It took no less than 4 days for Sergeant Demias to be satisfied with the plans we made to hunt down the pirates that were giving the Imperial Fists grief. 4 days of discussing possible scenarios, impossible scenarios, and potential courses of action depending on the response of the pirates to any theoretical situation. Estimated losses of my crew and soldiers, should they be allowed to board, and the response time for the Astartes reinforcements that were being made ready to move out at first contact with the pirates. Potential resources that could be reclaimed in the name of the Emperor, and the assumed forces under the command of the pirates. 4 days of mind-numbing boredom, far worse than any prayer session.

"Take heed that you do not engage their commander without us. The man is a perverted witch, spreading his degenerate filth where ever he sets foot." Demias had warned me, and I understood enough to know that I was dealing with a psyker turned pirate captain. Elris was happy with this, her desire to root out heretical thoughts growing with each passing day. She was used to infiltrating and abolishing small cells of heretics, not spending endless days gathering information and cooking it down into note form for me to take advantage of.

I had taken the sergeant's words to heart and had no plans to play the hero in all of this. Sure, I was a psyker myself, but I was untrained, and, more importantly, I was neither sanctioned to be a psyker nor known to be one, meaning I would get a target on my head if it ever became known. So while Elris was happy we got to hunt heretics, I was happy we got to take a backseat and function as nothing more than bait. of course, we would still be placed in harm's way, but pirates had a habit of causing minimal destruction. If they could salvage it, they could sell or use it.

And so it came to be, that 1 week after being contacted by the Imperial fists, I was taking my ship out to roam the trading lanes between the nearby local planets, running from one planet to another, hoping to get seen as a target for the pirates to jump on, and for once my luck failed me. several weeks of playing bait yielded no results, and I started fearing that the Astartes might get impatient, but every time I approached the subject, I was met with reassurances that the time would come for our trap to be sprung, we just had to be patient. I was not so sure, and the constant waiting was taking its toll on me. My crew saw it as a vacation, spending their reduced work hours on anything one could think of, from illicit gambling and trading to engaging in hobbies like metal carving and painting. I guess even in this universe, people need something to distract them from the horrors they face in life.

It had been damn near a month and I was slowly going mental from the waiting when suddenly the alarm Klaxons sounded throughout the ship. I was on the bridge when it happened and was immediately informed that a small group of 3 unidentified ships was approaching fast. Pressing a button, I connected to the vox in the Navigators sanctum and ordered him to inform the Astartes on standby. Meanwhile, the crew on my bridge was busy turning my ship around to turn tail and run. While the leading ship was a Hazeroth class like my own ship, the 2 Escort Carriers* flying in formation alongside the pirate would surely spell doom if I chose to stay and fight. So, for now, I would have to take on the role of a lone merchant, running scared without a plan. As the ship turned around and started running, we still had a good 3 million kilometers of distance from the enemy. With a ship lance battery having an effective range of roughly 300.000 kilometers, and Las Burners having only 2/3 of the effective range and power, we were well beyond any attempts at hitting, much less damaging us.

We were losing ground, but it had become a race to reach safety before we were intercepted, and even when we were, we would be looking at a few good hours of combat before we would realistically have lost. After running the calculations, it was estimated that we could keep running for close to 22 hours before being in the range of the enemy weapons, and from the response I got from Farsyn, our reinforcements were a mere 15 hours away. He also delivered an urgent request to fake an engine problem and slow down to make the arrival of our reinforcements match as closely as possible with the projected arrival of the Astartes Strike Cruiser and chose to take the advice. Or some of it, slowing down enough for the intercept to match a 16-hour mark, giving us ample time for any minor mishaps to slow down the Strike Cruiser.

When the orders were given I retreated to my cabin and donned my carapace armor. Luck favored the well-prepared, and I had no intention of being caught slipping, especially not when working with Astartes. Sure, it was going to take a whole lot more to get proper recognition from an Astartes chapter, but being known as at least competent enough to follow orders and prepare for the worst, just in case, would go a long way to not getting dismissed outright in any future dealings. Emerging once more, fully armored and with my stub cannon on my hip, I took my place at the helm and accepted the fate of waiting while the chase was on. I fell into a steady rhythm of updates about distance to the enemy, course changes, engine status, and a myriad of other minor things that helped me pass the time. I admit, I did send a prayer the Emperor's way at every hour, but that was more for my own mental state than in the hopes of it actually helping. I found that praying calmed me down during long periods of increased stress, like waiting for action.

The hours slowly ticked away and the pirates slowly got closer, my wish to contact the Astartes, growing with each passing hour, but having the navigator contact them yielded the chance of the pirates' navigator picking up on the transmission of a message, alerting them that foul play was taking place. So I would have to be content with hoping they would be there. Not that I was too worried, we were talking about the Imperial fists. The only chapter with a sense of duty that could rival the Ultramarines. I remember reading a fan theory back home about the Ultramarines only being so successful because Orks believe blue increases luck. So having an Astartes chapter completely decked out in royal blue, was bound to have the orks mess up something, considering the psychic bleeding effect of all orks, and the way it actively influenced the universe around them. Not that I ever put much faith in the fan theory, but it was a fun line of thought nonetheless, and it would cause most if not all Imperial branches to have a collectively blown mind if it ever became a public theory in this world. Entire star systems would be scoured clean of life in an attempt to eradicate the idea.

My mind was drifting, and I returned it to the present, focusing on the tactical display in front of me. Slowly, kilometer by kilometer, the pirates were gaining on us. And I had no way of trying fancy maneuvers to try and increase the distance. The 2 escorts ship made sure of that. It was a brilliant, yet very simple and very human, hunting strategy. Persistence hunting. Hunting something down fast enough that it doesn't get to rest up between bouts of chasing, but slow enough that you could keep it up for days if needed. I could of course attempt a warp jump, but they would simply follow me to my destination, making the whole thing redundant and a wasted effort. So there was only running and hoping the plan would work. It most likely would though, the Imperial Fists would not allow something as menial as a band of pirates to stain their reputation.

As the hours closed in and the pirates closed the distance, I started growing nervous. I did my best to not show it, but this was my first real engagement in void combat, and I could not escape the fact that I was massively worried. I was up against experienced renegades, I was in charge of a void ship, commanding over 25000 crew and soldiers. And all I had to support the choices I made, was a few weeks of reading, some basic soldier training, and my fanboy knowledge from back home. And of course, the system I was a part of. I had not checked up on it since the ship entered the void, and I felt a little disgusted by my own lack of interest in something that gave me such a blatant advantage, but it would have to wait until after this little intermission in life.

At 3 hours left until the supposed arrival of my Astartes allies, the vox operator informed me that I was being hailed. I gave the order to ognore the hails, seeing to point in incurring both the wrath of Elris and the Imperial fists by initiating contact with a renegade. "Incoming message" The operator informed me moments later.

"What does it say?" I asked quickly.

"... The system brings us all together. The renegades know the truth." The answer came after a moment of hesitation, the confusion evident in the trooper.

"Insane ramblings of a renegade degenerate. Purge the message, no response." I said with as much disgust as I could muster. Elris nodded in approval and the men and women operating on the bridge collectively sighed in silent relief. But my mind was racing. The renegades knew of the system? And what was that about the system bringing them together? There was no chance I could exchange words with this person, but if the renegades knew about the system, I had to find a way to get Elris off my ship and gain true freedom.

But if my opponent was a system user, surely it would aid them in the coming battle. Then again, the system was mostly a bonus for the individual, not the collective, at least not from what I had seen, beyond a very circumstantial ability of mine. In a void fight, it was more or less useless. So everything hinged on me having taken well to the self-imposed training of mine, to make me at least somewhat useful in the coming conflict.

Even with an Astartes strike cruiser backing me up, I would still have to contest with the 2 escort ships, while they boarded and disabled the renegade Hazeroth, using boarding torpedos**. No matter, they were not big enough to present a serious threat unless I allowed them to be one. Our shields were strong, I had enough troops to repel boarding attempts, and while my weapons were not as good as they could be, they would still be enough. As for how much damage I would sustain, that depended on how well my crew performed, what orders I gave, the same for the 2 escort ships, and a million other little things. So, it would be more or less random.

The minutes ticked by as the tension grew palpable on board my ship. The orders shouted between the crew became sharper in tone and less forgiving about minor mistakes. Several smaller fights almost erupted, and only the intervention of my guardsmen prevented it from escalating I would need to recruit more bosun's to keep the peace among my crew. This gave me an idea concerning Elris, but it needed more thought before I could consider it viable. But maybe increasing the ship's number of Confessor's*** could convince her that I was pious enough for her to resume her regular duties. Sure, we had fun at night, but I was under no illusions in that regard. I was a pleasant distraction from her duties, but nothing more than that. 300 years of rooting out heresy from within had hardened her heart to a point where concepts such as "love" and "Compassion" only existed to express her feelings about the Emperor and the Imperium in general. It didn't make her visit any less fun, but it made it that much easier to leave her behind. I wanted home, and to get it, I would have to rid myself of Imperial representatives, which included future fleet commissars.

They had the power to declare entire crews, including the captain, unfit for service, an effective way of keeping captains in check. Which also explained the blatant lack of them on most, if not all, rogue trader ships. Nobody wants someone nearby that has the power to have one of the freest agents in the Imperium, restrained and possibly executed, on nothing more than twisting of words and events, and an intent to take them out of service.

The warning Klaxon ringing out across the ship ripped me out of my introspection and I returned my focus to the present.

"Ship transitioning into system!" The lieutenant in charge of the station called out to me, and I snapped my eyes to the large viewport surrounding the bridge. True to the trooper's words, A massive circular portal opened up and a light strike cruiser emerged from within, the 4½ kilometer-long ship quickly entered realspace, revealing that all engines were firing and they were headed straight at the main ship of the 3 in pursuit. I gave the order to turn around and provide escort for the strike cruiser.

Despite momentary panic from the renegade pirates, they quickly regained their composure. They opted for sending 1 of the escort ship to tie up my ship while they attempted to take down the strike cruiser. Against a baseline human, it would have made sense. But pitted against Astartes, with their superior... Everything, really. It was a fruitless effort, that I later learned saw the destruction of the escort ship before the boarding space marines had taken the bridge of the hazeroth.

But I had my own dance partner, and I planned to wear them out quickly. Overall, I had a better ship, a larger crew, and more to live for. I also had backup, in case things went badly, but it was unlikely.

As we closed on the escort ship, I ordered the void shields raised and weapons prepared to combat. I would be faced with a choice, as to whether I wanted to board the enemy vessel or try to disable it from the safety of distance. While a boarding action would get me another ship, I did not have the manpower to spare, at least not at the moment, to undertake such a risk. So blasting them from a distance was the choice of the day.

"Get us within range of the macro cannons**** and Lasburners. I want to see that ship turned into debris before our Astartes allies are finished with their prey!" I demanded and my order was immediately put into effect. The first salvo was exchanged and the shields held on both sides, but then one of the Lasburners fired and seared against the void shield of the escort ship. The shield buckled and crackled under the onslaught, but ultimately held out. They fired back, and we began a dance of death in the void.

As long as the shields held, this pattern of fire and return fire would continue until either, a critical ship component would get hit, like the engines or bridge, or one of us blew up under the furious assault of the guns. But it never got to that point. after around 40 minutes of combat, their shield was noticeably weaker and flickered every so often, but I never got to deliver the deathblow, as 2 torpedos came flying from the direction of the Astartes strike cruiser, one made the shield fail and the next one connected cleanly with the engine. Judging from the way the engine compartment ripped the ship apart shortly after, instead of blowing up immediately, told me it was a Melta torpedo they had used. Punching its way through the armor and setting everything inside ablaze, the short flash of roughly 15 million degrees Celsius was enough to melt parts of the superstructure the ship was built around.

Switching my attention, I saw the other escort ship drifting aimlessly away from the battle, while the hazeroth was simply hanging in space, with thunderhawks flying back and forth between it and the strike cruiser. Once more, the superiority of an Astartes mind made itself evident. The space marines lived combat. They breathed combat. They saw combat in the name of the Emperor as the singular purpose of their existence, and they had hundreds, theoretically thousands of years to learn how to be better at it. Going up against a strike cruiser, even 2 on 1, was bound to end in your demise, unless you had Astartes on your side or your ships were SIGNIFICANTLY bigger and better defended, both inside and out.

I was debating internally whether to keep an escort ship for myself or not, but that choice was made for me as more torpedos made contact with both ships and turned them into a field of fine debris. The Hazeroth was still intact, but I doubted I could lay claim to a ship that matched my own when a renegade had been the captain. It would be stripped clean, examined inside and out, split up, and used for spare parts. Those parts deemed salvageable, anyhow.

Demias walked onto my bridge once more to thank me for my generous assistance and to offer assistance in any future ventures I might undertake in this area of space. Mostly empty words meant to keep up etiquette, but there was a kernel of truth in them. This action would indeed give me, no matter how small and insignificant, a minor claim to help that would carry more weight once my actions here were taken into consideration.

"One last thing." Demias rumbled as he was about to bid us farewell. "A message was sent from the renegade to your ship, and the contents worry us. The familiarity of the message suggested he had knowledge of you, and whatever system he was talking about, I hope you have a good explanation, rogue trader." with horror, I realized that the powerfist****** equipped on his armor had crackled to life,

The threat in the words was barely veiled, the need for such niceties was well past, especially when you remembered that the 5 honor guards of the sergeant would be more than enough to take this ship under their control, should they wish it. My saving grace came from an unexpected source, to put it mildly.

"The trader captain is a faithful servant of the Emperor. He dismissed the ramblings of the madman as such and ordered the message purged from the system, with no reply, the moment he learned what it contained." The young commissar that was still traveling with me to keep Trokk under control until he had been bonded enough to me to put my safety above all else, spoke up, and everyone turned their head to look at him. This was a significant testimony to my character, as the commissars were exceptionally well known to be suspicious and distrustful by nature.

"I can confirm the commissar's words, I was standing nearby the captain when he gave the order," Elris spoke up as well. and faced with an inquisitorial agent and a commissar, in agreement, Demias capitulated quickly.

"Very well, for a moment I was prepared to deliver the Emperor's mercy to you, just to be safe. But it would seem I have misjudged your character. Keep your faith strong and your bolter armed, rogue trader. Farewell." And with that, Demias turned on his heels and walked back toward the thunderhawk that would carry him and his honor guard back to their strike cruiser. I was once more struck by how close I had been to death. If Demias had been so inclined, no force in the nearby void could have prevented my death, along with every single other mortal on my ship. Say what you want about the Imperial Fists, but they are effective and tenacious.

When the strike cruiser had warped out of the system, I messaged Farsyn to plot our course once more and get us underway. We had already wasted a month for nothing more than a "thank you" and a handshake. It was time for us to do something a little more profitable and interesting than playing bait for the Astartes. Bakka waited for us, and with it, a wealth of opportunities!