A Bountiful Harvest

With one arm severed, the captain refused to surrender. Instead, gritting through the pain, he reached for the fallen laser pistol with his other hand.

"This is Imperial territory, you have no—"

Peter saw the captain bleeding profusely, still trying to fight back. He couldn't end the captain's suffering—he had to prolong it. Because everyone present were senior officers of the Imperial merchant fleet, not savages from some barbaric world who could be cowed by a simple decapitation.

Peter removed his helmet. With a slight flex of his tongue, he squeezed venom from his Butcher's Gland. This sublingual organ allowed a Space Marine's saliva to contain powerful corrosive agents, helping them digest tough food and melt through restraints.

Peter held a thick glob of spittle in his mouth. Before him, the captain struggled to raise his laser pistol with his remaining hand, aiming to fire.

But with a single ptoo, Peter spat the saliva directly into the captain's face.

The captain, who hadn't cried out even when his arm was severed, now screamed in agony as if doused in a bucket of sulfuric acid. The entire bridge trembled with his tormented howls, the very walls seeming to echo his despair. The screams hammered against the souls of every mortal present, a grim preview of what resistance would cost them.

For two full minutes, they listened. Two minutes of the captain's slow, agonized death screams, until the saliva melted through his skull and destroyed his brain. Only then did the screams fade.

Looking at this fallen warrior before him, Peter let out a soft sigh that no one else could hear. Then his tone shifted:

"Anyone else unwilling to surrender? Step forward now."

He swept his gaze across the remaining crew's expressions. It seemed no one would resist further.

Peter replaced his helmet and switched on the internal comms:

"Freddy, what's your squad's status?"

A reply came through the helmet:

"Light resistance encountered. Engine room secured. No casualties."

"Good. And Anthony's side?"

Anthony's voice came through, slightly distorted by the distance between ships:

"Ship secured. No casualties."

A simple boarding action, Peter thought with relief. He had fought in the Siege of Terra, facing many elite mortal soldiers—fearless, well-equipped men who had killed countless brothers the Astartes had underestimated.

Space Marines were not invincible. They never had been. Mortals, if trained well and brave enough, with proper weapons and a bit of sound tactics, could absolutely kill a Space Marine.

Sometimes all it took was a bit of luck—a Petrifying Lizard Cannon shell landing right on a Marine's face, or a Melt Bomb planted by a saunter being stepped on by an Astartes.

Fortunately, the soldiers on these two merchant ships had none of that. This was an easy fight.

After that, nothing special. Some of Blackrock's sailors boarded the other two ships to suppress any possible resistance, while crew from the flagship came over to take command.

With everything arranged, it was time to check the haul. Peter and his brothers made their way to the cargo hold to see what these two ships had brought them.

As the mortal First Mate opened the cargo bay's key-lock, the group entered one of the armed freighter's main storage compartments.

The interior was dark and stuffy. When the lights flickered on, row after row of illumination panels revealed massive quantities of goods.

Inside the towering cargo racks were stacks of Adamantium and Plastic Steel, hundreds of barrels of Oxygen Phosphorus Gel and Rocket Propellant, crates of Self-Sharpening Diamond Warheads, and pre-cut Monomolecular Blades.

Beside him, Anthony pried open an iron crate. Inside lay countless neatly cut rubies.

Picking up one the size of his pinky finger, Anthony examined it closely: "High-purity ruby crystals, already cut. Can be used for laser gun energy focusing. This crate alone holds about two thousand—enough to make two thousand laser guns. Captain, looks like we hit a freighter from some industrial world or Forge World."

Peter took the manifest handed to him by a nearby sailor and glanced over it: "There's more than what we see here. Massive reserves of Promethium, chemical propellants, Prometheus Fuel, Composite Plastic Steel, precision electronic components, bulk-refined Fine Steel, chemical reagents... and some Adamantium."

Peter read on, analyzing: "Everything on these two ships is raw material for weapons and equipment. They were all being shipped to an industrial world. And..."

He paused when he saw the destination, then gave a bitter smile: "These goods were all meant for Apate Howard."

Hearing the odd note in his captain's voice, Anthony asked: "Captain, what's wrong? Is this Apate Howard dangerous?"

Peter nodded, speaking calmly: "He's the head of a minor Rogue Trader family. Among Rogue Traders, his strength is only middling at best. But that's secondary. The point is—he's the one we're supposed to trade the gene-seed with."

Anthony froze: "So... we just robbed our own trading partner?"

Peter nodded, but showed no panic: "Yes, we robbed him. But it doesn't matter. No one escaped from the ships. Neither vessel had an Astropath. And they're all under our control. In other words, word can't get out. He'll never know."

"Besides, we're a Chaos Warband. We don't spit out what we've swallowed. As long as we don't get caught, we'll just hide these two ships far away when we meet him. Plenty of ships enter the Warp every year and never come back."

It was a bit of an awkward blunder, but Peter felt the raid was still a resounding success. No brothers lost in the fight, and they'd captured a mountain of raw materials for weapons. Even if they couldn't use them directly, they'd fetch a hefty sum on the black market. They could haul them back to the Homeworld, set up a production line, and start making their own arms.

After inspecting the spoils, the three ships formed a fleet. Captain Barnabas joked that if they kept raiding like this, the warband's merchant fleet would only grow—soon the Lord of Fleets might become the Lord of Merchantmen.

Still, it was a good thing overall. The warband had more ships now, and armed freighters at least packed some firepower.

Now, with Blackrock taking point, the three ships entered the Warp once more. This time, their target would be the flagship of the Rogue Trader dynasty.