The Petition of Hexum Davarro

Declart Elkins, scribe of the Adeptus Terra, worked in a cloister deep within the sprawling Administorum building in the upper hive levels somewhere on Port Maw. On the 256th day of the year 275 of M41, Declart arrived at his cloister at approximately 7:05 AM (or the local equivalent thereof), settled into his desk with a warm cup of caffeine, and began his daily work. His work on this day was the same type of work that he had labored at for the past five standard years, since his promotion to scribe from that of a lowly archivist, and that was the work of answering petitions to the Administorum that were receipted in from across the sector. Each day, an archivist brought him a fresh box containing paper files. [The raw materials to make the paper of course, had to be imported from an agri world some five light years away] Each file in turn contained a petition. Each petition in turn required an answer. Declart's superiors expected him to answer 30 or so petitions in a standard day, so time was always of the essence. But for Declart, the days always went quickly. He had a way with words after all, which is of course, why he had been promoted in the first place.

Declart opened the first petition of the day. It was from a Rogue Trader by the name of Hexum Davarro. He checked the stamp on the petition to see that it had been properly receipted, and that all the required fees were paid. It turns out they were. He then checked the date to see how long the petition had been pending with the Administorum. In this case it had only been a standard year. Only a year he thought. That's odd. When he looked more closely though he realized that the petitioner had paid a premium fee for expedited processing. That makes more sense. He smiled to himself and took a sip of his caffeine before he began to skim the petition quickly, trying to focus on the relevant parts of what was being said.

We were on a cargo run to Port Maw, in transit across the Grail Dark Nebulae when we ran into a sudden turbulence in the warp. My navigator was forced to pull back into the nearest point of safe real space to get his bearings. We found ourselves in the X76HG system, classified as a system containing only dead worlds on our charts. Before my navigator could recover his bearings though we were set upon by ork pirates.

Rather than allow ourselves to be blasted into oblivion or boarded, we swung in toward the system's primary biosphere where we discovered a previously undiscovered life sustaining world. We didn't have time for a full orbital survey as we were quickly forced to make an emergency landing on the surface. However, I will describe my findings briefly:

The world is a cold one but tolerable enough for human settlement. There are a few tribes of feral humans there, still loyal to the eternal Emperor, but living as hunter gatherers. From what I can gather from their oral tradition, these humans are the descendants of men and women whom were brought to this world as slaves from across the sector, but who at some point escaped whilst the orks engaged in some drawn out war with what I surmise was the ancient Druchari.

These human tribes are currently engaged in an endless low intensity conflict with the ork tribes, using captured ork vehicles and weapons, alongside their own primitive swords and bows. Although the ork tribes are more numerous and formidable with a moderate tech base, they are also hobbled by infighting amongst themselves and are still struggling to rebuild their infrastructure, with a notable focus on rebuilding their capacity to build void ships. This means that most of the skirmishes between ork and human tribes and amongst the ork tribes are over precious scrap, usually pieces of void ships that crashed onto the planet during the war. Before I departed, I assured the tribesmen that the Emperor would not abandon them and that I would return with help.

But it is not just for these souls that I petition. This world undoubtedly has vast riches that could be exploited and add greatly to the tithes of the sector. I therefore request the following in short order:

One regiment of Imperial Guard

Two squadrons of escort ships or one capital ship from the Navy

One full planetary reconstruction team with critical component from the Ministorum and Mechanica.

Declart smiled. He always enjoyed the stories from the Rogue Traders. Though he knew from his training that they were often exaggerated and untrustworthy. Still, the Rogue Traders offered the Imperium opportunities, and this petition was no exception.

After taking a moment, Declart dipped his ballpoint pen in a jar of ink and began to hand write the following.

Dear Hexum Davarro:

After reviewing the contents of your petition, the Administorum has requested the Mechanica to reclassify system X76HG as a system sustaining a Feral World. The name of the world as published in the next edition of the sector star charts shall be Davarro XXIII, named after yourself of course, the discoverer of this new domain.

The Administorum will now set about the process of appointing an Imperial Commander to this new domain. Pursuant to longstanding custom, only after all the resources of the Imperial Commander have been exhausted or proven to be inadequate shall the Administorum forward a petition of this nature to the Munitorium and the Navy.

Therefore, your petition is denied accordingly.

Declart sighed with relief as he finished writing his response to the petition, and then placed the paper file and his draft letter in a separate box marked "Returns." His response would be reviewed by his superiors in the coming days and in perhaps another year or so Hexum would receive a written correspondence from the Administorum, delivered in person to the Rogue Trader's lavish apartment on this very hive. Of course, the Rogue Trader would have to actually be in the hive and not out exploring the galaxy to retrieve it, but that mattered little to Declart.

What mattered was that a petition had been answered. Now there was just 29 more to go in his day.