Attempting to strike a balance between what I know is the canon-ish way of pootling about a system in 40K and what doesn't involve just sitting around for a few days while waiting for someone accelerating in from whatever Mandeville Point they arrived at remains tricky. Mostly it's best not to think about it. The videogames don't, so I'm not. The videogames take a lot of pleasure in having ships appear in kissing distance of planets, if memory serves.
Specifically the bit where Typhon Primaris gets destroyed. If you remember?
Related, and another one of those times when ME's background is quietly glossed over in favour of stylish, neato sci-fi movie coolness, the codex does point out that ships basically have to flip around midway through FTL so they can deaccelerate in time, but in-game you always just seem to POW and arrive, facing the right way.
Maybe Joker flips you around again just in time you can coast in?
Again, it's really not to anyone's benefit to nitpick. Certainly not mine! I'm probably just wrong! And I'll continue to be wrong if it serves my narrative purposes.
"W-W-What are you doing here, Macharius?" Jarrion asked, stress bringing back a speech impediment he hadn't had to deal with for decades. This did not go unnoticed. It never did.
"W-W-Would you like to try again? I didn't quite catch that, Jarrion, what was that?" Macharius asked, putting a golden gauntlet up to his ear.
Biting back on the half-dozen things he might have wanted to say here - but which he knew would only make an already bad situation much worse - Jarrion swallowed, took a breath, gathered himself, and started over:
"Why are you here?"
Macharius spread his arms.
"Why would I ever bother to be anywhere near you? Because I heard you were getting involved in something that might be worthwhile, and I'm here to check. If you are, then I'll take over and do it better. If not, well, I'm sure I can find something to do to make it worthwhile," he said.
"This is - the situation here is delicate, fresh, and I've been-"
Jarrion didn't get any further than this.
"Yes yes yes, I've heard all about your amusing adventures over here. I'm sure you've had a lovely time. I'm here now though, so you can go back to doing whatever it was father had you doing before you decided to run off and play around. What you are supposed to be doing," said Macharius.
Doing his best to retain his composure and quickly realising that arguing the point wouldn't get him anywhere, Jarrion stumbled back onto something else.
"But- but how did you get here?! How did you even know how to get here?! It doesn't - it doesn't make sense! How! There wasn't-"
Again, he didn't get that far.
"Shut up, Jarrion. Whenever you speak all I can hear is the sound of blood rushing in my ears."
"B-but - weren't you supposed to be assisting in suppressing some Orks? Weren't you supposed to be somewhere else?" Jarrion asked helplessly, as though if the answer was yes his brother might somehow magically disappear.
Indeed, this was what Maracharius had gone off to do the last that Jarrion had heard of him, at least: assisting in an action to repel a minor Waaaagggghh! somewhere a few subsectors over from the core of House Croesus territory, the sort of thing Macharius often liked to get involved in whether he was asked to or not.
Macharius did not magically disappear.
"Yes yes, that happened, Jarrion, that happened, we did that. That's over. Some of us are good at fighting, you see? The news of your escapades got to me just as we'd reached the mopping up stage of the operation, something that those forces present were perfectly able to handle without me and something which is a waste of my talents anyway. Really, what I'm doing now is also a waste of my talents, but I can't really have your poor behaviour reflecting badly on the family now, can I?"
"How are you here…" Jarrion said. If his shoulders could have slumped further they would have, but they'd already slumped to their lowest point. Mostly he just sagged.
"Frustrating for you, not knowing? Getting under your skin? Shame. But that's not really important now, is it? What is important is that you're here doing something you're not meant to be doing, when you're meant to be somewhere else. Or somewhen else. I'm undecided on this 'Another world, another time' nonsense but that's not really important either. What is important is ruining whatever it is you're up to so you can fuck off back home."
Some slight spark of that Rogue Trader confidence reasserted itself in Jarrion's bosom and he straightened up again.
"What's important is that this is a valuable opportunity! This is unique! This isn't something we can afford to squander!"
Macharius rolled his eyes behind his mask.
"Important things involve dead aliens, Jarrion, and from what I've heard this jaunt of yours has featured remarkably few of those, which makes the whole thing even more of a waste of time than I could ever have imagined. What was the last alien planet you razed in His name, hmm? Alien capitol destroyed? Species wiped from His sight? Even just the last alien you shot, even that. Anything? Anything at all. No, fucking nothing. You've just been fannying about moving things from here to there and talking. Fucking useless. It's embarrassing, Jarrion. I do hope this is the distant past, then at least everyone will lots of time to forget how fucking embarrassing you are."
"I have done that! I'll kill aliens if it's the right thing to do, but I can't go around just - what? - randomly bombarding every planet I see that happens to have aliens on it? What does that achieve?! Where does that get anyone in the scheme of things?! You have to think at least more than five minutes ahead, Macharius! If you want to achieve anything!" Jarrion snapped, getting helplessly drawn into an argument he'd had with Macharius many times before.
"He who allows the alien to live shares the sin of its existence."
"Yes it's very easy to say that, Macharius, but in practise you need-"
"Oh shut up you fucking bureaucrat. You get to enjoy all the freedom of the Warrant and this is the sort of thing you do. Get a market stall. You don't need to talk any more."
And Macharius promptly disconnected, leaving Jarrion flushed, heart thumping, gawping like a fish at a blank screen, dozens of possible comebacks and responses to whatever his brother might have said jostling in his brain, none of which were any use to his brother just going away.
"You can't just - it's not - you can't - " he sputtered, trailing off into nothing as there was nothing else to say. He slumped and sagged once more.
It got very quiet on the bridge.
"The Divine Right is still on approach, Lord Captain," said a crewman.
Mention of his rank and title did much to restore a measure of Jarrion's calm. He smoothed out his jacket, brushed some dust from his sleeve, and asked:
"Can we manoeuvre?"
He hoped so, as he very much wanted to leave. Didn't really matter where. Anywhere else would have been better at that moment.
"The voids are still inoperative, Lord Captain. Breaking orbit would be inadvisable."
In theory they could break orbit, yes, but to get anywhere at anything resembling a reasonable pace they'd need at least the navigational voids. Without them they wouldn't be going anywhere fast, or if they did they'd quite likely run into some issues sooner rather than later. The Assertive was already damaged enough in Jarrion's opinion without throwing in going a fair chunk of lightspeed without proper protection.
And they still had a bit of alien ship sticking out the keel.
"Priority. Get them working. Even at a minimum," he said, swallowing a sigh. He doubted very much the repairs would be completed by the time Macharius got close enough to do whatever it was he wanted to do, but he lived in hope.
"Yes, Lord Captain."
Jarrion hung around the bridge a little longer, overseeing things, but he fairly quickly realised there wasn't any more he could do right then, and he should seize the opportunity for a break. He'd be even less use exhausted. With that in mind he handed over command for the night and returned to his chambers, there to have dinner and then afterwards to do his best not to think about what had happened and what might happen next.
He tried to distract himself with itineraries and outstanding orders and even some charts, but he couldn't concentrate enough to be distracted. He ended up meandering listlessly about his chambers, attempting to read a book or two, giving up, watching a holoplay he'd seen dozens of times before and, once or twice, wondering what Loghain was up to and hoping she also wasn't making his life more difficult.
Eventually, he went to bed.
Not too long after this, unable to sleep, he returned to the bridge. If any of the crew on the nighttime shift found the sight of him appearing in his dressing gown (still armed, obviously) alarming they kept their composure remarkably well.
Moving to the railing around the raised area before his command throne, Jarrion lent and peered at the screen. It was still displaying the overview of the system, the relative position of the various planets and other features of note, and also the relative positions of the Assertive and the Divine Right. Something looked off though, something stuck out. It took Jarrion a few seconds to work out what.
"Is it my imagination or is the Divine Right closer than it should be?" he asked, moving over to the nearest crewman operating the nearest augury station.
"The ship performed a minor warp jump approximately three hours ago. The officer of the watch didn't feel you should be informed, Lord Captain," said the crewman, adding the last part very quickly. Jarrion was too surprised by the first part to be especially annoyed, though.
"He did what?"
The crewman hurriedly scrolled back through sensor logs to get back to the portion in question and brought it up on screen, pointing to the relevant readings. Jarrion was semi-familiar with what he was looking at, or at least familiar enough to understand what was being pointed out. Not a deep jump, he could see. More a skim. But still, really?
"In-system?" He asked.
"Yes, Lord Captain," the crewman said, plainly at a loss.
Jarrion had heard of such manoeuvres before, of course, though never attempted (or had reason to attempt) them himself. Such things were in his understanding and his opinion the refuge of renegades with little regard for their own welfare, the sort of voidsmen who became the stuff of legend (typically posthumously), and the desperate.
And his brother, apparently. But then Macharius had always taken risks with his life and more usually with the lives of others. There were benefits to succeeding regardless of the cost, and consequences of not succeeding very rarely reached him.
He did have to admit it was impressive, albeit in a way he absolutely hated.
Jarrion supposed - and wondered - whether the eerie stillness and calm of the Warp in this galaxy made such things easier. Without so many or as fierce tides and currents and eddies threatening to toss you around and off-course, was threading the needle simpler? He did not know, not being a Navigator. Altrx would no-doubt know. He'd likely put it into that book of his, which Jarrion only just remembered about, just then. Perhaps he'd ask him.
Later.
How it had happened was less important to him than why it had happened.
"Is he in a hurry?" Jarrion asked, mostly himself, squinting variously at the screen with the sensor readings and also the tactical screen, showing how close the Divine Right was actually getting, trying to work out what in the Throne's name his brother was doing. Why the rush? Why bother? Just to show off? Or what?
He dreaded to think.
He yawned.
"Well. Such madness is very him, I'll admit, but unless there's anything else I believe I shall return to-"
This he said after having turned and while heading to leave the bridge. He got about six paces before an alarm blared and whirled around instantly.
"The Divine Right has scrambled bombers, Lord Captain!" Someone shouted, off to the side.
"What?!"
"They're - they're on an intercept course!"
Jarrion's eyes widened, his jaw dropped. Even for his brother this was a step beyond.
"Get- raise the Divine Right! Now!"
It took an interminably long time for the Divine Right to respond, and from his attitude Jarrion had the impression he'd either interrupted Macharius in the middle of a meal or pulled him from something else he'd rather be doing. The irritation was palpable.
"What is it now, Jarrion?"
"Bombers! You've scrambled bombers?! Sabbat's cunt, Macharius! Have you lost your mind?! What are you doing?!"
Macharius just sighed, like he was having to deal with a toddler.
"Stop being hysterical, Jarrion. I'm not going to destroy your ship. I'm just going to clip its wings, so you can't get in my way. Having you following me around nattering in my ear would be very annoying. You'll stay in one piece, though I'd hold onto something if I were you."
And there the line cut.
"Macharius? What- get him back, get him back!"
"They're not answering hails, Lord Captain."
"Bombers remain on approach. They'll be on us in approximately three minutes, Lord Captain."
"I- he can't- this is-"
Jarrion's brain grasped for something, anything, but got nothing. He had absolutely no idea what to do. He just stood, stunned, staring, rooted to the spot.
"Lord Captain! Orders?"
"I-"
What was he meant to do? This wasn't a pack of pirate strike craft bearing down on him. Was he going to open fire on house servants? On men and women who had sworn loyalty to (in theory, sort of, tangentially) him? Who were simply following orders, as dutiful servants should?
Did they know what ship it was they were going to be attacking? Would they have disobeyed even if they did know? Did it matter? Was he going to put other servants - his, on his ship - in danger by choosing not to fire? Was there a right answer?
He didn't know. He didn't even know where to start.
Ultimately, it was his responsibility to the ship and those under his immediate command that broke through. He hated what he had to do but there really wasn't a choice. The Assertive was his ship and this was his crew and he was going to protect them, regardless of who he was protecting them from.
"Turrets. Shoot them down."
"Aye, Lord Captain!"
Orders were swiftly relayed and the largely-automated point defence systems brought online, and not a moment too soon.
The point defence of the Assertive was formidable by just about anyone's standards, comfortably able to handle most whatever wandering pirate or trifling xenos empire might wish to throw at it. It paid to be prepared in the sticks. Banks of sevitor-slaved lascannons and turret-mounted vulcan megabolters and racks of missiles and more besides let loose, blowing ships to bits in the cold void.
But they'd opened fire far, far too late, and it was a full wing of raventalon bombers they were firing at, not some scrapy handful of adhoc machines. There hadn't been any realistic prospect of downing all of them, even from the start.
At least half got through. The whole ship seemed to shake end to end as the payloads hit home, missiles with fusion-charge warheads and gravitic-distortion bombs and thunderous rains of plasma submunitions blowing through armour plate and vapourising the vital systems beneath.
Macharius had had them specifically target the engines, as it transpired, and that was where the bulk of the attack fell. At least one engine casing was so badly hit it fully ruptured, though the others were luckier. It was a miracle they were able to maintain their orbit, looking at the damage, and orbit was where they were going to be staying until the damage was fixed. Leaving the system - hell, moving about in-system - was out of the question.
It had been bad before, now it was worse. The Assertive was a hair's breadth from being crippled outright. Shields down, engines down. Hobbled and vulnerable. Stuck.
A handful more of the bombers were downed as they finished their run and started heading back. Jarrion watched them wink out on his display. He felt numb.
"Stop. Stop firing," he said, voice drained. Orders were relayed and the firing stopped, the few remaining bombers limping their way back to the Divine Right unmolested.
"Lord Captain, the-"
Jarrion did not need the damage read out to him, he was looking at it, every screen in his eyeline was blaring it at him. He didn't want to hear it read out to him.
"I can see. He hamstrung us. What's he doing now?" He asked.
"Continuing course, Lord Captain, projected to exit the system."
"So that was saying hello," he said, coldly. "Off to fuck up all my hard work. Not much I can do from here. Just - have all stations re-evaluate repair priorities and update accordingly. I still want the Assertive ready to move as soon as possible. I know that'll just take a bit longer, now."
What else could he do?
"Aye, Lord Captain."
"Lord Captain, we've had an unauthorised launch," said another crewman from another corner of the bridge, and Jarrion's head whipped around.
"What?"
In theory that shouldn't have been possible, or at the very least very difficult. Not only were the permissions required to leave the ship fairly stringent and ultimately at Jarrion's discretion, but technically it wasn't something most anyone on the ship would have been able to figure out, and certainly not something most anyone on the ship should have been capable of doing without help.
"From the secondary hanger, one of the intership lighters."
"But - on whose authority?"
That sort of thing got logged. The crewman quickly checked.
"Magos Pak, Lord Captain."
"Pak? Pak?!"
Jarrion gave honest thought to turning the Assertive's still activated and fully-functioning point-defence systems onto the fleeing ship, but quickly decided against it. Not only would it have been a petty and undignified waste, the Magos had managed to squeeze an impressive (and flagrantly engine-destroying) level of performance out of the thing, and it was already moving out of effective range anyway.
Heading on a course towards the departing Divine Right.
"One rat, leaving one sinking ship," Jarrion said, rubbing his eyes with one hand and doing his best not to let his mind wander into the labyrinthine possibilities of what this latest development might actually mean. "And here was me thinking we were friends. Throne preserve me…"
That had been a joke, obviously, but certainly this was causing a certain level of re-evaluation all the same. Now really wasn't the time though.
"Need a drink," Jarrion said, finishing rubbing his eyes, his arm whipping up and pointing a second later. "You, crewman. Go to my chambers and get something from the bar. Doesn't matter what, just grab whichever you see first and come back here. Quickly, run."
"Yes, Lord Captain," the crewman said, sprinting from the bridge.
That left Jarrion at a loose end again, as with everyone already having their orders and nothing else bad happening outside, he didn't have much to do. And so he started thinking again, much as he might have preferred not to.
Specifically about his brother, and even more specifically about his brother being there.
"How in the Emperor's name could he possibly have found out..." He muttered to himself. Try as he might, he really couldn't fathom it.
Certainly, Macharius hadn't stumbled across the hole by accident. That would have been impossible. As charmed a life as his brother had led - what had happened to his face notwithstanding - even his luck didn't run so far as to just finding things in the middle of space. No, he had to have been pointed at it somehow, been informed of it. That was the missing detail.
Who had decided that was a good idea?
Wasn't as if the crew could have gone off spreading rumours. Most of the crew had no idea what was going on outside the ship! Only those who'd been dispatched on errands had even set foot off-board, and what did that meant to them? More space, another planet they didn't know, just some other unexplored, remote corner of their own galaxy, nothing suspicious at all. No, it had to be someone else, someone who'd been involved, someone who understood.
But who?
"I mean, who would have said anything? Who could have said anything? The Inquisitor I can at least trust to appreciate discretion, and even if another of her peers found out some way they wouldn't go running to my brother. Why would they?" Jarrion said, now just openly talking to himself, stroking his chin. "The Mechanicus would be here in person if they'd been told and I doubt Pak wanted to share, coward they may be. What's their game, anyway? They have an angle, Pak, I'm sure of it, or else they wouldn't have run. I don't think they were the one who made this happen, though. This is my family, my brother - who would…"
Jarrion trailed off, his eyes wandered over Torian, who must have arrived on the bridge at some point and was standing very rigidly off to one side of the command throne. Something about him standing there made Jarrion stop. Pieces finally clicked in his head.
"Torian," said Jarrion, sweetly, rising from his throne to go and stand in front of the withered old man, at that moment appearing considerably older and more withered, aging and withering further the closer Jarrion got to him. "You wouldn't happen to know of how my brother found out about this, would you? Given that it is - as I recall - one of your duties to keep the house informed of my comings and goings, should you feel the information important enough?"
Torian opened his mouth but didn't really make much noise, and certainly didn't say anything, just shrinking more and more in Jarrion's shadow as the Rogue Trader loomed over him.
This failure to respond was the straw that broke the camel's back, and Jarrion snapped.
Wrenching his sidearm from its holster Jarrion briefly turned it on its side to ensure that it was loaded and charged (it was), flicked the safety and then swung it hard to smack Torian across the face, sending him crashing to the deck.
Stooping, Jarrion grabbed the fallen man by the collar and hauled him to his knees, then ramming the muzzle of the laspistol into his mouth with such force that he managed to crack a good few of what teeth he had remaining.
"Why, Torian?! Why?! You told my brother about this?! How to get here?! Why would you do that, Torian?! I had plans! I had plans, Torian! My plans were working, Torian! Now he's here he is going to ruin everything I've worked for and everything I could ever hope to work for! He is going to ruin everything, Torian! He's going to ruin everything!"
Torian, eyes bulging, was frantically mumbling something but was having difficulty in speaking. The reasons for this were fairly obvious.
"I can't understand what you're saying, Torian, BECAUSE I HAVE A GUN IN YOUR MOUTH. If you don't calm down and enunciate I might GIVE YOU ANOTHER, BIGGER OPENING IN YOUR HEAD YOU CAN TRY TALKING OUT OF."
With considerable personal effort Torian calmed down enough to mumble less but he was no-less decipherable, owing to the fact that Jarrion did not remove the pistol. A tear leaked down Torian's cheek before Jarrion, growling, took the gun from the old man's mouth.
"Explanation. Excuses. Now. Choose your next words with exceptional care," Jarrion said. He hadn't lowered the pistol, and now had it pointed at Torian's face, right between the eyes.
"Lord Chapthain," Torian said, lisping and drooling blood. "I achted honly witth the besht of inthensions!
"I am failing to see how that is the case, Torian! Explain better!" Jarrion said loudly, the pistol now pressed against Torian's forehead.
"You hathh beehn bechavinn eeratchically, Lord Chapthain!"
"What in the Emperor's name are you blathering about? Jarrion snapped, trying to parse the lisping. He got enough words out of it to get the point and his expression sharpened. "Behaving erratically?! I've been dealing with things in the most reasonable manner available! Up until the point I started beating you halfway to death with this gun I was the very picture of restraint and moderation! Where was I erratic?"
"You traded weaponsth and equipmenth to a deviant known to assthociate with xenosth!"
"They were consigned, Torian, not traded. You of all people should know the difference! And they were to protect an investment! Also, in case it had slipped your mind, I am a Rogue Trader operating beyond the boundaries of Imperial space, I'm allowed to do that."
"But my Lord, you permitted aliensth to board the sthhip, you-"
The barrel pressed to Torian's forehead pressed hard enough to start bending him over backwards.
"I'm a Rogue Trader operating beyond the boundaries of Imperial space I'M ALLOWED TO DO THAT, TORIAN!"
Torian was openly weeping now, tears and snot running down his face to mix with the blood. It did not improve the situation. It just made it infinitely more uncomfortable for those watching.
"I was thinking only of your thsoul, my Lord! Only of your thspiritual health! And of the House'sth reputation! I-if word got out that a thscion of House Croesus was behaving comfortably with xenosth-"
Jarrion smacked Torian about the face with the pistol again and again sent the seneschal crashing to the deck. Once more grabbing him by the collar Jarrion pulled Torian, whimpering and sniffling, up onto his knees and thrust the barrel of the laspistol up under his chin.
"You cannot begin to imagine how much I want to shoot you in the head right now, old man. I could not find the words to describe how much it would please me. The thought of turning most of your skull into an interesting pattern on the ceiling here fills me with a warm glow. Oh, it would make my day better. In a petty sort of horse-has-bolted sort of a way. You've let loose that lunatic on a galaxy entirely unprepared for him - a galaxy of opportunity! And he's going to squander all of it by being the shortsighted, bloody-minded idiot that he so relishes being! He's going to take everything I've done - everything I could have done! - and piss it up the wall! I had plans - PLANS, DAMNIT! Things were WORKING! Oh Torian. Torian, Torian, Torian…"
All present could see Jarrion's finger feathering the trigger, just as all present could see (and smell) the stream of piss running down Torian's leg.
A pause. Then, sighing, Jarrion let go of Torian, straightened up, smoothed back some of the hair that had come unsettled during his yelling, and stepped away. Torian fell over backwards, thoroughly unconscious.
At this point the crewman who'd been dispatched to get him a drink returned, breathlessly jogging over to Jarrion and only belatedly noticing the passed-out man in the puddle of urine as they handed over a bottle. Jarrion took it, popped the top off with his thumb, swigged while waving the crewman off and then wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his dressing gown.
"Master at Arms, could you please have Torian put into one of the nicer parts of the brig until I feel less like killing him on the spot? Thank you. Maybe get him a doctor so he doesn't die. And someone clean this deck."
Jarrion, bottle in hand, strode for the door.
"I will be in my chambers. If anyone disturbs me within the hour they will be shot. After that, they will merely be yelled at. Inform me when the Assertive is ready to move."
The microwarp jump from BFG:A always struck me as very videogamey, as while it made sense there as a mechanic and a thing to have your ships do, in the context of the actual background it seemed insane to the point of me not being able to comprehend anyone ever doing it. Multi-kilometre spaceships are not Warp Spiders.
But what do I know? And hell, I needed it here (to speed things up, obviously), so there you go.
One piece of 40k space battle information that has stuck with me for years is one of the miniature designers - Tim Adcock, maybe? - stating that the bombers you get in BFG are the size of jumbo jets. That'd put 'em a little smaller than the SR-1, by my reckoning, or something close. Depending on model, I guess. Point is, compared to the nifty little one-seater strike craft ME seems to favour that ain't nothing.
And they come in wings!