He struggled to his feet. He had fallen why had he fallen? He looked down at his hands, his eyes were bleary but he could tell they were slick with something. What was wrong with his eyes? He took a step and slipped forward, barely keeping his balance. A red liquid sloshed beneath him and made it difficult for him to get a grip. He realized the liquid was blood.

'In minus twenty.'

Were the Throne was he? Whose blood was this? Questions racing through his mind he walked across the blood slicked floor towards a swinging door. As he approached the door he broke into a run. But he still felt so slow, as if something was pulling at him, or as if his legs were made of led. He finally reached the door and got outside. He heard screams, fire.

'In minus eighteen'

Ahead of him was a man, a man he knew. The man was dressed in expensive purple robes and was staring at him with a blank, vacant look. He heard more screams and something else, a cry a shout. It reverberated around him.

'Waaaaaagggh!'

He shouted out to the man he knew in the purple robes. The man's vacant expression remained. The man's mouth opened slowly.

'In minus fifteen.'

'What?' he shouted back. 'What do you mean?'

'Repeat in minus fifteen.'

'What?'

Patas DelaCour woke. He was sweating slightly and he was breathing as if he had been jogging for the past twenty minutes.

Gakking warp dreams. He gritted his teeth and got himself out of his bed. His room was sparkling clean as always. It was small but everything in it was high class and gratuitously expensive. An antique desk with gold handles sat next to a tiny closet full of suits and robes fit for a King. The bed was full of the finest silk and a golden chandelier hung in the ceiling. A cherub lazily floated around it, playing with the candles.

Within a few minutes of getting dressed and brushing his teeth in a small sink directly next to the bed Patas no longer showed any signs of the nightmare he had woken up from. Patas was no stranger to the dreams that plagued those travelling through the warp. Living on the Casanovius for most of his adult life had exposed him to all kinds of warp horrors and mysteries. Patas took a moment to take in the gentle hum of the ships engines. While many would find it irritating the sound had become second nature to Patas and helped calm him down in times of stress.

Or times when warp dreams struck hard. Patas winced as the dreams events ran through his mind again. He looked up at the floating cherub.

'Haven't I told Leden to kill you already for being one of the most creepy gakking things I've ever seen?'

The Cherub didn't answer or even change its vacant expression. Even if it could have answered it would likely have had little retort to the insult. The cherub's face was lined with grotesque scars that ran from its forehead to its chin. The left side of its lower lip had been torn away, revealing some of its rotten gums and undeveloped teeth. Its skin dirty and grey it looked more like something from a warp nightmare than a lovable pet.

'In minus ten'

Patas groaned again, looked away from the cherub and headed out of his room through its hatch door and onto the crew quarters deck. The walls and ceiling of the crew deck looked like they were made of marble and were coloured brown. The floor sparkled and Patas could see his reflection in it. Either side of the deck were five other closed hatch doors which lead to rooms not quite as lavish as Patas' but still roomier than the average Imperial vessel. As Patas walked quickly through the deck the sounds of his shiny black boots echoed and bounced around. Patas liked that a lot, always made his walk to whatever part of the ship (usually to the living and dining area to laze around) sound important. He was dressed in an immaculate bright green vest and black trousers. He reached a metal stairway that would take him up to the ships bridge. Behind the stairs was another hatch door that would lead him to the living area.

'Easy choice there.' He grinned to himself.

'In minus five.'

Patas scowled, changing his mind he took the stairs.

The bridge had a completely different feel than the lavish crew deck. While the crew deck was bright and welcoming, the bridge was cold and dark. It was so dark in fact that the bridge looked smaller than it was as the darkness swallowed up empty areas. The only light source came from three small rows of data banks and screens attended by two silent servitors. In his younger years Patas had once asked to open the massive protective panels that blocked the bridge's view of the outside during warp travel, unnerved by the lack of light. The then captain of the Casanovius scolded him immediately and had sent him to the observatory deck as a kind of punishment. Patas never asked again. He had realised there were far more unnerving things than darkness when travelling through the warp.

'In minus two.'

Patas moved quickly towards one of the bridges intercoms and turned it on.

'Damn it Shwartz how many times do I have to tell you. Enough with your bloody countdowns. Unless there's an emergency just tell us when were there. And where's Leden?'

The slow, monotonous voice of his navigator answered him.

'My countdowns are designed to rouse you to full focus and concentration as soon as we reach our destination in case of any unforseen danger, you may recall approximately two point three years prior to today a certain pirate ambush were this procedure was rather useful to our continued existe-'

'You do it to annoy me Shwartz. Where is Leden?'

'Leden Griess is currently in engineering.'

Patas stood up on the tips of his toes as he tried to read the data screen with the engine diagnostics.

'Still? Why is there a problem?'

'There is no problem with the ship. Griess is currently engaging in auto e-'

'Okay, anyway,' said Patas hurriedly. 'How about that countdown?'

Patas had met many navigators in his time and he had never trusted any of them. Personally he saw them the same way he saw psykers, as creatures that were by default completely insane and untrustworthy. Shwartz had served as the Casanovius navigator for almost five years, a great deal longer than most.

Despite his prejudices Patas had built something of a working relationship with Shwartz. At the very least he trusted Shwartz to guide them through the warp without it resulting in a painful and horrifying death, which was more than he could say of some of his previous navigators.

'We will be dropping out of warp travel in minus thirty seconds.'

With a nod Patas turned off the intercom and ended the conversation. Other than when discussing practical matters there was little point in talking to the taciturn navigator. It appeared to Patas that Shwartz staved off the madness that swallowed up other navigators by immersing himself fully in not just his work but in every piece of data he could get his hands on. The Navigation and Observation Deck or the "nod" as Patas and Leden called it for short was full of a myriad of books and data files that Shwartz could access at a moments notice.

Patas' understanding of the warp was a separate reality entirely made up of conflicting emotions which navigators guided ships through. Patas considered it an irony that Shwartz could navigate through this "great ocean of emotions" so successfully when it appeared to the entire universe that Shwartz had none himself.

'Jumping out of warp space now.'

Patas watched as the two silent servitors began to flurry around the bridge data banks like two birds around a nest. Deftly moving between them he activated the dials that controlled the protective panels around the bridge and told them to retract. They slowly began to roll back and light entered the bridge to reveal its full size to the human eye. He then walked back to the intercom.

'Right, Griess stop whatever it is that your doing and get up to the bridge, were here.'

He had to wait a few seconds for a reply.

'I'm coming Pat, there was just a few extra things I needed to get done down here. Ten minutes.'

Knowing it would be more like twenty Patas turned around to see that the protective panels had fully retracted. A weaker transparent material was all that now separated the bridge from the cold emptiness of space. His eyes were instantly drawn to the massive round shape of the blue and green planet in front of him. Acuada, the second largest planet and bread basket of the Alphas subsector.

There were other shapes around the planet, many were moving. Patas frowned as he took in the sheer number of them all. They were ships of many kinds and sizes. Patas' trained eye picked up that they didn't seem to be moving with any kind of cohesion. Separate traders, doing separate deals. It would appear he was not the first to arrive at Acuada looking to cash in. The Rogue Trader Patas DelaCour changed his frown into a kind of feral smile and his eyes glinted with anticipation.

'This might just get interesting after all.'