'I take it the shuttle's schedule is not quite as inflexible as it may at first have appeared? He leant over the desk once more, making an exaggerated show of tidying the paper strewn across it.

The harbour master bristled at the sight of the rogue trader interfering with his paperwork, but held on to his composure. Yes sir, bay Alpha Six, three hours. The waiting chamber is-

'Past the containment chambers, on the left' Lucian growled, before turning on the spot and sweeping out of the harbour master's office. Brielle winked at the man and turned to follow her father. Korvane snorted contemptuously and followed them both out.

The descent from orbit took only thirty minutes, and soon the shuttle was screaming through the night skies of Mundus Chasmata. Lucian looked out through the armoured porthole, seeing the distant horizon lit smoky violet in a predawn glow. The shuttle was shabby and ill-maintained. The three rogue traders had been forced to share its sparse passenger compartment with a handful of menials and petty administrators, second assistant-under-deputy clerks, he judged, no doubt returning to the surface following their long, tedious and mind-numbingly boring work rotations aboard the orbital.

As the shuttle crossed the world's terminator line, the landscape below became visible. Although a world of myriad terrain types, from high altitude, sub-zero polar oxide wastes to inland seas of stinking ammonia, the predominant feature of Mundus Chasmata was the deep scars gouged out of its crust in its distant pre-history. These formed kilometres-long, kilometres-deep gullies, although most were little more than a few dozen metres across.

'Wouldn't want to get marooned here. said Brielle, her statement echoing Lucian's thoughts unerringly. Even if you survived a crash, he knew, you'd never make it to civilisation. The densely packed chasms would claim anyone foolish enough to attempt crossing them.

Korvane had been poring over a data-slate, which he now handed to his father. Across its monochrome green and black screen scrolled reams of data. Every detail from average rainfall to import/export figures was covered. Lucian called up a summary.

The world of Mundus Chasmata was colonised, the data-slate reported, at an unrecorded date prior to the thirty-third millennium. That hardly surprised Lucian, for most such civilisations he had visited predated the Imperium of Man by many thousands of years, although few records preserved any more details than the name of a founding dynasty. The world's population was just over the one billion mark, a figure consistent with many similar worlds. Lucian had visited agri-worlds farmed by machines whose human populations were counted in the hundreds, and hive worlds where billions crowded into kilometres-high spires. The Imperium was nothing if not diverse.

The system's location at the borders of human space put it at risk of alien predation, and this far out it could count little on aid arriving in time to save it in the event of attack. Aside from the irregular visits of lone Imperial Navy vessels on long-ranged patrol, Mundus Chasmata could look only to itself for defence. One in ten adults were therefore required to serve in the world's Planetary Defence Force, an institution that had, on four recorded occasions in the last three centuries provided troops for the Imperial Guard.

More text streamed across the data-slate's screen. Mundus Chasmata vied with its neighbour Arris Epsilon, located at the opposite extreme of the Timbra subsector, for what little trade the region would support. The planets of this lonely area were, by necessity it appeared, largely self-sufficient. They had little contact with the Imperium, and little to offer it in terms of resources. That was what made the planet's ruler's offer too promising to pass up.

A hereditary noble class, purporting to have its roots in the world's founding, ruled Mundus Chasmata, the Luneberg family, headed by the present Imperial Commander, Culpepper Luneberg the Twenty-ninth, lording over their world as a private fiefdom. Indeed, so long as they paid the Imperium its tithes once in every generation, that was exactly what it was. Mundus Chasmata appeared to be the perfect place to do business of the type that the Imperium at large might not look upon too kindly.

As the shuttle banked over Chasmata Capitalis, the world's first city and its seat of government, dawn broke. The light was the colour of honeyed gold and high clouds of deep red scudded across the sky.

The city sat at the centre of a wide, flat plain, Lucian had seen similar sights, and hazarded an informed, if unsubstantiated guess that it was the very spot at which the world's first colonists had made planetfall. If so, its original construction might have proceeded along prescribed lines, Chasmata Capitalis subsequently sprawling in all directions, as many such cities were wont to do two or three generations after their founding. Lucian caught a glimpse of distant hydroponics domes at the city's outer edge, although the shuttle changed course before he could examine the curiosity further.

The shuttle's final approach brought it low over what appeared to form the city's merchant quarter. Rendered the colour of tarnished gold by the light of Chasmata's star, Lucian identified the buildings as representative of the Late Declivitous style, a typically ornate school of architecture seen across the quadrant and beyond. The streets were tightly packed together, ground vehicles visibly competing with the pedestrians who crowded their markets and bazaars. Atop the tallest buildings nested mighty defence laser batteries, although it took Lucian only a moment to decide that they were inert and neglected: a sorry state of affairs indeed, inviting to Lucian's mind pirate, or alien attack.

At the last, the shuttle screamed in over the city to circle its main landing field. Its thrasters kicked and bucked as they arrested the transport's momentum, the pilot easing it down to the armoured landing platform with only a slight jarring. Lucian stood from his grav-couch as the ramp at the end of the passenger bay lowered. It hit the landing pad's surface with a metallic crash, the world's air flooding into the cabin. Lucian stood at the top of the ramp, flanked by his offspring. A cloaked figure at the head of a column of heavily armoured soldiers waited at its base.

Lucian stepped out to the top of the ramp. He saw that the landing pad was one of several dozen, raised high above the city upon ancient stilts. Beyond these, he could see the ancient city, its buildings clustered together haphazardly, and in the middle distance the great bulk of the Imperial Commander's palace.

'My Lord Arcadius' spoke a figure at the base of the ramp, the mouth barely visible beneath the hood. 'In the name of my master, I bid you welcome to our world'

Having gained his bearings, Lucian strode down the ramp, the scant seconds it took him to reach its base used to the full. He took in the scene before him. The figure that welcomed him appeared to be some flunky, for he wore simple functionary's robes, adorned with little in the way of frivolous ornamentation, unlike the troopers arrayed in two long lines behind him. These were, no doubt, the household guard, for their sturdy carapace armour, probably imported at great expense, marked them above the common Planetary Defence Force conscripts. White armour, edged with gold, shone hazily in the thick morning light. Tall, white feathers were attached to the helm of each, and reflective visors covered any hint of facial expression. The troopers bore long-barrelled rifles, a glance at the stock revealed to Lucian a power pack of unfamiliar manufacture, although he judged the weapons to be some form of ceremonial hunting rifle. Very pretty, and very expensive, Lucian thought, but not a whole lot of use in a real fight.