Captain Huck stood in front of the window, gently swirling half a glass of murky synthetic alcohol in his hand.
The place where he was staying now was called the Cadre Quarters, which was actually just a slightly renovated office building in the core area of Fortress Horisen.
The view outside the window was drab. Aside from grey concrete roads, there was nothing but the smoking chimneys of factories in the distance.
Huck glanced down below.
Across two streets stood a few boxy, matchbox-like buildings whose exterior walls weren't even painted—the collective dormitories for the workers.
Now this was something fresh!
Huck had sailed across more than half of the Segmentum Obscurus and visited hundreds of Hive Worlds.
In those places, the noble lords lived at the apex of spires piercing the clouds, breathing air that had been filtered ten thousand times, while the workers wallowed in the filth of the Underhive several kilometers below.
The physical distance between the two was thicker than the armor plating of a battleship.
Yet here, the concept of class seemed to have been flattened.
Last night, when Huck went out for a smoke, he bumped into that traditional merchant named Sisyphron in the hallway. Sisyphron was running to his room clutching a stack of documents. Right next door to him lived a technical director named Bauer.
Word had it that Zor—who held an actual title of High Tech-Priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus—also lived on this very floor.
These upper-crust figures holding the core technology and resources actually lived directly across the hall from the low-level laborers.
Huck took a sip of liquor, the burning fluid sliding down his throat.
This setup wasn't very Imperial at all. In fact, it was a bit—no, exceptionally—heretical!
Yet it was precisely this structure that endowed the place with a terrifyingly high efficiency.
At that moment, a commotion rose from the street below.
Huck leaned out to look.
A group of workers who had just finished their shift were surrounding a man in a black trench coat, walking toward the dormitories.
Bauer had said his name was Gamma-9.
And this one-eyed Tech-Priest had been acting very abnormal lately.
By normal logic, members of the Adeptus Mechanicus ought to stay in oil-drenched workshops, chanting scriptures to gears and pistons.
Yet Gamma-9 had barely stayed home over the last few days, diving into crowds of workers daily. He had even moved his bedding roll right into the workers' dorms.
Huck couldn't hear what they were saying, but he could see the fervor on the workers' faces.
It was a genuine, almost blind trust coming from the bottom of their hearts.
Even Captain Huck could tell that this guy... had gone completely fanatic with his preaching.
As for the supreme leader of Deep Space Industries, Andy...
Huck hadn't seen him even once over the past two days (and one night).
Supposedly, this big boss had been hiding inside the tallest black research tower, doors firmly shut, refusing to see anyone.
Huck completely understood.
If someone were outside every day boasting that he was glowing with golden light and that his gaze could calm Warp storms, Huck felt he wouldn't have the face to show himself in public either.
Embarrassing!
Too embarrassing!
This was probably just one of those troubles unique to the mighty!
Huck withdrew his gaze and checked the crude electronic clock on the wall.
Less than an hour remained until the ship delivery time Andy had promised.
Truth be told, Huck was anxious.
Refurbishing a cruiser in twenty-two hours?
Even if it was just refinishing the hull and power systems, the timeframe was far too short—so short it made his skin crawl.
As a Rogue Trader, Huck knew all the tricks of the trade when it came to ship repairs.
Previously, he had repaired his ship at Port Wander.
That was the hub for the entire Calixis Sector, the station of the Imperial Navy, boasting dozens of massive orbital docks and countless Tech-Priests.
Logically, efficiency there should have been at its peak.
The reality was the exact opposite.
Getting a ship repaired at Port Wander was a process that could drive a man insane.
Although Rogue Traders had money and warrants of trade, their standing in the face of the Imperium's massive bureaucratic machinery was quite awkward.
Naval warships had top priority—fixed as soon as they arrived.
Mechanicus exploratory vessels were their own kin, so they could skip the line.
Administratum transports carried official warrants, allowing them to skip the line too.
Even those little black Inquisition ships only a few hundred meters long could make all docks clear out just by flashing a Rosette.
And Rogue Traders?
Get in line.
If you were lucky, you'd get a berth in ten days to half a month.
If you were unlucky and hit wartime status—or happened to coincide with some grandee's fleet needing maintenance—there was no telling when your turn would come.
Huck had once floated in the synchronous orbit of Port Wander for three whole months just to replace a reactor core component.
Three months!
Queueing without a word!
The fuel spent just maintaining the ship's basic life support was enough for him to buy another half of an engine.
Furthermore, those toaster-heads at Port Wander had genuinely awful tempers.
They were immensely rigid and dogmatic.
If your ship was standard Imperial manufacture, that was fine; though slow, it could at least be fixed.
But what Rogue Trader ship wasn't modified?
To survive in unknown sectors, everyone stuffed all sorts of non-standard parts—or even xenos technology—into their ships.
The moment those toaster-heads spotted these non-standard modifications, they would turn hostile instantly.
At best, they would refuse repairs. At worst, they'd accuse you of defiling the Machine Spirit, forcing you to pay a fortune to tear off those useful mods and swap them back for their clunky, oversized standard components.
That wasn't getting a ship repaired; it was paying money to buy suffering!
Yet Huck noticed that at Deep Space Industries, such things simply didn't exist.
Huck recalled the progress report sent by the engineering department earlier.
Just a few hours ago, the supervisor named Bauer contacted him, saying that while inspecting the engines, they noticed an auxiliary cooling pump interface Huck had installed without authorization was incompatible with the main conduit, throttling the coolant flow rate.
That gave Huck a sharp fright on the spot!
If this were Port Wander, the toaster-heads would definitely order Huck to strip that cooling pump off!
And what did Bauer say?
Bauer said: "Captain Huck, several ports on your ship don't match up... Ah, no worries. I had the CNC center turn an adapter for you. We're installing it now, no charge."
An adapter.
Machined on the spot.
No charge.
Why did that sound like some new kind of scam script??
The combination of those three phrases had an immense impact on Huck.
What did this show?
It showed that these people at Deep Space Industries not only possessed extremely high-end precision manufacturing equipment, but their heads were also completely free of rigid dogmatism.
They didn't care about standards; as long as it ran and worked well, they dared to manufacture it for you.
This technical confidence, this industrial strength, this service attitude—
Mom!
He unilaterally declared that this was practically the biological mother of all Rogue Traders!
The more Huck thought about it, the more shocked he became.
This place was too unnatural.
It was clearly situated on such a godforsaken wasteland planet, with only a few thousand people.
Yet the advanced philosophy they demonstrated actually trounced those forge factories at Port Wander that had been passed down for thousands of years.
No queueing, no reading people's faces, and they could even custom-make non-standard parts for you.
You didn't even need to explain it yourself—they could reverse-engineer how your non-standard parts came to be on their own!
Most importantly, they had stock on hand and massive amounts of raw materials to match the demand.
"Hāng."
A local slang term Huck had picked up back when he was idling on the lower decks popped out of his mouth.
In his memory, it was a term similar to Waaagh!, describing something as rock-solid, incredibly reliable, hardcore, and... totally kick-ass!
This Deep Space Industries was just so fucking solid!
Solid to the absolute core!
Huck was even beginning to calculate: after leaving this time, should he sell this news to his other Rogue Trader friends?
No, he couldn't sell it.
With a treasure trove like this, the fewer people who knew, the better.
If everyone came, they'd have to start queueing again.
He had to keep this channel all to himself. At least in these first few years, he was going to rely on Deep Space Industries' repairs and resupplies to arm his Bull to the teeth and walk tall across the Expanse.
As long as he held tight to this thigh, and as long as the production here didn't stop, Huck would sooner or later climb his way up to become one of those grand traders with a privateer fleet.
At the thought of this, Huck couldn't help but chuckle out loud.
He had thought this crash-landing was sheer bad luck.
Who would have guessed he'd stumbled upon a massive fortune instead!
Just as he was filled with overwhelming emotion and dreaming of the future...
The communicator by his hand suddenly emitted a crisp chime.
Huck looked down.
A line of bold green text popped up on the screen:
[Repair operations completed. All performance metrics tested normal. Please inspect and accept delivery.]
Huck froze. He glanced at the wall clock.
There were still forty minutes left before the twenty-two hours were up.
These guys... had actually delivered early?
"Beep"