Let the games begin

"Well if there ship is damaged we can still bait them into fighting the fleet chasing us. Perhaps this venture wasn't for naught"

"Why don't we just jump after we harvest all the resources on this ship?  We can leave the Eldar to fight our pursuers and go on our merry way."

"Because our pursuers would get a signal on our jump and assume its us. Although what if we attacked the Eldar ship and forced them to surrender to us. Then we let them go free and jump tricking our enemies into following them. Them we can harvest what we can and be on our merry way"

[Eldar and Dark Eldar are notorious for appearing and disappearing suddenly using their secretive webway technology.]

One of the Solstice's box-like shuttles roars as it lands on the outer surface of the cargo hold you entered through at the beginning of the endeavor.

A merc standing at door yells out "How many do we have boarding the shuttle?"

Edes starts walking towards the shuttle.

"Eight coming aboard.  Is there space on there for plunder?"

"Aye, some space. But not many men to haul it aboard. We can return with salvaging crews later."

"Perfect. Let's head out then."

"Agreed, we need to speak to The Lord captain as soon as possible"

Darrius, Edes, Jarrion and the 5 remaining mercenaries step aboard the shuttle. You strap yourselves down and let the pilot peacefully return you to the Solstice.

No less than 10 minutes pass before you can hear ruckus of the Solstice's bay for its transports. Yours jitters and shakes as it comes to a stop in the hangar. Immediately after stepping out of the craft an eager messenger approaches all 3 of you: "The Lord-Captain expects your presence on the bridge without any delay. Do my lords have anything that needs relaying?"

"Tell the officers to prepare shuttles to go and retrieve the valuables aboard the space hulk. Tell them to be prepared for some fighting should the need arise"

Jarrion relates the details of where to find all the booty [nina]. He then moves off with Darrius and Edes.

You march gloriously down the copper skull themed halls leading to the command bridge. The faces of servitors give you haunting memories of the events aboard the space hulk.

You step up the small stairway into command bridge. Atop of his mechanized colonial throne Lord-Captain looks very disappointed. Mekarn and Selena are absent but the others are present and appear very concerned.

"Report" he says.

"Lord-Captain Kalthar, let me begin by thanking the Emperor we got off the space hulk alive.  We suffered heavy casualties in that hell.  As you can see, only 8 of us got off the hulk.  However, although we suffered many losses, we have discovered fabulous riches.  First, we found a cache of Xanthrin, which will certainly help with recovering any losses from this mission.  But more importantly, we recovered a vault full of Inquisitorial data slates.  This find is infinitely valuable.  We now have a large amount of influence with the Inquisition.  It may not have been as successful as hoped, but we ended well enough."

The Lord-Captain's xenos hide gloves wrinkle as he tightens his grip on the arm of his throne. "Did I ask for a cursory story? Give me numbers and details Xanatov, useful things! Not pretentious blathering and excuses."

"We were too busy surviving and risking our lives for the good of this ship to focus on specific numbers.  Trust me my Lord, there was enough for us to all become much wealthier."

"What pray tell caused the death of 95 mercenaries? Unidragons?!"

Darrius steps forward and clears his throat

"Sir, if I may. We lost thirty-five of the men that Jarrion and myself 
Had brought to fighting with the Eldar and the insanity caused by them or the cursed hulk. Ten were lost when they went outside of radio range and never reported in after that. The men that had gone with Edes were, when we had arrived at the scene, already succumbed to the madness and were attacking attacking her which we then had to put out of their misery. In the vault that appeared to contain numerous volumes of inquisitorial information we came across a squad of Eldar who killed the remaining mercs with us. We were forced to try and negotiate a means by which to turn them against our enemy which is when we contacted you. When the ship was under threat of imploding we killed the Eldar and the leader who was there and made our way back here. That is what we found sir"

"The odds were against you, these are acceptable losses Vendigroth. And what business do Eldar have on an Inquisitorial voidship in a forsaken corner of the void?"

"That is what is most interesting to me sir. What information we had managed to get out of them was that they were here to acquire some lost artifact that the data we recovered from a separate inquisitorial ship called the 'marker'. From the information there it seems to have some kind of otherworldly powers and we believe it to be the source of the energy signature we had detected aboard."

"To the best of our knowledge, they were able to retrieve the artifact.  However, as Lord Vendigroth mentioned, we made them pay in blood."

"Are they a current threat to us?"

"We were able to learn that their ship was damaged.  The Eldar we fought were also wounded.  I believe they would prefer to hide rather than fight us.  In addition, we convinced them that our pursuers were actually our allies, so they are even less likely to come against us in a fight."

"Then they are of no concern to us. Meanwhile Glademore devised a path through the warp we will use to return to the Calixis sector. We have mystery shrouded enemies and we shall have vengeance upon them. As the Solstice is being prepared for jump you Xanatov can direct the movers in plundering the hulk for these treasures you spoke of. Make haste."

"One last thing Lord Commander.  It may be a good idea to arm the men.  We encountered a group of slaves who claimed to be owned by some heretic Khan.  He doubtless poses little threat to the Solstice, but could prove a hindrance to any scavenging parties."

"Sir would it also not be best to try and retrieve this Eldar artifact for ourselves if possible? For the Eldar to come all the way out hear is almost unheard of so certainly it must be of great value. Finding the Eldar shouldn't be a problem considering we can track it's energy reading"

"We leave the Eldar to their secretive ways. The Inquisitorial databanks and the Xenos drugs are enough to make this a profitable endeavor. As to the heretic lord; leave him and his slaves undisturbed. Only deal with them if they bother us while we plunder. That is all - you are dismissed."

Darrius bows and makes his way back to the departure area for the shuttles and men

Jarrion heads back as well, grimacing and clutching his wounds, but soldiering on through the pain because he is so manly and awesome.

You depart with the men to oversee procuring the resources on the hulk. Although paranoia and fear run rampant as the crew works no one and no thing show up to cause you any problems. After 12 hours of grueling work both you and the crew are exhausted.

[You are currently aboard the Solstice unless you had some personal reason to remain upon the space hulk.]

Darrius speaks through the intercom to the bridge

"All assets acquired sir, all men aboard and we're ready to leave"

You and the others return to the Solstice tired and nervous to spend any more time in this god forsaken place. You rest as Glademore and Mekarn oversee preparations for warp jump.

[You gain 500 xp each - this is the end of this topic. We will pickup with rolling on perils of the warp and potential warp events in the next topic. After I get life stuff a little more ordered than it is right now.]