Chapter Two

The Dauntless-Class Crusier His Glorious Aspirations. Space Dock.

Now I was sitting on my command throne within the massive bridge of His Glorious Aspirations, a bridge so big that I had to yell for the crew at the edges of the room so that they could hear me. As I looked around I saw many of the techs adapts who were finishing the upgrades to my ship, all of which I'd paid for one way or the other. When it was all done I would be able to fly my ship to anywhere I wished by communing with the Machine Spirt of the Warp Drive rather than relying on a Navigator, or at least this was how it was explained to me, and again this had to be proof that I had my own psyker powers as only as psyker could hope to navigate The Warp.

I looked over the stain-glass windows which showed images of The Emperor and Imperial heroes, I knew that these windows didn't look into space as that would be stupid. As I looked a the images of The Emperor, in all his golden glory, I wondered if this dark age drive would get me out of this universe. After all, I'd read about crazier ideas online and this had all been set up for my benefits so why not try to will myself somewhere else. If it didn't work then I'd die horribly sooner rather die horribly just a bit later, even if that later could be decades from now. For some reason, I just seemed to think it would happen.

While sitting on my command throne, which served as a captain's chair as well as a way to interface with the ship's systems (or the machine spirits that controlled those systems depending on how you looked at it) I began to plan out where I would go and what I would do while knowing that if the drive did work the way I suspected that it did then I should be able to return to a forge-world for resupply and repair work. I'd need materials to trade for the work and to gain the protection of the forge-world, rare bits of tech, massive amounts of manpower, and raw materials, and even then I would need to be prepared for the attention of the Inquisition and other parties so it would be good to have plenty to bargain with.

Perhaps The Emperor really was guiding me because I felt a strange level of confidence in this plan and with my ability to deal with the IOM factions. Only time would tell if I was right to feel this way.

"Lord-Captain soon it will be time for you to met those who will serve under you and advise you should you wish it" I was told "I have prepared a report on some of the more important roles that your loyal officers have taken up, for your inspection".

The man who had just spoken was my First Officer, who I was going to call Number One. Every shipmaster needed a good first officer because while a Lord-Captain's power is absolute here on his ship, his time and energy are alas rather finite. Someone must stand at his right hand, acting as his voice and serving as an instrument of his will when he can't be there to do this for himself.

As such the First Officer speaks and acts with the full authority of his Lord-Captain, and must ever be prepared to assume the mantle of leadership should his superior become somehow indisposed. The First Officer could not take over my job fully as the Warrant was in my name, but should I die he would be acting captain long enough to get this back to a friendly port.

Assuming that he didn't lead a mutiny and turn pirate. I didn't worry too much about that happening as aside from having twenty super-human warriors whose loyalty could not be questioned guarding me day and night, although not all at the same time, the men and women of the IOM had to drill into them to respect the authority of those above them because this is the Emperor's Will. So as long everyone got paid, I didn't place them in needless danger, and we remained well-supplied things should be okay.

Before long my first officer passed me over what thought of as a datapad I began to read about the different positions that the important people on this ship filled. I didn't bother with the names instead I focused on the ranks since I would address everyone by their rank as that was polite. My First Officer had written the report to explain the roles to someone who'd never served on a ship before. Something I felt glad about since I was still new to all of this.

"A good report" I praised.

It gave me a good idea of who did what before I met anyone of them. This way I was less likely to make a fool of myself. It had been a bit of info dump, but vital to understanding who made the ship work and understanding their spheres of influence.

"Shall I invite them to dine with you this evening?" asked my First Officer "A new captain will traditionally do that so he can answer questions and any concerns can be discussed in a more relaxed setting. It is also tradition to invite the ranking Tech Adapt even he will refuse due to not needing to eat".

That seemed wise as I would need to learn more about how a ship like this ran before we left port. I'd been given some sort of hypnotic indoctrination teaching so that I could actually captain a ship but there's no replacement for real-life experience and I could learn a lot from what passed for my senior officers on this starship. Besides people tended to work harder when they felt that their efforts actually mattered so I would need to give the senior officers that impression.

"Do so" I ordered.

Until then, I'd be going over more reports while trying to get a good sense of how this ship functioned before it left space dock. Thankfully no one around here seemed to be in a rush to get us out into space and this was good because I really wasn't ready for that. I needed to spend more time getting used to being the Lord-Captain before we went anywhere.