I was meant to be helping to run a Rogue Trader larp. Unfortunately due to....creative differences (such as me doing all the work when I wasn't the
GM and only meant to be helping a bit with characters but organising the reality side of things) it never came to pass.
However, it means I've got three stories that very few people have gotten to read, the backgrounds for the three fury pilots we were going to have on the crewe. They're a little glitchy at times because at the stage I'd written them, we hadn't decided what time of Rogue Trader the lord captain was going to be, etc. Being
PCs, they've a few liberties to make them playable (I'm not going to fix them up now, just posting them here out of interest and so when people demand to read my stuff I can just send them a link instead of having to email large attachments). The first one is the character I was meant to be playing but I think the following two are more interesting and written better.
The pictures before each background was the name of their Fury.
Fury Pilot Backgrounds 
Sigrid Dejorn: Sigrid was born on the agriworld of Ruthmore Secundus, supplying the Imperial world of Ruthmore Prime. She was born to old money in a family of down-to-earth landholders. They were firm but fair people who did their duty to the Imperium and to their local community. When Sigrid was thirteen she joined the aviator arm of the local PDF, studying her lessons and learning the family craft of managing vast estates. At sixteen she was wondering whether to marry and settle down on Ruthmore Secundus, move to “the big cities” on Ruthmore Prime, or pursue a career offworld when the Great Enemy came to Ruthmore Prime. When the threat became apparent, the Imperial Guard and Navy moved in. Many of Ruthmore Secundus’ PDF were sent to aid the forces on Ruthmore Prime, including Sigrid.
Rather than be given a plane, she served as ground staff and support to the ground screws and operations. Ever practical as she was raised to be, she swallowed her disappointment and got on with the job.
After two years of the war, the Navy began to run out of pilots as they were injured in sorties but planes were refitted. Given her good service record in the PDF, Sigrid finally found herself in the air.
Her first scrap took her a while to settle but she managed to get the feel of the powerful lightening. She didn’t score a kill but chased a bat into the sights of her wingleader who blew the enemy from the sky. After he lauded her action and declared they shared the kill, painting only half a kill marker on his jet.
The war continued for another three years, and Sigrid scored eight kills; not a bad record for a PDF rookie.
The forces of Chaos were finally driven from Ruthmore Primus. They made a beachhead on Ruthmore Secundus so the final days of the short war, Sigrid spent flying over home soil. Within six month, the Great Enemy was purged entirely from the Ruthmore System.
Sigrid loved to fly. Before the war it was some fun, training on the off-chance that something may happen. When it did she came into her own and her passion was born. After her first few, terrifying sorties she found she flew best if she took to the air assuming she was already dead. It made her fearless and a dangerous opponent in the air. With plenty of siblings and cousins to take on the family estates in her stead, when the last of the Imperial Navy left the Ruthmore System she joined up and left with them, carrying her father’s fob watch from when he was a captain in the Guard, and her grandmother’s laspistol from when the old woman was commander of Ruthmore Secundus’ PDF.
Most of the Navy on the ship were void born. They were a…well, a weird lot, and very stand-offish. They teased her the first time the ship jumped into the warp, but more to hide their own nervousness than with any real malicious intent. Sigrid was so likable that the teasing quickly turned into good natured ribbing.
Sigrid was expecting to be attached to an atmospheric intercept flyer wing, Thunderbolts or Lightenings, where her training and skills lay. She was surprised and a bit put out when she was assigned to training on Furies. She liked just her and her machine flying in dog fights, the speed and responsive tricks she could pull. Now she would have to learn void combat and flying with a crew. The first time she and her newly assigned crew worked together as one with their machine, all her doubts slid away as though they’d never been.
Sigrid’s easy but firm way with people and her confident skill in the air saw her rise over the years, through the ranks to flight captain in charge of the Fury Naval wing, Nimbus Flight of the battleship The Emperor’s Absolute Finality.
The Emperor’s Absolute Finality was deployed to stem the tide of Tau incurring into the outer reaches of Imperial Space. The navy made its base at a space port orbiting the system’s furthermost planet. The Tau were relentless but the Imperium punished them with just as much zeal, the escorts protecting the docked cruisers, the furies buzzing like bees around the escorts and the space station itself. An offensive would be launched and Navy and Rogue Trader vessels commissioned to the defence of the system would break port and make battle with uncompromising purpose.
A system glitch had all the pilots of Nimbus Wing listed as flight leaders. This meant that they were called up five times more often than any other wing. Several times, the wing had barely landed and the ground fitters only just started their post-flight checks before they were called to battle again. They reported the error. They were told that “these things take time to correct”, when they were finally able to make it understood that there was in fact an error at all. Phantom Wing tried to take their place once, but were put on report and stood down for attempting to launch without permission.
After thirty-six hours of this, Nimbus Four’s co-pilot’s vision was blurring, he cried over the vox that he couldn’t see, forty seconds later they were blown out of the sky. Forty-eight hours later, Nimbus Eight’s gunner began to hallucinate, seeing Nimbus Three as a bat, ripping into it’s wing with the lascanon. Nimbus Three barely made it back to the hangar bay of The Emperor’s Absolute Finality. Nimbus Eight’s crew were so rattled, the Tau managed to hull them. The pilot and gunner burned to death before the co-pilot and techpriest could extinguish the flames and nurse the crippled vessel back to the safety of the cruiser.
Seven of her wing dead. One plane lost completely. Personnel hallucinating. She went to talk to the flight marshal. She screamed at the flight marshal. She had not slept in three days. She decided to go for a drink.
Leaving the Emperor’s Absolute Finality, she made her way to the first bar she could see on the space station. She ordered five shots. She drank them. She ordered five more.
She drank two. Someone was standing behind her.
“You’re AWOL, Captain Dejorn” came Commissar Silon’s voice.
“Oh well. Notice how ‘oh well’ sounds like AWOL?”
“You’re very close with being charged with desertion.”
“Really? Really? Am I?” She downed the third shot.
“You’re due back in the air as of fifteen minutes ago. You’d better get your flight gear on, if you’re not too drunk to stand. Or should I just shoot you now?”
“Due back in the air? What a fething surprise!” she downed the fourth shot. “You know, Commissar, that will be the twelfth sortie in fifty hours. Twelfth. You know what they did? Do you know what they fething did?! A system glitch, a data error. They’ve listed all my pilots as flight leads. My wing is being called up five times more often than any other wing. We haven’t slept for three days. Another wing tried to take our place so we could, Emperor forbid, actually get some frakking sleep. And you know what happened then, Commissar Silon? They were stood down and put on report. Because of a system glitch I have lost a plane, two are grounded, seven crew dead. If you send us up again then we’ll lose the whole damned wing. Have you ever seen a veteran, a forty year old, hardened veteran cry from sheer exhaustion, Commissar? My men are hallucinating, making mistakes. I’d rather die in battle, in my plane, selling my life dearly to the enemy but dammit, sir you shoot me now my wing will be down too many planes to fly and maybe, just maybe those brave men and women under my command will live to fly another day and if they die, Emperor willing it will be in battle, as they should and not because of a frakking system’s glitch!” she downed the last shot and stood up, facing the Commissar almost nose to nose. “So you might as well shoot me now, Commissar Silon for whatever charge you feel like, cos I figure I’ve just given you about a dozen and save the rest of my crew.” The Commissar’s unforgiving gaze bored into hers as he drew his pistol. Sigrid was too tired to care, her eyes black with exhaustion, her face pale with stress.
“Just a moment, Commissar,” game a deep voice from across by the bar. Sigrid’s eyes didn’t leave the Commissar’s as the newcomer walked over to join them.
“What do you want?” snarled the Commissar, the pistol still in his hand.
“Let me introduce myself, Lord Captain, Rogue Trader of the Crusader’s Prize. As I see it, I am in need of some Fury pilots. If you’re going to execute this one anyway, I may as well take the problem off your hands and acquire her instead.”
“Back off, Rogue Trader. She doesn’t belong to you, she belongs to the Imperial Navy and it is the Navy’s justice that she faces.”
“Oh, I believe my warrant of trade says otherwise, Commissar. Now, Captain Dejorn was it, young lady?”
“Yes, Arch Militant,” Sigrid replied, her eyes still glued to the Commissar’s.
“Collect your crew and report to the Crusader’s Prize.”
“As you command, Lord Captain.” Only then did Sigrid allow herself to look at her rescuer. He was a tall and handsome man, a strong face that brooked no argument.
“May the Emperor be with you, Commissar Silon” she said, insolence dripping from her voice as she turned and made her way out of the bar.
“Do you realise what this will do to discipline on the ship? Do you have any idea?” she heard the Commissar hiss at the Rogue Trader.
“I realise very well, Commissar. I also realise what combat fatigue, especially unwarranted combat fatigue will do to an otherwise good soldier. On my ship, we don’t allow a system glitch to enda-” the rest of the conversation was cut off as Sigrid left the bar.
She collected the rest of her crew, made a quick but meaningful farewell to the rest of the wing, and reported to the Crusader’s Prize.
She discovered from the Lord Captain that he had the option to purchase Furies and had been unsure but then her predicament seemed to him a sign from the Emperor. What he needed was pilots and crews to fly them. She assured him she could find pilots.
The first was a meek little thing, abandoned by the navy, presumed dead and at a loss of what to do next who Sigrid was kind and gentle with. The second was destroying herself in a well of self-pity after being discharged under dubious circumstances that Sigrid slapped around to bring her back to herself. She befriended both these women who proved their skills to her very quickly and became her flight commanders of the second and third squadrons. The rest of the crews were quickly filled from disenfranchised fury crews, liberated, poached, rescued. As long as they weren’t malcontents, showed no signs of treachery and displayed at least a reasonable amount of loyalty to the Imperium, they were offered a place aboard the Crusader’s Prize until all three wings were filled.
Sigrid and the Arch Militant became lovers but did not advertise the fact, or how else was he to successfully enamour ladies who set their sights so high and would reveal information on their own or their husband’s dealings? She welcomed his forthright manner and his company as a respite from the strictures of command. Happy to kick back and gossip or drink with her officers, she was still the Flight Marshall of sixty planes and three hundred flight crew, not including ground fitters and always when not in the Rogue Trader’s quarters was “on duty”.
After life in the Imperial Navy, life aboard the Rogue Trader vessel seemed almost “relaxed”, as they did not fly from combat zone to combat zone. The sight of twenty, or even sixty Furies was often enough to frighten off the more uncertain of pirates, and was sure to impress the Rogue Trader’s rivals. Mostly it was babysitting landing craft to the atmosphere but sometimes, sometimes there were real sorties, and for that, Flight Marshall Dejorn always makes sure her crews are in top combat readiness, and that her bird, Miss Polly is always ready to go.
Sia Silvanus: Sia was born on Port Aramant, a busy starport awash with people from all walks of the Imperium from the most base cutthroats and cold traders to the highest born Rogue Traders and Imperial Officers moving through. As a child she loved to go to the docks and watch the flyers come in and try to guess what their markings meant. Even more exciting was watching the huge starships dock, their lumbering grace easing into port. If she didn’t recognise a ship or its heraldry, she would quietly and meekly ask one of the dock workers. They would always indulge her, adopting the little child as a mascot. Visitors would sometimes accuse her of being a spy but the dock workers were quick to defend Sia and fend off any unwanted attention. Some of the dock workers thought she might be in the pay of a trader wanting to know who was coming into port but what of it? Everyone had to make a living on this Emperor forsaken hole and it was safer work than many other children were put to. Sia wasn’t in anyone’s pay. She was just very curious and excited about the big ships.
More exciting was the tales that some of the void farers would tell after a drink or six. Sia would sit outside the windows of the taverns, or if she felt very brave, in a dark corner or even under a table hidden in the gloom and listen to stories of far away planets and creatures and encounters. Most, most of all the older, grizzled men or Imperial officers stopping by would launch into stories they’d heard of the heroes of the Imperium, of the almost mythical Primarchs, and men the likes of Castellan Creed and Solar Mecharius or the Saints of the Ecclesiarchy. She would hang on every word and repeat them to herself later on to make sure she missed nothing.
Sia’s parents were small time traders, selling on whatever they could get their hands on. Sia was sweet, innocent, meek, shy, demure. They considered marrying her to further their standing, she was pretty enough, but she was so easily intimidated they could not be sure that she wouldn’t betray their secrets, even unknowingly, if she became frightened enough. When she was eighteen they decided she would be safe enough in the Imperial Navy. She’d never see actual real combat. Most likely they’d put her somewhere nice and quiet running data or looking after stores or something. So they told her to go join up, it was the best thing, really and like a good little girl she did as her parents told her to.
Sia went through the normal competency tests. She did rather well. She had an excellent memory after all those years of memorising stories and ship markings. When they put her in the simulators it was quite another matter entirely. It was though something in Sia’s brain switched over, a place where there was no fear, no uncertainty. There was data. Data translated to action. Action translated to kills. Her reaction time was phenomenal for an unaugmented human. Starship piloting did not have the same success. The slower speeds, the increased input from other sources left her flustered and uncertain, as though having time to think about what she was doing was the downfall for her skills. She loved the lumbering giants but the fire was fanned by smaller craft.
Far from her parents’ expectations, Sia was trained for Furies and transferred to Delta Wing of the three thousand year old Mighty Fist of Terra.
Sia was one of the best of the best, her skills only hampered by lack of years in the field. The only thing stopping her from soaring through the ranks was as soon as she dismounted from the Fury’s cockpit, she was just as shy, innocent and sweet as when she was a child on Port Aramant. Still, she was a killer when flying in the void and promoted to Flight Lieutenant, her superiors knowing the Wing Commander could rely on her in a sortie.
The great, old battleship was en route to an ork incursion several warp jumps away. The Mighty Fist of Terra exited the warp into seemingly empty space. Except, except there was an Astartes Cruiser, with its proud bearings and beautiful crenulations already there. A few very hurried transmissions revealed they were also using the jump spot en route on their own journey. Suddenly the klaxons started blaring and the internal ship vox was informing them in its mechanical deadpan that enemy had been sighted, all crew to battle stations.
Enemy has been sighted.
All crew to battle stations.
Enemy has been sighted.
All crew to battle stations.
For a brief and terrifying moment, Sia thought that the Astartes were coming around to attack. The legends of the past, of the betrayals that almost ripped the Imperium in two came rushing back to her. Pushing such foolish and treacherous thoughts aside, she quickly pulled on her flight kit and ran with all speed to the hangar bays. Fitter crews were already buzzing around her bird like bees, a techpriest, like the beekeeper supervising them whilst saying litanies to the machine spirit of her Fury with his censor imbuing the plane with the strength of the Machine God.
She dashed over to her wing commander who was just walking away from the flight commander. He looked worried. He never looked worried. Others were running over with as much haste. He made a quick check to ensure all his pilots were there before giving a cursory briefing.
“Eldar have just come out of nowhere. Most of you have never faced them before. They are small and fast. Faster than us, and can turn on a tuppence. They’ll come at us from behind where we have no weapons coverage. Protect the rear and the belly, the rest of the ship will be able to blast anything coming from another direction out of the void. Now scramble!”
Sia was already in battle-mode by the time the cockpit was fastened down. Running pre-flight checks as fast as she could, she briefed her crew.
The fitters signalled the plane was fit to launch.
She signalled them back that pre-flights were complete.
Instruction given to get into position to launch.
Standby.
Delta Five – launch
The G-force of the launch pushed her back into her seat where she was firmly fastened by her harness. She stayed in a holding position until the wing was all launched.
“Delta Wing, follow my mark and come to seven o’clock. Three, two, mark” The Furies dived beneath the battle ship as one creature, looking like flies in comparison to the great star ship. As they came up behind the Mighty Fist of Terra, Sia got her first look at this strange xeno craft. They were small and by the Emperor! How they danced! How were they meant to combat them in void dogfights when they moved like the atmospheric Lightnings? Sia had never before found her Fury slow and cumbersome until now. But her duty was to the Emperor, and His will was that she stop these craft from damaging one of His great starships. Or boarding, she thought. They could be boarding craft, they were so alien she had no idea. She could see to starboard the starship they had come from; a sleek strange looking thing that looked more as though it belonged in the depths of an ocean, and not in the void of space. The twenty planes of Delta Flight committed to the sortie and moved in to intercept the bats, with Alpha Flight to port and Epsilon Flight to starboard.
“Delta Flight, this is Lead, let’s break those bastards apart and drive them off.” Delta Flight slammed into the heart of the Eldar formation like a lumbering rhinoceros amongst fleet-footed gazelle whilst Alpha and Epsilon Flights veered to cover the edges of the formation. There was one behind her, Co-Pilot Zarkov reading the information from the auspex so fast that had they not been in the grip of combat Sia wouldn’t have understood a word. She viffed, she jinked, she veered, the swerved, she tried slamming the breaks and diving so he’d overshoot, but she couldn’t shake the damn bat. The pinging of target lock. Sia used all her skill to get the xeno off her tail. Two seconds and it was still pinging, they’d all be dead any second. Suddenly the Fury was pushed forward with an explosion blossoming behind her.
“Our thanks, Delta Nine” Co-Pilot Zarkov called over the vox.
“Anytime, Delta Five”
They were back in the fight. The bats were everywhere but trying to get a lock on any of them was like trying to catch minnow with your bare hands. She briefly had one but lost it. The Eldar broke away from the sortie.
“Delta Lead, Delta Lead, this is Delta Five, bat breaking away and making for Astartes vessel” Sia called over the vox.
“Delta Five, this is Delta Lead, probably trying to outflank us. Seek and destroy, Delta Five.”
“Copy, Delta Lead.”
“Oh, and if you can’t get the slippery bastard, at least warn us if he tries to shoot up our arses. The Emperor Protects.”
Sia took off after the bat, pushing as much speed as she dared into the Fury to keep up with the faster, more nimble machine. She rounded the Astartes cruiser, the Eldar plane must be using it for cover, and found a blind spot in the great starship’s firing solution.
Where was it? Where was it? “No visual – does anyone have visual on this damn thing?” her crew all replied the negative.
“Auspex return, bat’s above us,” came her co-pilot after several frantic seconds. Sia looked up out of the canopy to see the weird fighter cresting the strike cruiser. There was a huge white light and then the bat was tumbling end of end into the void. The strike cruiser rocked, the Fury jumped horizontally as though caught in the most violent, imaginable cross wind. The explosion continued, blossoming white into the darkness of the void. There was no sound, no vox traffic. Just the silence of space. They watched as one of the Mighty Fist of Terra’s escorts started drifting without rhyme or reason.
“Zarkov. The auspex. The Fist is still there, right?”
“I…I…I can’t tell, Silvanus. Too much debris, it’s crowding the auspex…I…I don’t think so.”
Sia took the Fury up above the Astartes cruiser, her hands shaking in their flight gloves. There was no ship. Just a hell of a lot of debris. Not a Fury or Eldar ship to be seen. The Eldar starship had fled the battle. Why? Why when they had just destroyed… Sia choked as realisation hit her and she started to tremble. Why when they had just destroyed a three thousand year old starship? Another of the Fists’ escorts appeared to have survived though flames were visible along her hull. Her reprieve was short lived as explosion after explosion ripped her and she broke in two, a derelict hull with no survivors.
“Umm…what do we do now, Silvanus?” asked Gunner Mae.
“I don’t know,” Sia responded in a very small voice.
“NNnnnnhhhhhhnnnnn!!! It can’t be! It can’t be! I hadn’t finished fixing the refuelling pumps four, six and thirteen to optimal operating capacity!”
“I don’t think it matters, anymore, Techpriest Akadia,” replied Mae.
“Incoming vox from the Astartes vessel, Silvanus,” said Zarkov. Sia sat there stunned, unable to move or speak. “Silvanus, incoming vox. Silvana?” Sia stared out the cockpit at the devastated void, bits of Fury, escorts and the Mighty Fist spinning in the void. “Sia!” Zarkov picked up the vox mic. “Pride of Dorn, this is Fury Delta Three-Five-Oh of the Mighty Fist of Terra, receiving.”
“Fury, come aboard in starboard bay twelve and we’ll go get the survivors of your crippled escort. Do you copy, Fury?”
“Copy that Pride of Dorn.”
Room was made aboard the Pride of Dorn for Sia and her crew and the five thousand survivors from the escort. Tens and tens of thousands of lives had been lost in one brief engagement. Sia couldn’t comprehend that only five thousand survived. They were treated well by the chapter serfs of the Imperial Fists who proved to be their saviours. She only occasionally saw the gigantic Astartes in their striking yellow and black power armour, and occasionally in robes. One came to see her. “
Th..
th..thank you,” she stammered.
“Your thanks is noted but not necessary. We serve the Will of the Emperor and protect his citizens and protect the Imperium.” She was asked to compile a report of the Eldar small vessels as the only one left alive from the engagement who had fought them directly. The Imperial Fists dropped the survivors at a space port where there was significant Imperial Navy presence before going to prosecute a Tau incursion.
Sia and her crew found accommodation and she gave them the afternoon for R&R whilst she went to talk to the Departmento Minatorum to report the situation and find out to what ship she and her crew would be deployed at next.
She waited for hours to see the middle aged, near sighted clerk. It seemed many from the escort had already been to see him that afternoon.
“Flight Lieutenant Sia Silvanus of the Mighty Fist of Terra, Fury pilot reporting for redeployment,” Sia stated. The clerk looked up at her from his sheathes of data slates.
“All crew of the Mighty Fist were lost in action, Lieutenant.”
“We were off the craft when she blew, my crew and some of the escort, Sword of Destruction survived, sir.”
“Yes, five thousand reported alive from the Sword, none from Mighty Fist of Terra.”
“Well, umm…we’re alive, corporal. Me, and three others, my crew. Awaiting orders for redeployment.”
“We can’t redeploy dead people, lass. The paperwork it creates is enourmous. There’s a big difference between ‘lost with all hands’ and ‘lost except for four’. It may not seem like much of a deal to you but it’s a mountain of paperwork and investigation.”
“You…you can’t! Just umm… can’t we reenlist? Or something? What are we meant to do!” Sia stood there looking meek and scared, unable to comprehend this was even happening.
“You can’t reenlist if you don’t exist!” the clerk’s voice took on a quiet, gentle note. “Listen, love, people go missing all the time. You seem like a really nice, young girl. There’s bad stuff going down, these Tau aren’t simple-minded natives to be put down. I reassign you, you’ll be dead in a year. Do what everyone else does, use this as a chance to get out. Find yourself a nice young man and settle down. A lass like you shouldn’t be in combat. You were lucky once. Next!”
“But…but…but..”
“NEXT!”
Sia went and sat on the steps of the building for a while, not sure what to do, not sure what to tell her crew. She’d been in the Navy for so long. All she could do was fly Furies. She made her way back to the tavern where she’d left Zarkov, Arkadia and Mae.
“Umm….” she began, getting their attention, head down, looking dejected. “Umm….they think we’re dead.”
“Lucky we’re not, eh?” said Barak Zarkov loudly, earning a hearty cheer from Mae.
“Does not make sense. Evidence is contrary. Faulty logic,” complained Arkadia.
“Not lucky, Zarkov. They won’t reassign us. Said it was too hard, too much paperwork to make us not dead. And won’t let us reenlist.”
“Oh. Awkward.”
“There has to be a way,” put in Merica Mae. “Maybe if we can get to another starport, reenlist there without telling them the whole situation. They’re desperate for crew, the Navy’s always desperate for crew. We’ll come up with a plan, don’t worry, Silvanus. Go get yourself a drink.”
Sia made her way to the bar and ordered a round for her crew, a ginger beer for herself, and a glass of amasec which she drank at the bar. She never drank, except for toasts and official ceremonies. She threw the amasec down, making a face. The alcohol went straight to her head. Maybe that’s why she agreed so readily. A woman walked up wearing a flight jacket but no Navy insignia. One lapel had the Holy Aquila, the other was a badge Sia didn’t recognise.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, Silvanus, was it?”
“Umm…err…Flight Lieutenant Sia Silvanus.”
“Flight Marshall Sigrid Dejorn of the Crusader’s Prize. I couldn’t help but overhearing what’s happened to you and your crew, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop and I apologise for that, but I may have a solution to your problem…..” the woman went on to explain she was looking for Fury crews to pilot three brand new squadrons of Furies aboard the Rogue Trader vessel, the Crusader’s Prize under.
Sia quickly proved her brilliance in the air and was elevated to Flight Captain of the Crusader’s 2nd Squadron, leading Halo Flight. Dejorn kept a close eye on Sia to see if she was up to command, given her meek and mild nature but she was so loved and protected by her wing that it was as though they stayed in line for not wanting to hurt her feelings. A stuttered, worried reprimand from her was worth all the rage of any other Flight Captain.
Sia painted her Fury a bright yellow and named her the Yellow Bird with the Imperial Fists holding a little yellow bird in its safe and protecting hand. She hoped she would not offend the great Astartes with the gesture but they saved her and kept her safe and hoped if any of them ever saw the plane they would recognise the tribute and not be offended.
Sia was ever grateful to the Lord Captain for rescuing her and her crew from being forgotten by the Imperium they loved and had dedicated their lives to serve and fitted into life aboard the ship with ease. The Rogue Trader starship gave so much more freedom and flexibility to meet new people and hear new stories about the legends of the Imperium and its almost forgotten heroes.
Thyracia Eisen: Thyracia was born with a void suit on; or at least she may as well have been. She was born to a battlefleet on the Sound of Victory. Her father was a gunner on the Astral Eagle and had died in an explosion before she was even born. Her mother succumbed to warp sickness and shot by a Navy Commissar to quickly end the infection when Thyracia was four, so at a very early age, the girl knew the universe was not a kind place. All Thyracia knew was the Imperial Navy. She grew up rough as guts, knowing that life was fleeting and her only role in life was to give her life for the Emperor. She was determined to live her short life to the fullest and her fatalistic attitude saw her landed in the brig many times as she backchatted superior officers and was caught in minor, illicit activities, such as running a still, playing unauthorised card games, relations with superior officers, taking illicit substances. She was a damn good pilot, trained in everything from guncutters to small starcraft and her uncle was Colonel Tauron, first mate of the Sound of Victory and these two facts saw her repeatedly returned to action.
Uncle Tauron tried everything to bring his niece into line, to rid her of her self-destructive attitude. He even tried slapping her to wake her up to herself. All it earned him was the silent treatment for a week.
When off duty she would take every drug she could get her hands on, slept with every handsome, eligible officer she could get into bed, try every new drink they brought out.
Colonel Tauron thought that the long months of inactivity between situations gave his niece too long to think, too much idle time to fill. He hoped a more constant combat situation, a protracted theatre, might force her into action and stop her from destroying herself. It would either be that or she would get herself killed. Either way, he was at a loss and had her reassigned to a Valkyrie unit with the 433rd Stadlter Regiment who were currently prosecuting a war against recidivist in the Abnotay System.
The Guard had been involved in this war for fourteen months now and it had come down to bitter, hand to hand ground warfare. They were jaded, bitter and hardened. They reminded Thyracia so much of herself, she thought she’d fit right in. It took a while though. She was Navy, they were Guard. The Guard were standoffish and treated all the Navy personnel like outsiders. They kept things professional but didn’t fraternise with the Navy pilots or socialise with them. She struck up a conversation with some of them, trying to get herself invited to their card game. She made the big mistake of asking why the Imperial forces didn’t just orbitally bombard the planet if it was so hard to take back? The troopers muttered about ‘damn naval attitude’ and ‘not understanding ground warfare’, turned their backs on her and walked away. Thyracia drank pretty hard that night, which was okay because she wasn’t due on duty the next morning, something her hangover was very pleased with. She also had trouble adjusting to the gravity. Thyracia had only ever been dirtside when training on atmospheric craft for short periods of time. As weeks turned into months her body began to adjust to the heavier gravity but only slowly. She felt fat and heavy and missed the lightness of void craft and space ports.
After six months of ferrying troops further into the ever forward frontline, she was woken one morning at three thirty and told to gak, shower and sha…get dressed. Her briefing was to drop a strike team close to the front for infiltration pre-dawn. The pilot who had already been rostered and briefed was in the medicae with a swollen appendix.
They took off at four-thirty and were about an hour in the air. The squad dropped as she hovered over their insertion point, the first glimmers of day were just beginning to break the skyline. As she gained altitude, a glint caught her eye. She risked breaking vox silence, “Delta Squad, Delta Squad, hold your position. Unfriendlies sighted, assessing situation.” It was definitely a gun post. And on the Imperial side of the frontline? Bastards had pushed without them knowing it. “Command, Command, this is Valkyrie Three-Four-Two, Dawn Operation, do you copy Command?”
“Copy Valkyrie Three-Four-Two, go ahead.”
“Unfriendlies sighted fifty feet east of insertion point. Strike team will be ambushed if they move. Permission to…wait, Command, I see armour headed this way, a hundred metres away and closing, more unfriendlies in the undergrowth, permission to engage the enemy, Command and buy Strike Team some time.”
“Permission granted, Valkyrie Three-Four-Two, give ‘em hell.”
“Copy that Command, the Emperor Protects.” Thyracia got back on the vox “Delta Team, this is Valkyrie Three-Four-Two, you’re surrounded by unfriendlies, we’re just gonna set the countryside alight for you.”
The armour would cause the Valkyrie the most problems. Even if it didn’t have dedicated anti-air ordinance, anything it did have could surely blow a low flying aircraft out of the sky but the gun post was too close by halves to their elite strike team. Thyracia concentrated her lascannon on the gunpost, until it satisfyingly exploded, the ammunition stored added to the explosion. Thyracia watched, pleased with herself as two men came out on fire, running around like performers at a circus. They were already dead men and she gained a little altitude, turning her attention to the tank. “Hey boys, here’s my early Emperor’s Day present to you, unfriendlies all through this scrub, you may fire at will.” The troopers manning the wing bolters opened fire on targets they had already marked as Thyracia armed the missile pods.
“Valkyrie Three-Four-Two, do you mind not cutting it quite so fine? We could hear that last salvo whistling Dixie.”
“Then don’t get in the way of my ammo, Strike Team Delta” she turned away from the vox but didn’t turn it off and called to the gunners “Hey boys! Try not to hit the squad, huh?” She turned back in time to see the tank fire at them. She just veered out of the way, the shot missing the starboard wing by inches.
“I woulda lost my breakfast if I had any, why don’t you keep your eyes on the road?” called the starboard gunner.
“Why don’t you grow a pair and stop crying for your mummy?” Thyracia shot back. Missile pods armed, she fired at the tank. Like the gun post, it exploded. But a gun post couldn’t do much to a Valkyrie where as a tank can blow it out of the sky so its fiery death was much more satisfying.
She strafed the area, allowing the gunners to pick up anymore ground troops and cut them all to hell. Satisfied nothing and noone except Strike Team Delta was left alive she looked at the landscape. Parts were on fire, smoke rose like a beacon. They may as well have put up neon signs saying IMPERIAL ENGAGEMENT HERE to the recidivist.
“Command, come in, Command, this is Valkyrie Three-Four-Two.”
“Receiving, Valkyrie Three-Four-Two, what’s the status.”
“We cleaned house but it’s pretty obvious. Suggest we head nor-north-east a ways, make it look like we’re on a seek and destroy to draw attention away from strike team’s position. Else the enemies gonna be on them like a jungle rash, Command.”
“Granted, Valkyrie Three-Four-Two, you have exactly twelve minutes of seek and destroy decoy then head on home.”
“Copy, Command”
“The Emperor Protects”
The next time the 433rd ‘Longarms’ Second Platoon had a card game, they invited Thyracia.
Thyracia was still drinking, but this time it was with her new-found friends. She was still Navy, they were still Guard but at least they could have a drink, smoke a cigar and play a hand of cards. She got to know the guy. You know, the “guy”, the one who can get anything and got herself some recreational…
de-stress tablets as he called them. After eight months, the engagement was over and Abnotay Prime won back for the Imperium and the insurgent leaders were executed. Abnotay Secundus in the same system also had tried to break from the Imperium and even with the fall of their capital planet, refused to bow down to the might of the God-Emperor on his Golden Throne so the war moved there, and Thyracia was deployed with them.
The local Naval Commissar called her into his office one fine morning and read out a long list of complaints. She’d heard them all before, and even moved to a Guard regiment she spent more time on report than not. She told him that she figured she could guess but he just gave her a cold stare and proceeded to read “Fraternising with the Guard, fraternising with locals, gambling, taking illicit substances, drinking, disorderly behaviour, brawling, conduct unbecoming the Navy, insubordination” and so on it went. He went on to tell her this is why she had not been made an officer, as damn a fine pilot as she is. She was about to snap back that she was a damn fine pilot so they can get this charade over with. She opened her mouth then shut it again. She realised….she realised suddenly she wasn’t on board the Sound of Victory anymore. He might shoot her. He might actually shoot her. He was a Commissar, after all. The realisation hit her like a brick to the head. The Commissar was still talking to her, about her attitude, about her place in the Imperium, suggesting she talk to the Ecclesiarchy blah blah blah. “I can see by the look on your face, Sergeant Eisen that I am having an impression.”
“Errr…um, yes, Commissar, you certainly are and I will take your advice under serious consideration and thought.”
“See that you do.” She quickly left the Commissar’s office. Feth. Frak frak frak frak frakking frak. She couldn’t just get away with it anymore. These last few years with the Guard…well, it was what it was all about really. She saved their lives, they saved hers. She made a difference. Her presence in the galaxy, in the Emperor’s grand plans, actually made a difference. She didn’t want to die. She tried to moderate her behaviour. She didn’t do too badly. She was more discreet with her affairs, she stopped brawling and singing bawdy songs, she still gambled but for the socialising, not to win money, she cut back her drinking and that was hard. She cut back hard on the stimms and white void, though she’d always made sure even before the ‘talking to’ that she took them long enough before going on duty that the effects would well wear off.
The war now moved to Abotnay Tertius, as the Imperial Forces moved planet by planet through the system, bringing it back under the control of the Imperium of Man. There was a dawn push, a big one. Thyracia played two hands, had one drink, and got an early night, ready to be fresh and fit for action. Instead however she woke up feeling like a grox had slept on her face. Great, but just a cold and all stuffed up but nothing that would stop her flying. She affectionately patted Three-Four-Two and stood back to let the techpriests finish blessing the machine and greeted the lads she’d be dropping into combat and the troopers who would be manning her side bolters. They were quiet this morning, quite possibly going to their deaths, and for once that suited Thyracia, by the Throne did her head hurt! She blew her stuffed up nose and jumped into the cockpit, trying to shake off the cold and concentrate on the job at hand.
It took almost all her concentration but she got the squad to their disembarkation point, then flew higher to continue pressing the enemy with her heavier fire power in support of the ground troops. Her head was really hurting now and she fought to keep the Valkyrie steady as she gained altitude, earning protests from her gunners as the gunship wobbled slightly.
“Valkyrie Three-Four-Two, this is Command, have you made your drop?”
“Drop made, Command, commencing support – argh!” just then the sun rose, hitting bare metal on an enemy chimera, sending the reflected light right into her eyes. “Argh! I can’t see, I can’t see!” she cried out. Thyracia blinked as she tried to get the spots out of her eyes, and failed to see the strike that sheered off half her port wing. She had already been moving forward to prosecute and fought for control to land the screaming plane. Shrapnel from the wing had already killed the gunner on the port side. She overshot the battlefield and slammed hard into a rocky field, the heavy Gs and sudden impact rendering her unconscious in her pitiful dying craft.
Two days later she woke up in the medicae. The starboard gunner was thrown from the Valkyrie and killed. The techpriests were working to salvage the hull to refit the Valkyrie. It would be many months before the gunship would be back in the sky.
The Commissar came to see her whilst she lay in bed in the medicae. She was accused of things that left her bruised head reeling. She was accused of being under the influence of illicit substances. The evidence was against her; she was unsteady on her feet before the action that morning, she was not in full control of her vehicle as ground forces confirmed it was wobbling as she ascended after the drop, Command heard her crying out that she suddenly couldn’t see. Whilst they found no trace of anything in her system, there were substances that could hide its presence, and her record was against her. Thyracia couldn’t believe it. She asked for a full investigation. She tried to explain about her stuffed head, that it had just been a cold, about the sun in her eyes from the chimera. The Commissar just told her that head colds don’t get troopers killed, but she did. He told her that as a personal favour to her uncle, to whom he was indebted, instead of being lobotomised as a servitor or sent to a penal legion she was being discharged.
“Get the feth out of the Navy and if you ever see your uncle again, tell him the debt is cleared.”
Not quite sure what to do, Thyracia hopped a transport to another system. And then another, and another, not sure where she was going or what she was going to do once she got there. The Imperial Navy was her whole life, nothing else really existed. She grew up in uniform and kept looking down for her wings and her sergeant stripes, not really used to wearing civvies. She ended up in a starport and didn’t have the thrones to get any further. She figured here might as well do and started spending what money she had on drinking, gambling and white void.
She had been there for six months, living off her card winnings and was sitting in a tavern at the bar when she heard the trader sitting next to her complaining to the barkeep about pilots. “Pilots?” she slurred, “what the frak do you know about pilots? I know about pilots. I wassa…wassa..pilots. Waz a damn good one, too. Outfly anyonebody. Gunships, starships, void inner…innerceptors. Anything. ‘specially gunships. That’s me. Valk pilot. Waz. Nommore.” She turned back to her drink, surprised to see that only half of it was left. The trader rolled his eye and moved a few seats down the bar where he could complain to the proprietor without being interrupted. She realised someone was standing next to her. She tried to focus on them. It was a woman wearing a flight uniform but no naval signatures.
“You’re a pilot?”
“Yup. No. Was.”
“You any good?”
“Best. Can’t tell you how many combat drops, lost count. Only one crash. Wasn’t my fault. They didn’t listen. Wasn’t my fault. Sun in my eyes, couldn’t see the missile. Decided it was my fault. Now I’m here. No more Navy, no more flying.”
“You want to fly again?”
“What’s it to you?”
“I need pilots. Fury pilots. You ever trained in them?”
“I can fly Furies. Trained, not flown them in a long, long time. But I can’t fly now. I’m a wash out. Just gimme a drink and some void and I’m right. Not allowed to fly no more.”
“Not for the Navy you can’t.”
“I ain’t gonna fly no chartis gak..ship.”
“Navy aren’t the only ones with armed ships. Furies. I need Fury pilots.”
“You don’t want me.” The woman rolled her eyes, tipped out the woman’s drink and physically dragged her into the bathroom. Thyracia struggled to get out of her grasp but was too drunk. The woman started the water running in a sink.
“Do you want to fly?” she asked sternly, grabbing Thyracia by the hair at the back of her head and forcing her head under the water.
“Huh? What, why you doin’ this?”
“Do you want to fly, pilot?” she dunked Thyracia again.
“Yes, yeah, I do,” Thyracia whined.
“I said do you want to fly, pilot!”
“Sir! Yes, sir!” the woman smiled.
“My name is Flight Marshall Sigrid Dejorn of the Rogue Trader vessel, the Crusader’s Prize. Welcome to the crew.”
Dejorn took Thyracia back to the Crusader’s Prize and dried her out cold turkey. She was pretty harsh about it, but not unkind. Despite a violent and shaky beginning, Dejor promoted Thyracia to Flight Captain of the Crusader’s Prize 3rd Squadron leading Arrow Flight. Thyracia still likes to gamble, fight and live life to the fullest but won’t touch a drop or stimms, white void or alcohol, the risks of relapsing to her former self too great, especially now she is a captain. But at the back of her mind, tugging at her, it’s always there, always in reach.
