Stargrave: Okay, who brought the monkey?

Deep in the airless gulfs of space flies the Rapture, not quite a rogue trader, more of an independent corsair. It plies the warp between the star systems of the Calixis sector, under the leadership of its captain, Gaspar Dread.

Dread's crew is a somewhat colourful collection of rogues. The only man he can really feel comfortable turning his back on is his tekker first mate, Kolioth Yang, who also acts as the crew's fixer. As for the rest, he has picked up some mutant refugees hiding from the Inquisition which provide him with a fair bit of muscle. This includes Sedgewick, a chiseler - an expert in getting into places that are not meant for public access. Sedgewick's cousins are a somewhat dubious brood, who have engaged in breeding giant hold rats in the darker recesses of the ship. Dread suspects the mutants are eating them.

Of the other humans in the crew, there are just the trooper and former bouncer Angel and a freelance decker who also acts as the pilot of the Rapture. Dread does feel a certain amount of qualms about the number of mutants he has taken on, but out here on the fringe, reliable crew is hard to come by.

Which brings us to the Stronulum system and Dread's first run in with the Eldar corsair crew. It was meant to be a simple expedition to pick up some loot in an old imperial factory, but it turned into a brutal firefight with the Eldar. They seemed to have come armed for bear, with plenty of grenade launchers.

An abandoned factory on Stronulum

Dread split his team up into three, taking the centre squad with Angel and the hacker, and leaving Yang to take the right. The mutants took the left. Dread quickly got embroiled in a firefight for data loot in the centre of the abandoned factory. Angel got pinned down behind a barricade and was badly wounded, but kept blasting away. Dread managed to get his energy shield up which kept him from getting too sorely hurt from all the grenade shrapnel flying around.

Yang managed to get his drone up and flying, but not for long, as it was destroyed by an Eldar grenade. He saw some Eldar robots making for some towers out on the edge of the factory and decided to try to stop them. The giant hold rat the Rapture's crew brought along went to stop the Eldar getting up a ladder that ran up the side of one of the towers, but was quickly gunned down. Yang himself climbed up the outside of the second tower, away from the Eldar. He got to the top, but was rushed by an Eldar robot which pushed him off again!

Luckily by this stage the pilot had hacked into some data loot and was making his escape. The mutants had also managed to retrieve some physical booty. They were having some trouble containing the Eldar on the left, and the mutant carrying the loot was attacked by a robot and a drone. He managed to fight them off, but by this stage two of his cousins were down, one fatally wounded, as they fought over another piece of loot with the Eldar.

It was at this point that things got complicated, with some kind of giant ape wandering into the battle, attracted by the sound of shooting. The Eldar captain fled from it, but it managed to man-handle Dread and knock him senseless, before it was stunned by a mutant.

"Okay, who brought the monkey?"

Yang got to his feet, only to be spotted by notorious bounty hunter Johnny Alpha who turned up at this juncture. Yang dodged Alpha's shots while Angel tried to keep the Strontium Dog pinned down with carbine fire. Yang ran for the ship, closely followed by the pilot.

The Rapture's pilot on his way to recovering some data.

Sedgewick managed to wing the Eldar first mate before he too was knocked senseless by a grenade blast. Both crews by this stage were very much in retreat mode, fleeing the factory to leave Alpha to deal with a very angry and groggy monkey.

Sedgewick and coz recovering physical booty

Returning to the Rapture and escaping off-planet, Dread counted the cost of one dead hold rat - no great loss - and a slain mutant. The crew had recovered a Psychic Resonator, some kind of alien tech, which they sold on the black market. Yang tried to haggle for it, but no dice. Still, it is 300 credits in the treasury.

Dread has decided to recruit a medic, and possibly a commando to beef up his crew. Let's say he's still in talks. Where to next for the Rapture? Tune in next time for more rat eating, monkey bashing, Stront-taunting goodness.