The Black Ship

They are there to die. Torn from their homes due to a quirk of birth utterly beyond their control, thousands of souls – the scummy edge of what could eventually result in the either the salvation of the galaxy or (far more likely) its destruction. Their souls flicker in the warp, stronger than most – but a tiny spark to a supernova when compared to the searing light of the astronomican. A light that they will soon die to feed.

Across the galaxy soar thousands of these ships, identical in form, function, destination and quiet malice. They collect their due from a hundred worlds, they deliver their harvest of flesh to Terra, and they leave to acquire yet more of their terrible cargo. Any denizen of the warp would pay all that it had and more to gain entry to even one of these horrific leviathans – a daemon that made it inside would glut itself on the thousands of unprotected souls therein and run rampant with the titanic surge of power it would bring.

But the Daemons cannot enter, for the Black Ships are protected from their touch. Arcane Sigils and unswerving faith prove anathema to the warp-touch of such depraved creatures – any Daemon unlucky enough to even brush against such a hulk as it split the warp would find its essence scattered in burning agony to the four winds.

Though a few points must be made – that it is not only monsters that haunt the warp. That not all go to this demise willingly. And that this ship...this ship is different from the others.

Perhaps it is the fact that a few amongst its grisly cargo have determined that they will not be dying to feed a gods corpse. Perhaps it is the quietly fluttering presence of a warp-entity against which the ships protections do not seem to function. Perhaps it is that one of the few unautomated guards is not a guard at all.

The main difference though? That is fairly likely to be the fact that the other ships do not have two small nuclear devices discreetly strapped to the underside of each of their warp drive initiators.

*BOOM*

And one of the shipment – a man who should have been chained firmly to his seat – stands up, and – with a gun he really should not have – shoots the nearest guard. Several times. He seems to find it rather satisfying.

The crippled ships response is immediate, overwhelming, deadly...and exactly as predicted. Seven combat servitors move to immediately cleanse the entire sector as the ships captain brings up the display that will allow him to flood that deck of the ship with an impressively dangerous gas. But five of the servitors are immediately boxed in with a raging wall of fire as another man – this one with odd scars criss-crossing his palms – waves his left hand. At the same time the guard who is not a guard blows the head off of the one nearest him. The remaining servitor attempts to turn and blast the psyker holding back its comrades – but finds itself held in place by a well-muscled arm that appears to be shedding copious amounts of false-flesh. The arm belongs to another man who – unlike the others – does indeed have both hands chained firmly to the floor, fortunate that he has an extra one really.

The captain meanwhile finds himself a little distracted from the duty of purging the floor – but in fairness to the poor bugger it should be pointed out that having a long rifle with a scythe blade attached to its barrel emerge from the ceiling, swing underneath your neck and jerk back hard enough to completely separate your head from your shoulders does constitute one hell of a distraction.

Action on the part of the ships crew is further hampered by the appearance – seemingly out of nowhere – of swarming ripperjacks, all of whom appear to be moving according to the whims of a single dancing woman who twirls twin pistols in her hands and takes every available opportunity to prove she knows how to use them. Anybody who does manage to get close enough to draw a bead on the laughing maniac either finds that their shots go terribly awry – or that she simply vanishes from sight moments before they would pull the trigger.

Meanwhile the servitors who were previously trapped in a wall of fire ready themselves for heavy combat as it falls...and find themselves facing a tidal-wave of flesh as hundreds of sacrificial victims swarm them with bare hands, swinging chains and the strength that only desperate hope can bring.

The man who previously took such pleasure in gunning down a guardsman leads the group from the first room towards what can only be presumed to have been a pre-arranged rendezvous point. To say that they encounter no resistance would be a lie...but said resistance that they do encounter seems to have an unnerving habit of bursting into flames. And when they finally run into a heavily armed group of another three servitors the man promptly becomes wreathed in white hot fire and dives right in to the centre of the group – the sheer heat of his body proving sufficient to turn aside blows and turn even the lightest of his touches into burning death. You'd almost want to feel sorry for the servitors.

Arriving at the ships escape pods the group is soon joined by the chittering swarm of ripperjacks, as well as their apparent matriarch. A young girl of no more than 12 sits on her shoulder, she smiles and waves to the first group...but her eyes gleam an unnatural shade of red and green and her pupils seem to be diagonal slits – like those of a cat but tilted about 45degrees. No words are spoken, no words really need be said. Unlike many potential rebels of the imperium these people are well aware of exactly what they have just done. And they are absolutely fine with it. The group marches along the row of ships, searching for a specific one.

They find it, escape pod no.2375. But it is not unoccupied. The final member of the group sits atop it, his biotic legs finding impossible grip upon the smooth surface as he lounges nonchalantly against the tailfin. This one is clearly not human, his largely exposed torso is scaled and his arms give an impression of whipcord strength, in place of a mouth he instead has a large and powerful beak, a crest of feather-like protrusions taking the place of hair. One arm holds the blood-encrusted rifle, the other holds a delicious snack. That said snack is apparently the head of the deceased captain appears to be neither here nor there. He throws the partially eaten head away as the group approaches and jumps to the ground, landing far more silently than his weighty legs should really allow.

Noticing their avian ally the man whom we can by now presume to be the leader smiles. It is not a terribly attractive smile but that is mostly because he is not a very attractive man. But it is the alien who at last breaks the silence.

"Thrope." His voice rasps as if the throat that it uttered from were made of sandpaper – but there is respect in that tone as well. "Almost thought I would not be meeting." He sniffs the air, "never will understand stupid custom of cooking, no wonder you never eat properly."

"Taka," replies the surprisingly deep-voiced man now known as Thrope as he grasps a proffered hand and gives it a hearty shake. "How many times must I tell you that there really is more to life than food?" He lets loose a snort of what could conceivably be judged to be laughter and the not terribly attractive smile becomes an outrightly terrifying grin that exposes a row of crystal clean teeth. "And I – like always – knew that you wouldn't let us down." He gestures to the surrounding area "you think this little beauty will cover your fee? I'll be sending a coded flare once we're out'a here. Your friends can mop up anything left on this ship without too much trouble. An' if I'm any judge of the human character they'll likely get themselves a good few converts into the bargain. Wouldn't worry bout the remaining command chain callin' fer help either – ye'd be surprised just how much damage a single ripperjack can do to a load a' wires, and we ad' a ole bloody swarm of em'."

Taka drops his jaw in what likely constitutes a smile and confirms that once his friends in blue pick up the crippled ship he'll be serving with them for the foreseeable future. The group piles in to the pod, the three-armed man draws the door closed and punches in a memorised sequence of numbers and coded symbols and the pod drops free into space.