman in the robes of a low-ranking member of the Ecclesiarchy, the church (some would say cult) of the God-Emperor of Man, and a slender man with the square chin and sharp uniform of the Adeptus Arbites.

The black haired woman with the bolt pistols has clearly been waiting for the four of you to arrive before speaking, "Now that we are all here, let's take this to the common room so I can make introductions."

You and the others follow her into a sparsely furnished room. There is a rectangular table, five chairs, a window with a good view of the stars (though which you can pick out two engine flares departing the system), and four doors leading into similarly furnished quarters. The Black haired woman drags a chair around to the head of the table, drops heavily into it, and gestures for the rest of you to take seats. You take one of the remaining four at random and the others follow suite. The priestess and the arbite sit next to each other, while the Onyx-skinned man picks a spot a little away from everyone else.

The black haired woman casually sets one of her bolt pistols in her lap, "I guess I'll start with the big one. Welcome to the service of the Imperial Inquisition."

The Arbite's eyes glaze, the priestess looks faint, the Onyx-shinned man only nods, and you frantically search your inloaded data reserve for any scrap of knowledge, coming up empty.

The black haired woman smirks, "three of you didn't see that one coming, but I see Cian isn't surprised. Nor am I, given the trip he has made to Terra. I'll let him explain that if he wants to. Let's get down to introductions. I am Interrogator Elena MacWater. In short, I'm your boss and handler for this operation. My boss, Inquisitor Ironsides of the Ordo Xenos, has tasked me to begin the investigation of the space hulk Capitalis Congestus. He has at least one other team already aboard to break trail for us, but you four are it for the moment. I get the feeling that this is being kept hush-hush, more so than usual, probably because of all of the capital-class ships interred in its bulk.

"I can see you have questions, so I'll hit the obvious ones before making minimal introductions. Why you four? The exact reasons differ, but you all bring something special to the team and were easy to extract unnoticed. Enforcer Atellus Havelock of the Adeptus Arbites is experienced in close-quarters and city fighting, a skill set that is known to transfer well to shipboard operations. Neonate Cain Mac Vir Dannan is a Sanctioned Psyker, and will be of great usefulness detecting and dealing with moral threats. Initiate Kathrine ‘Cat’ Megeria of the Ecclesiarchy fills the obvious roll of a spiritual center, as well as being a cook of some renown. And Mech-Wright Zarkov Terezna Olegovich brings the technical knowledge needed to interface with the ships of the hulk, a great boon to any mission.

"I'll let you all make further introductions at your leisure instead of laying secrets bare in front of us all. Instead, I'm going to be tossing the four of you into the metaphorical frying pan, not the fire, to get you working together as a team. Unconventional, I know, but it will confirm at least two things for me. One: you all have the skills needed to make it in the service of the Inquisition. 'Many are called, few are found worthy.' Old and trite, but true. Two: you four can function as a team at least well enough to complete your missions. If any of you don't or can't, that will also be good to know now instead of at some crucial juncture in the future.

"To that end, and bearing in mind that most of your missions will involve supporting or escorting Mech-Wright Terezna anyway, I've decided to go ahead and mark the Tech-Priest down as the team leader. I'll adjust that if it proves necessary or natural. As to the exact mission itself... well, the Ordo Xenos is in no rush on this matter. The Capitalis Congestus won't be able to re-enter the warp until it passes back beyond the halo, which will take another three or four centuries. Accordingly, I've two missions available at this time:

"One: Reconnaissance. The other team can only cover so much ground, meaning that covering more ground and learning more about that ground is going to be an eternally needed task. Go in, wander about, come home to report it, preferably alive and intact.

"Two: Recovery. The other team has turned up and marked a roving servitor. The servitor itself is no threat, and probably of no value itself, but its data-logs could prove useful in mapping out the hulk, given that it's wandered the passageways of this place for Emperor knows how long.

"Team Lead, what's your decision?"