N’vier dropped into the command throne on the Khamsin and gazed out across the bridge. The unfamiliar colors and iconography all about him unnerved him, but he choked back his disquiet. The servitor-manned consoles were coming to life, displaying information that he barely understood. The engine status light was green, the void- and gellar- shield generators were inoperable, the dorsal turrets showed some sort of damage or error, and the better part of an Imperial merchant ship blocked his path forwards. But the Khamsin’s armor was thick, her engines were hot, and her prow lance had one shot in her capacitors. N’vier pushed the firing stud on the command console, and prayed to Vulcan and the Emperor that it would be enough.

It was, only just, enough. The merchant ship’s cargo holds blew apart, breaking the ships back. N’vier pushed the throttle telegraph lever from ‘all stop’ to ‘ahead flank’ and the engines roared in response, shoving the Khamsin froward through the wreckage. He was thrown from the command throne when the ship came to an unexpected halt half a kilometer furter on, the flared stabilizers on the engine cowling catching on more wreckage. N’vier got back on the command throne and pulled the throttle back to ‘astern slow’ and left it there for a few moments, feeling the Khamsin ease back off of the wreckage.

With a further prayer to the Emperor, and begging forgiveness of the ship’s machine spirits, her rammed the lever back to ‘ahead flank.’ one of the stabilizers tore off, and the second was mangled beyond usefulness, but the Khamsin spun free of the Capitalis Congestus.

N’vier closed his eyes and offered up a prayer of thanks. A bright light lit the backs of his eyelids, nearly blinding him with its intensity. When it faded and N’vier was able to open his eyes, nothing of the Capitalis Congestus remained. A glance down at the command console’s ship status display revealed that aft two-thirds of the Khamsin was the red of critical damage. N’vier had no doubt that those sections of the ship were in fact destroyed. With no propulsion, minimal power generation, negligible life support, and with the Khamsin drifting out of control, all N’vier could activate the scout-issue teleport homing beacon on his belt and hope another Imperial ship would be close enough to detect it.

The purple-black flare of a warp-transit lit up the display ports. When they cleared again, three ships hung motionless in the void. Two were small escorts, but the third was a massive skull-prowed ship bearing the Cogwheel of the Adeptus Mechanicus, the three-barred I of the Imperial Inquisition, and the sigil of some Imperial Noble clan.