Stepping with caution, you breach into the aft of the Gilded Collar, an Ambition class cruiser that once belonged to an Imperial Rogue Trader of some renown. His name is now dust in the wind, and his prized ship now forms part of the Outer layer of the Capitalis Congestus, one of many capital ships to make up is massive bulk. The barrel of your Stalker-pattern bolter tracks from shadow to shadow, looking for foes yet to make an appearance in the two hours since you left the void hab. You pause as your hearing picks up the tick of a hoof on metal.

Tayib trails behind you, force sword and bolt pistol at the ready. He has not said a word since leaving the void hab, but the vox comes alive now.

“Warp predators. Two, closing fast. One ahead, one behind.”

You barely have time to begin searching for a target as the clatter of hoofbeats breaks the quiet.

“DAEMONETTES!”

The first daemonette is upon you before you can even fire a shot, is crab claw and taloned hand slashing in blurring strikes. Somehow its two strikes both miss by the thinnest of margins, giving you time to take a single breath.

You hear Tayib’s force sword clash with unnatural flesh and chitin as he parries desperately at your back. There is the swish of blade in air, then the crunch of blade into flesh and bone. There is a mewl of displeasure, a feminine moan of passion, and purple smoke drifts past the edges of your view.

Your stalker pattern bolter is little good as a budgeoning instrument, so you grab out Betrayer’s Bane in your left hand and make a textbook lunge forwards, intending to bury it in the chest of the daemonette in front of you.

Melee attacking the daemonette with Betrayer's bane: +0% to hit. Weapon is Master crafted: +10% to hit.

Failure: Needed <59, got 80.

Betrayer’s Bane stabs through empty air as the daemonette laughs. You ignore its commentary on your ‘artless from’, putting the sound of its voice from your thoughts and so ignoring the blandishments of chaos.

Perhaps sensing that you are ignoring it, the daemonette seeks to display is ‘art’ in another form. Its strikes redoubble in intensity and speed, reaching heights that a space marine would be hard pressed to match.

Two incoming melee hits. Parry attempt at +0%. Weapon is Master crafted: +10%. Weapon has the Balanced special rule: +10%.

Success: needed <69, got 13. 1 Attack blocked. Succeeded by more than 40: two additional attacks blocked.

3 > 2, All incoming melee hits are parried.

Hard pressed to match is not the same as unmatchable however, and Betrayer’s Bane flashes in tight arcs. Of the four strikes that the daemonette launches, two miss you cleanly and the other two skip harmlessly off Betrayer’s Bane.

You can hear Tayib spin about on the deck plates, and you feel the force of his blows as the force sword flickers out above and about your form. If anything, the speed of his speed strikes matches that of the daemonette, while his skill exceeds its. The fact that you are in the way limits Tayib’s angles of attack, but not by enough that he misses the mark. Two feints force the daemonette to hop awkwardly over a low stab, which quickly turns into a rising slice that effortlessly cleaves the daemonette in two from groin to crown. It doesn’t even get a chance to make a noise before exploding into purple mist.

You sheath Betrayer’s Bane and ready your stalker pattern bolter. “Time to press on.”

“Agreed. That will probably not be the last we see of warp predators on this mission.”

Ascending through the spine of the Gilded Collar, you come across a section of compartments that were clearly used to house objects of some worth, notably weapons. Much of it is worn and torn. Silver inlays are tarnished, wooden handles have cracked and split. Steel barrels have rusted, and glass display cases have cracked.

But amongst the debris is one intact pedestal. The switches set into the side are fore a stasis field that has long since run dry of power, but the item resting on the stand is relatively untouched by the ravages of time.

The item on the stand looks at first glance to be the armored gauntlet of a suit of space marine terminator armor, complete with the in-built disruption field generators of a power fist, but the protruding blade guard and gleaming adamantine toothed blade mark it out as a chainfist. The bare ceramite is completely smooth, devoid of any chapter markings or colors. It is far to large, heavy, and unwieldy to use in your standard power armor, and would just be a burden to carry for the rest of the mission. But to leave this relic behind feels wrong somehow.