Our sojourn on Footfall was brief — much more than planned, although we did attend a ball Tocara put together in the lord-captain's honour and that would require a lengthier entry in these pages than my free time allows for! That was yesterday night, and it will suffice to say it was a grand affair. Not as grand as what can be done on Dargonus, of course, but still a wonderful assembly of elegance and refinement. Lady Cassia's escort was Master van Calox, who treats her like a younger sister in need of worldly guidance, and although he did dance twice with the lord-captain I saw no reason to worry. I must have mistaken the natural care for one's retinue for something more, although Lady Cassia did gush a little about how well their colours match, whatever she means by that. Inquisition red and black are, I must say, a nice contrast with von Valancius blue, but I still haven't got the hang of dear Lady Cassia's artistic view of people's moods.

In any case, this morning by Lauds we left Footfall (after very little sleep, I must say) and are now en route to our translation point into the Immaterium. The search for Kiava Gamma has been made more urgent by the discovery of the attack by some Chaos cult that probably harbours this refuse of society calling himself Kunrad Voigtvir. How I burn with the ambition to drive my power hammer through his traitorous brain! I think that, when we fall down upon Kiava Gamma, I shall take an oath of moment to that effect, and have the lord-captain witness it. It would be extremely fitting, and perhaps Sister Argenta will also like to take an oath to punish Lady Theodora's killer.

Free from Footfall's port regulations since mid-day, we are now rushing through the void with very little to do except prepare for war. The forges of Kiava Gamma — that are, at the best of times, a fiery maze noisy enough to drown out a voidship's engines — will be a proper test of our quality. The very nature of Kiava Gamma's infrastructure will indeed prevent any orbital action. Without Tempestus Scions or a chapter of Marines at our disposal, the brunt of carving a way to the heretics' centre of command will fall upon us of the lord-captain's retinue. Her Ladyship and I have therefore worked today on a training program, both individually and in squads; she has kept her promise to include Lady Cassia whenever she can be spared from her duties as Head Navigator. A major inconvenience, of course, is that we have no idea where and when we shall find the Cranach system! So without loosing any more time, we shall begin tomorrow, and I do worry about how the xenos Yrliet Lanaevyss will mesh with the rest of us.

Another of my worries are the rumours of xenos incursions, made bolder and bloodier, perhaps, by the imperfect nature of their retelling through an astropath's mind. Signs would point to drukhari raiders; we glimpsed those of late when they stole the Rykad sun, pushing the Final Dawn cultists to make their move in concert (which shows that the enemies of humanity always find a way to band together, even unwillingly), and I do not relish the perspective of fighting them. Their barbarity makes the eldar look like altar servants! Should we come across some of their ships, I do hope we will be able to engage them from the safe distance of a few thousand kilometres. It would be too much to hope they and the heretics annihilate one another on Kiava Gamma.

There is always much to be said for war games, but Her Ladyship concocted us some good ones. Today, we were split in two teams: the defenders of our position, which were me, Sister Argenta, and Mistress Heydari, and the attackers, which were the lord-captain, Lady Cassia, Master van Calox and Yrliet Lanaevyss. Her Ladyship justified that choice by saying the defenders always have the upper hand and that the attackers therefore needed the extra strength in order for the game to be balanced, but I feel she wanted to witness up close how a member of the Ordo Xenos and a xenos would work together. They already had done so on Janus, of course, but then it had been a temporary thing, believed by all to last only as long as it took for us to locate the rebels.

We were all equipped with real las-weapons and power swords, although of course they had been equipped with training energy cells dialled down to their lowest setting, and a light bodyglove armour is enough to take the brunt out of most hits, but things still can hurt. Which is the point, as it helps getting in proper battlefield spirit! Since Lady Cassia, however, couldn't use the powers of her third eye safely, she had been equipped with stun grenades in order to mimic her abilities. She received those from the lord-captain with a scream of girlish glee, and I do think a peculiar fondness for things too loud and coarse for a noble young lady was born today in her soul!

The defensive course that protected our pile of empty crates had been prepared by servitors programmed to build something quite random, but us defenders were given a twenty-minute head-start to fortify our position with sandbags and familiarise ourselves with the whole layout. Had Magos Pasqal been able to join us, I am sure we would have won! He had been called away, however, by an issue with some capricious cogitator or other. These, worryingly, have become more frequent and, when we were on our way from Janus, there was a problem with a bunch of servitors that refused to comply with orders and instead just stood there, watching. Her Ladyship intervened herself, as the problem had been brought out by High Factotum Danrok and the man tends to latch on his betters for help like a barnacle to a rock. She solved things by ordering for the defective servitors to be disposed of, that their human souls may be released from torment. I daresay the Magos was quite disappointed, as he therefore missed the opportunity of dissecting those servitors in order to understand what was wrong with them.

But I digress. We shall certainly renew such sessions! After a quick lunch during which servitors changed the stage of our training to a new configuration, we drew lots and had another round. I was yet again among the defenders, but was paired with Her Ladyship and Yrliet Lanaevyss. To my welcome surprise, the xenos and I meshed well – better, assuredly, than when we had toiled through the forests of Janus together. I was glad to win, this time, as we dealt incapacitating blows shown by a red light on our adversaries' bodygloves! The last to go down on their side was Lady Cassia, so nimble is she at evading sniper shots, and we were able to keep the flag of our makeshift fortress.

By the time we were done and ready to retreat, sweaty, to our own quarters for a well-deserved clean up, dinnertime was nigh and I was ambushed in a most predatory manner by the lord-captain — who had Lady Cassia in tow.

'Abelard,' said Her Ladyship, 'I'd like to make some changes in the mess hall.'

'And what would those be, lord-captain?'

'Well, you see, I think it is unfair to those of my retinue who have no Militarum or Navy background to be barred from dining in the mess hall. And recently I've been torn apart between the enjoyment I get from the daily company of my officers and the lack of opportunity to have an informal dinner with, well, my friends. When we were on Footfall I appreciated being able to just drop down for lunch or dinner with my retinue and I think opening the mess hall to them would allow me to fulfil both needs.'

'Lord-captain,' I cried, 'this would be most irregular!' Indeed, the mess hall traditions are as sacred an institution for us as the daily services of the Ecclesiarchy are for the priests! That civilians, even as privileged as a Rogue Trader's retinue, could be freely allowed to dine there, without the need of a formal invitation, is such an upending of customs it makes me shiver.

'People don't seem to mind Heinrix,' she countered, 'and he mostly came on his own, uninvited, like a cat.'

I remarked that he tends to wave his rosette around whenever suits his fancy, which made the lord-captain smile, but she then went for a low blow: 'Cassia would like it a lot, wouldn't you, dear?'

'Yes, Katov,' replied our dear Navigator. 'I would love to be able to see everyone's colours; I am sure they weave in a tapestry of wonderfully intricate patterns! So rich is the life of the ship! Now that I am more used to its hustle and bustle, I find absolutely fascinating the way people interact with one another. They are so free compared to those I knew on Eurac-V. It was quite jarring at first, but now I find a great artistry to it. And I am tired of the Sanctum Navis where all blindly serve me; I ache for some more lively interactions!'

Lady Cassia's precious enthusiasm lit her poor, deformed face while she spoke, and the flame of her youthful hope warmed my old heart. My next protestation was weaker, although I pointed out that admitting Lady Cassia to the mess hall did not require a full opening to the retinue, as she was, after all, a valued crew-member of the Emperor's Mercy. Her Ladyship tut-tutted in disagreement.

'Come on, Abelard. You cannot stay put in the old ways. They did no good to Theodora. Look how she missed a lot of what was going on around her protectorate by cutting herself from her people. Besides, this is not a Navy ship. This is my ship. Why don't we make our own new traditions?' Well, Her Ladyship had me cornered. It is true that, of late, I have begun reconsidering some aspects of the late Lady Theodora's leadership. Lady Katov's ways, while unusual, do give strangely good results and seem to better motivate the crew. Without her way around people, we never would have wrapped the takedown of the Janus heretics in a single night: I know our men and women, and to motivate them in such a way that extended their abilities was a feat. Certainly, no Commissar I ever came across in my Navy days would have achieved this without jeopardising at least one aspect of the plan, and I was left with the conclusion that Her Ladyship is, in many ways, an extraordinary woman.

But to open the mess hall to civilians!

Before I could think of a suitable protest, Her Ladyship clasped my shoulder. 'Just think,' she said. 'You could gang up with Jae in order to fleece junior officers at the tarot table they've set up in the library. I know you disapprove their playing card games after dinner.'

Lady Cassia's expression was pleading now. 'Please, seneschal. We of the retinue are not commoners; if anything, our quality places us above many in the mess hall!'

'Cassia,' warned Her Ladyship. 'What did I tell you about badmouthing those you consider your inferiors?'

'That each has their own inborn nobility and that a good leader should make herself see it,' less than humbly replied Lady Cassia. 'But this is a point, I think, that should carry weight in the argument we are having right now, due to the elitist nature of mess hall culture.'

Her Ladyship chuckled. 'You'll be a formidable Novator one day, if you can keep your hand from showing too much. So, Abelard, will you back me on this?'

Ah, there was nothing left to do but to bow gracefully! 'Yes, lord-captain,' I promised. 'In this as in all things.'

Of course, jumping around at random about the Koronus Expanse was bound to get us in a position to rub elbows with other Rogue Trader dynasties! We were lucky, I think, of having avoided them so far. There was of course the Rykad affair, but the Winterscale boy had been quite lovely compared to Calligos Winterscale himself (lovely in the sense that he barely left his cabin and that we quietly dumped him on Footfall for him to recount, best as he could, the fall of Rykad Minoris to his useless father). House Chorda we heard nothing of so far, although the news of Lady Theodora's demise must have reached us, except for that well-dressed young idiot who tried to change the lord-captain's mind about helping Tocara.

Tenebris Aquae is a system so characteristic that, when we translated out of Warp, I did not need the augur's confirmation to know where we were. Its star is the dim blue of a young T Tauri star, so hot it is barely visible to the unaided eye (although to my ocular implant it appears a near blinding fire), and that ejects two violent jets of matter and light capable to tear through a voidship shields in a matter of minutes. The system is comprised of a wide protoplanetary disk where a few rare bigger objects have begun coalescing, so that the translation point is already deep in the muck that will one day clear in a proper heliopause — where one will not have to fear encountering a rogue hulk of matter. Tenebris Aquae is a system that harbours scavengers drawn by limping vessels damaged in a fight and unable, or unwilling, to hobble to Footfall. Of course, those are no match for the Emperor's Mercy, but a smaller ship could easily find herself in quite hot water indeed.

As a matter of fact, we found ourselves in the vicinity of a vicious ongoing battle as soon as we got into realspace. Patrol ships from the Chorda fleet were tearing apart two small Aeldari vessels and, with the violent efficiency that is theirs always, then gave chase after a third, already damaged, vessel, clearly in the intention of destroying it as well. This brought the bridge to high alert: without a clue as to what lead the Chorda voidships to attack, we could be another target for them. That system is a no man's land where the only rule is that of the strongest; a battle there between Rogue Trader Houses would raise no eyebrows.

It is worth saying that, these last few days, Yrliet Lanaevyss has taken to meditate a lot on the bridge. People give a wide birth to the corner of her choosing, and she's not as much of a nuisance as she could choose to be. But now, seeing the last aeldari ship's impending doom on the tactical hololith, she let down every appearance of composure and rushed to the lord-captain, her voice trembling slightly. No disdain now was in her wide green eyes! She called out for Her Ladyship to intervene and save her kin from the massacre.

Her Ladyship considered the situation awhile in silence, and, probably reaching the conclusion that House Chorda truly is the biggest rival to von Valancius power and ambitions on the Expanse, called for the Vox Master to relay a demand to stop the battle. Their reply, patched through the open vox system surrounding the display, was less than amenable despite the static.

'Those are malicious criminals, Your Ladysh… guilt… raiding this system's planets and robbing merch… vessels… shall perform our duty before the Emp… exterminate the xenos.'

'What do you make of this, Yrliet?' asked the lord-captain.

The tall silhouette of the eldar moved like a reed before the wind as she bent to better inspect the auspex echoes of the destroyed ships. Concentration hardened her delicate features, and she replied grimly that no crime should go unpunished — a relief, although what constitutes a crime in the Tenebris Aquae system is very much open to interpretation. When she swiftly went over the augur's data, her expression subtly changed.

'My kin were flying transport ships, elantach,' she said. 'It would have been impossible for them to rob a ship, let alone launch a planetary raid — vessels such as theirs simply lack the firepower to do so. The mon-keigh are lying.'

Her Ladyship, a while ago, had a memory implant installed. It is quite discreet, its burnished port hidden beneath her hair, and she told me in confidence that she was filling it with all the possible data about the Expanse, with a particular focus on our possible enemies. Her glazed look — the rapid nystagmus that shook her eyes — were now those of someone going over paragraph after paragraph in search of answers, and her fingers twitched in the necessary implant command gestures. Mistress Heydari, however, saved her the pain and confirmed Mistress Yrliet's — Mistress Lanaevyss's findings.

Another message was relayed, asking for proof of the xenoships' transgression. The patrol's captain response was outraged by our distrust.

'… border of the Chord… nasty's holdings. Exterminating any and all enem… Hum… direct order from the Lord Captain, Incendia Chorda, hers…'

Her Ladyship's lip curled in displeasure. Tenebris Aquae is as close to our trade routes (pre Warp storms) as it is to theirs! Those corsairs must have laid in ambush for whatever ship came out of the Immaterium, and I do feel it was lucky the xenos were the first to fall upon those Chorda thugs!

'Pasqal,' called Her Ladyship in her vox box, 'would you have, by any chance, an incantation or two to entreat the Machine Spirits of our communication system to overcome the static? I wouldn't want my next broadcast to be lost.'

The Magos's reply being favourable, Her Ladyship brought the bridge vox emitter to her mouth. Her tone was dry as ever, her words neat and precise.

'This is the Lord Captain Katov von Valancius, depositor of the Sacred Warrant of Trade, mistress of Dargonus and other associated territories, speaking from the flagship of my Trade Fleet. I demand that your warships cease fire immediately and retreat. Otherwise I shall treat your actions as hostile to my interests and I will introduce you to the Emperor's Mercy's macro-cannons.'

Ha! Let them think what they would: that we wished to claim the bounty of the xenotech-rich wrecks for ourselves, most probably. The patrol ceased fire and, minutes later, began to turn away: engaging the flagship of a foreign dynasty (and with her Rogue Trader on board, too) without explicit permission would probably have been too risky. Had they survived the encounter, there was no telling how Lady Incendia Chorda would have reacted: either in praise of their relentless pursuit of xenos, or in anger at confronting someone equal in rank to herself. After a few minutes, their course appeared to be set to the edge of the system, where they could translate to the Warp unless they risked hiding in the ever-present augur-muddling sludge of the system. Her Ladyship gave orders to track them for as long as possible, and to keep an eye for the tell-tale signs of a Gellar field being deployed.

Meanwhile, the wounded xenoship was rapidly distancing itself from the recent battlefield, attempting to hide in the shadow of the nearest planetoid. Over the course of the next two hours, every attempt to contact it was met met with frustration, and the Vox Master reported that the vessel was in deplorable condition. Who knows how much more they can endure before the irreparable happens?

'My kin are too scared and resentful of the mon-keigh for the recent deaths they suffered to answer incoming hails,' stated Mistress Yrliet (it is shorter to write, so I think I shall keep to her first name in these pages, despite the usual conventions). 'Should I be allowed to speak with them, they could be convinced to cooperate with the elantach.'

Well, she failed. They broke their silence to give a scathing reply stating they would not fall for mon-keigh tricks — for aid offered by the kin of those who destroyed two vessels of the children of Asuryan, and aid offered through the mouth of a captive Outcast of their race. Trying to outpace the non-existent pursuit of the Emperor's Mercy, the Aeldari overloaded their voidship's drives. One of the damaged engines was unable to bear the strain and, before our eyes, a brief star lit the hazy void of Tenebris Aquae. The xenoship flashed a fiery light through the stained-glass windows of the deck; a light that resolved itself in thousands of tiny shards that would soon disperse across the system until, eons from today, they were all caught in the nascent planets' gravity wells and become one with them.

A fair proportion of the bridge officers openly rejoiced, offering prayers to the Emperor for cleansing the Expanse of more xenos filth by the mercy of His providence. The thin figure of Yrliet Lanaevyss stood motionless against the backdrop of the intricate pillars and windows, mourning her people's fallen in solemn silence. Me, I am not sure whether to rejoice or not: although less enemies of humanity is always a good thing, Her Ladyship almost suffered a defeat today and I cannot but wonder what would have happened had Yrliet's pleading won her race over. After a while, I saw Yrliet turn to the lord-captain and nod in a short gesture of gratitude for her attempt to save those who refused our helping hand.

Mistress Heydari then petitioned Her Ladyship to send a detachment to explore whatever was left of the aeldari ships; permission was granted, and soon our resident Cold Trade expert and our xenos left in a shuttle, with a small handpicked team. They will be back in about two days, give or take, and meanwhile we shall wait for them where we are, watching over them in case the Chorda patrol decides to come back.

Three days is what it took Mistress Heydari and Yrliet Lanaevyss to be satisfied. Beside the destroyed vessels, they had found another one, smaller, intact — but all aboard had died when corrosion and decay had conspired to break down environmental systems. Our resident Cold Trader came back carrying a heavy rucksack that I am sure she never had before, while the eldar was somber: those aboard that ship had been errant refugees from her dead homeworld with a jaw-unhinging name. Despite my unchanged misgivings about her person, I still offered her my quite sincere condolences: xenos might be xenos, but her grief about it looked very human.