It takes you six hours to traverse the length of the Visitor and the Mecca. Their wide, merchant-design corridors transporting you as easily as they would any other piece of large cargo. You are slowed mostly by the wreckage littering the halls, forcing you to clamber over and climb around various heaps of metallic scraps. Atmosphere and gravity are relatively stable, for which you thank the Emperor and the Primarch.

But when you reach Gridpoint C6, you encounter a rude, but not unexpected, problem: an Ork ship. Your way is blocked by a think nest of random cables, held together with scraps of rope and twine. You shrug, the servos of your armor whining as they attempt to duplicate your movement, and draw your combat blade. You begin the process of cutting through the mess, but the first few strikes reveal a potentially lethal surprise: a cracked pipe venting some sort of gas. Your autosenses can’t identify exactly what it is, but they are flashing the toxicity alert with unusual stridency. Taking off your helmet, you decide, would be a rather poor choice.

Strength test at +20% (-10% base, +20% for Power Armor, Strength Bonus +10%): Cut through the Cables.

Success! Needed <63, got 31. ⅓ of cables cut away.

Extremely Toxic Atmosphere: no test required: in an atmospherically sealed suit.

The first third of cables gives way with ease, and your suit is easily able to handle the atmosphere of the Ork ship. Beyond the cables, you get your first glimpse of the compartment ahead. You aren’t sure yet, but large brass obelisks topped with tin spheres seem to ring the space.

Strength test at +20% (-10% base, +20% for Power Armor, Strength Bonus +10%): Cut through the Cables.

Success! Needed <63, got 41. ⅔ of cables cut away.

Extremely Toxic Atmosphere: no test required: in an atmospherically sealed suit.

Another third of the cables fall to your combat knife, and you get a better view of the compartment beyond. It’s definitely some sort of Orc teleporatium, which would make this ship a cruiser at least in Imperial service. Given the Orc’s utter disregard of anything even remotely resembling standardized construction, that means less than nothing for the class of this ship.

Strength test at +20% (-10% base, +20% for Power Armor, Strength Bonus +10%): Cut through the Cables.

Success! Needed <63, got 56. All of the cables are cut away.

Extremely Toxic Atmosphere: no test required: in an atmospherically sealed suit.

The last cable falls beneath your knife and you enter the Orc teleportarium. It is as crude, and therefore unreliable, as you would expect for an Orc design, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t work in an emergency. If you could somehow get it power, and figure out how to set the destination coordinates. Even then, you figure it has about a ten percent chance of dumping you inside a bulkhead or deckplate and just killing you outright. Unperturbed you press onwards, heading ‘north-east’ and ‘east’ towards the Tisiphone.

You recognise the next wrecked ship you encounter, at least from the historical records you have studied. It is the Unflagging Resolve, a Dauntless class light cruiser last seen in Imperial service in 146 M41, when she was sucked into the warp and presumed lost during combat as part of the Gothic War. This impression is confirmed when you come across the dust-bedecked warplate of a dead Battle-Brother still dressed in the yellow warplate of an Imperial Fist.

You know not his name, or rank, or even what killed him. But you do know he died fighting, given the number of spent bolt casings that litter the deck. You kneel, unsure of yourself in the moment. On one hand, you could dearly use his remaining ammunition. On the other, you are unsure of the rites of the Imperial Fists. Would taking this fallen warrior’s belongings be considered sacrilege? In the end, you decide that the necessity of your mission trumps uncertainty. You claim one magazine of standard bolt ammunition for your bolter, one frag AP grenade and one krak AT grenade. You arrange the Battle-Brother in a funeral pose on the deckplate, his dead hands clasping his bolter across his chest. You leave a spent magazine loaded in the bolter, with an auto-beacon hidden inside it, so that the body can be recovered later for return to the Imperial Fists. You press on, heading ‘north’ towards your objective.

Two hours later you are abruptly stopped when you encounter a void-lock leading to the next ship in your path. Foul runes coat the visible surfaces, inked and etched into the metal. You cannot read them, but you don’t need to read them to recognise the markings of Chaos.

You could press on through the ship. It would save you time, but would be very risky to do so alone.

You could also work your way ‘west’ to the Mhongu Khagahn and avoid the Chaos ship altogether. It would cost you time, but would certainly be safer.