[Talic Starsearch]

Part one - Departures.

Talic stared at the screen on the video communicator, a wistful half smile on his lips.

"I'm sorry Ordinatus Kedevin, but my ship just isn't ready to make such a trip through the warp." He lied "It will be at least a week before i'm...."

The speakers crackled and the hoarse voice of Kedevin interrupted Talics polite tones.

"Unacceptable. I must get to the colony as soon as possible, and yours is the only suitable vessel. How about if we add half again what was promised to you, to be received at the successful end of the journey."

Talic tried to hide the shock on his face, he could hear his bridge crew's shocked whispering in the background. The promised rate was more than half a years trading as it was, much more and with half again...Far to much for such a short voyage, less than a months travel. Admittedly it was to a planet unusually close to the eye of terror, and that would make most ships refuse to go, which in turn would inflate the price...

This offered price alone would of been enough to make Talic suspicious, but three other attempts had been made in the past 6 months trying to get him to fly somewhere near the eye of terror. The first two had been reasonable enough, and Talic would of accepted, had he not received information from his 'sources' that their were other prizes to be had, like the huge ore convoy headed for Ya'thill minor with the tiniest of escorts. That had been one of his most profitable raids in years.

He had refused the third offer to fly towards the eye simply out of suspicion, after all years went by between trips into that area of space. Three separate jobs into such a small area(especially that area) was far to risky for him, but this forth attempt had confirmed his worst fears. He was being sent into a trap.

And this time he didn't think he could refuse. The Ordinatus had a high enough rank to make Talics life very uncomfortable, at least in this part of space, and Talic was very comfortable here. His intelligence network gave him near enough unlimited information about the ships traveling through this part of the imperium, and he did not want to have to go somewhere else to resettle. The money was high enough that he half expected his crew to rise in uproar if he refused, though he could quell that easily enough with a quiet word and the right smile.

And if he refused this time, Talic had the deepest suspicion that what ever was waiting for him near the eye would lose patience and come after him.

Still Talic was fairly confident. His crew were exceptional at their jobs, and intensely loyal. His ship "The Delightful Guest" was well armored and provisioned, and (at great expense) had just had a Tau Ion cannon installed that Talic was just itching to try out in combat. He could keep the Ordinatus and his retinue under constant supervision on the trip and kill them at the first sign of betrayal.

He felt cornered but not unduly worried, his faith the efficiency of the guest was unshakable.

"Very well Ordinatus, you may come aboard and we shall set of as soon as you and your companions are settled in and payment has been confirmed. Starsearch out."

Turning of the communicator he sighed. He looked at Shallas, who was in charge of security and said.

"I want them watched at all times. If any of them leave their cabins I want at least one of our girls to 'Accidentally' bump into them and keep them company.And I want those girls armed . I want security teams at all major consoles and control centers, and anything slightly suspicious is to be reported to me immediately. Understood?"

As she nodded he turned towards Grethil, one of his older sons and also an Astropath.

"Keep your eyes on the warp, and unusual warp activity is to be reported immediately, as are any ships that come within range of our sensors. Expect an ambush."

He stood up and to the bridge in general he spoke in a voice brimming with confidence and strength.

"We can do this, I know it looks suspicious and we will take every precaution but i believe in each and everyone of you. We are up to any task that gets sent our way. I'm going to 'greet' our guests. Good luck everyone."

And with that he walked towards the airlock.

[Talic Starsearch]

Part two - Introductions

As he left the bridge he was not unduly surprised to see both Shallas, his chief of security and Kilma, his first mate rise and follow him into the corridor. Kilma’s voluptuous body swayed luxuriously as she moved towards him. Talic watched appreciatively, but only because he knew Kilma expected it. Kilma enjoyed her position as second in command a little too much, and while he had no cause to doubt her abilities, she often tried to shove her rank down some of the other crews’ throats. She was as close to the top as you could get on his ship, and she wanted everyone to know, but when it came to ships security or in the event of a ship to ship battle, Shallas could over rule her, and Talic could almost hear Kilmas teeth grind every time Shallas did. So whenever they were both alone with him, Kilma did everything she could to exaggerate her own femininity. Where Kilma was gorgeous, Shallas was athletic. Kilma could raise a man’s pulse just by arching her eyebrow and while Shallas was attractive, she was more handsome than pretty. With a pair of compelling icy blue eyes which could trap a man’s heart, freezing it in place. Kilma moved with a dancer’s grace, Shallas with a killer’s confidence that no one could fake.

It probably helps that Shallas has a grip that could break a ork’s arm, Talic mused. Shallas had begged Talic to allow her get implants and hidden biomechanical upgrades to increase her sped and strength, and eventually he relented. They had been expensive, but they paid for themselves the first time a group of raiders had posed as travelers and attempted to raid his ship. It had been almost two days before they had managed clean up the mess she had made of them.

“Captain.” Kilmas voice crooned at him. “We need to talk.”

Shallas gave Kilma a disparaging look but said “You must know that you’re putting the crew and the ship in danger. That portion of space...”

Talic interrupted her with a raised hand and a smile. “Shallas, there is no one in the Imperium that you can’t handle. I have every faith in you, and everyone on this ship. Have guards posted at all major terminals and access points. Keep them watched at all times. We will be fine.”

“We all know that if an attack is coming it won’t be from the passengers. The eye means chaos; you know that, we will be flying into an ambush. We are more than a match for any pirate vessel that gets in our way. But if we fly into a Chaos fleet, we will…”

“Your caution is praiseworthy, but please be realistic. A chaos fleet sent for the Guest? What do we have that would warrant such attention?

Kilma leaned into Talic, taking his arm and drawing it to her.

“You can’t play the fool with us, Tal. We receive information detailing the activities of every notable in this system, and have leverage over nearly half of them. Our network grants us Intel on ship movements in all connecting systems. With half of what we have at our fingertips a Chaos fleet could turn this system upside down.”

Half what we have? Talic inwardly snarled with a guarded jealously. You mean half of what I have at my fingertips! However he kept his outward calm, only adding a little steel to his tone as he replied.

“How could they possibly know about us? Our secret is safe, you two are worrying over nothing and your restlessness will be noticed and will cause others to panic. We will take every precaution, and I want several defense plans for the possibility of an ambush at this Emperors shit of a colony at my terminal within the week. Now take control over yourselves and your fears and don’t let this unprofessional attitude scare the rest of the crew.” His barb only hit one target however, Shallas stiffened in pride and nodded at the orders. Excusing herself she strode back towards the bridge, but Kilma just smiled, flashing her dimples like daggers.

“That might work on the ice queen there, but not me I know you too well. You never punish someone for useless caution. You’re just as worried about this as we are.”

“Kilma…”

“I think I understand Tal, but you don’t have to shoulder all the worry yourself. We will be careful, and we will be extra cautious and we will be trapped.”

“Then we will show them that this pleasure cruiser knows how to break up parties just as well as we throw them, ok?”

She gave him one more bright smile before she started to walk away. After a few paces she glanced back at him over her shoulder and said “Make sure you come to see me in my quarters tonight after the passengers are put to bed.” She winked and carried on.

Talic sighed wistfully, Kilma was always at her best on bed when she wanted something from him. He carried on to the airlock, rounding the final corridor he was pleased to see an ‘Honor guard’ of eight scantily dressed beautiful women standing at the airlock. While it looked to be nearly impossible to hide anything larger than a coin in there lacy costumes, each covered in hidden recording devices, this was standard practice however. Blackmail was far to profitable for Talic not to use every trick he could think of. But because of the threat, each girl was also secretly armed with almost dainty handguns that would leave a hole the size of an eldars balls in the chest of anyone from five feet away... Impossible to tell if you didn’t know what to look for, and even then it was difficult to be sure. Expensive, but then everything on the Guest was. Talic didn’t spare anything when it came to ships security. One of the girls nodded to him and spoke in a tone which was slightly to nasal for Talics taste.

“Captain, Kilma reports that the payment has been verified and transferred into our deposits, and our guests are on their way.”

“Excellent, Thank you.” Talic settled down to wait for his troublesome passengers.



Talic’s patience was wearing thin as the minutes passed by, stretching out for nearly an hour. He projected an air of confidence to his crew, chatting amiably with his staff about any little bit of gossip he could remember off hand.

This was an unusual journey, his bridge crew already knew that and soon, knowing the way his crew loved to gossip, everybody on board will have heard and begin wondering what was going on. As soon as these girls came of shift they would head out to their friends and talk about what they saw, and if they see Talic standing there without a care in a world. Well, obviously there was nothing to worry about.



Eventually there was a chime as the passengers entered the airlock and started the decompression that would allow them access to The Delightful Guest. As they passed through the final door, Talic saw behind the imperious Ordinatus Kedevin stride towards him. His three companions flowing behind him in his wake. All men in their thirties and yet not even a glance towards the pictures of perfection that was to be there escort.

“I hope you are ready to set off immediately Captain. I have had quite enough of these delays.”

Talics eyes seamed to shine in the light as he thought. You keep me waiting for an hour then complain about the delays? But he cheerfully said “We will be ready to leave as soon as you finish with your medical, gentleman.”

Ordinatus Kedevin looked at him sharply. “What medical?”

Two of the Ordinatus’s men slipped forward onto the balls of their feet, poised for action. If Talic hadn’t been looking for a reaction he would have missed it. But the strangest reaction was from the third companion, a much larger man. Easily weighing around 260 pounds, he started to sweat heavily and glance nervously at the Ordinatus.

Talic grinned like a cat “All passengers are subject to a medical when they enter my ship to protect against infectious disease harming the crew and or other passengers. Didn’t you read the contract before you set your seal to it?”

Ordinatus Kedevin seemed to sag but said “As you wish captain, lead the way.” The lower cased C was noticeable in the way he pronounced Talics title, almost as a sneer. Not rising to the bait, Talic gave a courtly bow and led the way towards the medical bay. The escort mixing two girls to each of the passengers, attempting to charm each of the strangers with conversation, but the men just marched dismissively after Talic.

[Talic Starsearch]

Chapter Three- Old friends

They reached the medical bay in the near silence, all the Ordinatus would comment on were questions on the medical procedures they where about to undergo. Talics crew had tried there best to get a conversation going, and Talic couldn't fault them on their charm. Any other passengers would be drooling putty in the girls hand by now. But these men refused to be drawn out, with quick harsh tones and monosyllabic replies the girls just couldn't engage the men. Talic inwardly shrugged, he hadn't really expected to get much information from general chatter, and the tension in the silence spoke volumes to him. Still, it would have been less awkward had the men allowed themselves to be drawn out.

When they entered the bay, Talic nodded pleasantly at Castella, the ships doctor, made his farewells and told them to pass a message to his staff should they need to get in contact with him personally. Soon he would have some questions for Kedevin, but for now he was content to see what the test results would be. They were obviously worried about something he would find. He could tell that from the retinue, Kedevin had been a little more controlled, but even he was giving off small tells of alarm.

Talic really didn't have much to do right now, they were waiting on the doctors results before leaving the space dock, and apart from the shift currently on duty most of his crew were either resting or in the mess hall. The Delightful Guest had four different crew shifts a day, each shift having its own team that ran the ship during the day changing every six hours. Each off duty shift would then have eighteen hours left to there own devices, save in an emergency or if major repair work was needed. A few key members of his crew didn't work on this schedule, his son Grethil for example, was the only astropath on his ship and so worked much longer hours.

With nothing much better to do he decided to meet up with one of the other key crew members who worked around the clock and the only one who wasn't either a bed mate or family. The ships tech priest Lutho Hill.

Lutho had been a real find for Talic, he had designed and produced most of the listening and bugging devices that had created the information network that made Talic the success he was. Talic had found him early on in his career. Talic had barley started out in fact, with only a small scavenger vessel that was held together with spit and hope, and a four man crew, each of whom spent nearly all of there time trying to kill the other three.

Talic had found Lutho being "disassembled" in one of the shadier spaceports, by a group of rough looking vagrants. Talic, not usually the helpfully type at this time in his life, had on a whim decided to help. After shooting one of the trouble makers in the back, the others, armed only with steel bars and blades, quickly turned and ran. After helping Lutho onto his feet, a task that had nearly caused Talic to have a stroke, Lutho had dreamily said in a voice that seemed unconnected to its owners personal circumstances. "That is an old mark 2 turbo addition bolt pistol isn't it? Are you aware that they have a tendency to pull to the right when firing over distances of 15.8 meters, and without proper maintenance can suffer from a build up of coper sulfate which can cause the weapon to jam in battle? If you wish I could examine the article and conduct and required repairs. I also believe that with a little modification I could increase the stopping fire by at least 13.8%."

Talic had almost burst out laughing at the lack of care Lutho had shown own well being. He handing over his weapon to the Tech Priest, beginning a conversation, one he still didn't fully understand, which had ended up with the Tech priest scuttling around his ship with either shrieks of disgust at the state of a systems malfunction, or a scream of delight as some old system that no one touched or really understood was found and examined to be some rare and unusual way of regulating ship gravity, or filtering the air. Nearly two centuries later Lutho was one of Talics closest confidants, if only because the Tech Priest never really listened or understood anything Talic said unless a machine was involved somewhere.

Talic entered the engineering room, and after asking a few of Luthos servitors, made his way to the part of the room which housed the controls and diagnostic tools for his new Ion cannon. Talic could only just spot Lutho submersed behind all the equipment in the room, which was hard enough in itself. Lutho stood at nearly nine feet tall, looking more like a giant mechanical cockroach on its hind legs than what had originally been a pure blood human, chattering away to his servitors in that clicking binary tongue tech priests always chatted in. Talic had asked once for Lutho to create a translation device to understand the language, but the Tech priests outraged indignation had persuaded Talic to drop the topic and never again bring it up.

"Lutho my friend, whats your opinion of current ship facilities?"

The chattering stopped after one last brief spurt from Lutho, who then after about ten seconds turned to Talic.

"Captain, it is good to see you. I have no currant diagnostic results on ship facilities. Last scan was preformed thirty one point eight hours ago. Do you wish me to conduct a new wave on diagnostics or continue working on appeasing the tech spirit of the Ion cannon?"

"How about you just tell me the results,in brief, from yesterdays diagnostic." The one time he had asked for a diagnostic report in full it had been hours before he could get away. "The Ion cannon is still giving you trouble?"

"Ships diagnostic showed all ships systems to be working well within desired parameters, with the only exception of the Ion cannon and the aft sensor grid. The Ion cannon will fire correctly every time if it is given enough time between shots. If required to fire before recharge time has been provided, estimated 33.7% chance of a successful shot. Failed shots will result in a small overload which will send energy back into the Ionizing chamber, which has a high probability of creating a feedback loop which could result in a volatile explosion. Estimated time for a hundred percent firing success rate is 2.5hours."

Talics face clouded over.

"I can only fire the weapon once every two and a half hours? Thats ridiculous!"

"The Ion cannon can be fired after a minimum recharge rate of 4.8 minutes. I am currently working on a way to minamalise the risk of a feed back loop. So far simulations look successful. Sadly Due to the alien design the technology of the Ion cannon uses, I cannot hope to increase the chance of a successful shot without major redesign to the Delightful Guest."

"How long would it take to make the changes to the ship?"

"I believe I did not state myself clearly enough. The ship would need a complete work though to make the weapon 100% viable. This work through however would mean the ship would cease to be able to preform its duties as a ship."

Talic sighed, a fully working Ion cannon was just to much to ask for it seemed.

"Can you control this overload to make sure it wont harm the ship?"

"I believe so Capitan, though it will take several days to complete. During this time I will not be able to finish repairs on the aft sensors. Unless you wish for me to prioritize the aft sensors."

"Can you complete the modifications to the Ion cannon, and the repairs to the sensors whilst in the Warp?"

"I believe so Captain. But it would take slightly longer, and increases the chance for mishap should one of my calculations be in error. It would be preferable to complete all work before entering the Warp. "

"How much longer?"

"I should estimate that all work be completed in just under two weeks Captain."

Talic thought to himself. Two weeks? Lutho is usually far to optimistic about these things so say three weeks, with the Ion cannon as a priority...21 days till were completely ready, we shouldn't reach the colony for at least 25 more days, I could probably get Gethil to slow us down a little If it looks to be getting a little close. If theres an ambush it will be at the colony,thats the closest we will get to the Eye, and the only place they can be sure we will drop out of Warp...

"OK Lutho, continue as fast as you dare. We may be heading into trouble."

"The new passengers Captain?"

"How did you know about them?" Talic demanded

"I felt the pressure when the Airlocks was resealed. Added to your unscheduled meeting and your question about repairs in the Warp in extrapolated that we had new passengers and a new destination."

Talic smiled, he had long stopped being surprised at Lutho's ability to feel what happens around the ship. Like he was a vast spider and it was his web.

"We are heading into a very dangerous part of space, but as long as you complete on time we should have no troubles. Report any setbacks or delays to me immediately."

"Yes Captain."

Talic gave a nod and decided he had enough time to grab something quick to eat before the tests results would be done.

About an hour later, as he was finishing his meal, the ships doctor Castella sat down opposite him with a data pad. She was one of the few members of the crew who didn't over use the rejuvenation technology, only using it every six or seven years, unlike every other month like most of the crew, Talic included. Currently she looked a striking forty year old woman, with dark brown curles and a slim figure.

"So Cas, what do the results say?"

"There all perfectly healthy. Signs of rejuv tech in the Ordinatus, but thats to be expected. Two of the others seem perfectly healthy, but the obese man...there was some irregularities and it wasn't just his cholesterol."

"Such as"

"Signs of genetic tampering, probably had implants added, but I can find no trace of them without cutting him open, and I doubted he would consent to that."

"What kind of implants?"

"Theres no way of knowing without much more specific and invasive tests. I didn't want to start them with out your approval."

"Did you find anything else noteworthy?"

"A few bolt scars, an old knife wound in the Ordinatus back, but I think that comes with the job." She smiled, and all of a sudden she looked twenty years younger.

"You're probably right about that Cas, re go over the data you have already collected just to make sure you didn't miss anything. Don't worry about doing further tests right now."

"You sure? I'm pretty certain there hiding something."

"As am I, but the Ordinatus was worried about the medical when I first mentioned it, but he relented without to much of a fuss, which means he expected us to fail to find anything. I can't go cutting open our passengers just out of curiosity. Keep me posted if you find anything."

"Off course Tal, we still on for tomorrow?"

"You think I'd let a little thing like possible disaster stop me from enjoying one of your home cooked meals? I'll be at your quarters as soon as the third shift takes over."

She smiled again as she walked back to medical bay, leaving Talic alone with his thoughts.