Editing Void Trekkers (section)

====The Voyage Begins====
Being penniless and unpopular in the mists of a forge world will not get you very far and this was Doubly true for Petarca. He wandered the slums and uninhabited infrastructure unsure what to do. Fortunately for him, the Adeptus Mechanicus was not a monolithic organization that communicated their findings with each other. A curious tech priest who was left out of the loop of the investigation of the "Inquisition's" cargo eventually was able to track him down. While Petarca was understandably reserved about opening up with this tech priest, he had little options. He started laying out all that he has witnessed and studied while in hiding, telling of the greatness humanity once was and all the glory that went into it. He spoke with such passion and optimism that the tech priest was taken a back from the cold mechanical thinking that has been instilled into him throughout his life, at least for a moment. Cold, logical pessimism quickly reasserted itself but he did see some value in Petarca.

The tech priest, who was unable to access the historical documents due to not having natural eyes and ears anymore, had to take Petarca at his word for what he witnessed but still thought he would be able to make use of Petarca, in a similar way to which a person relays directions to another. He took Petarca to the forge to which he was assigned. His prestigious assignment had to do with delegating and supervising the rites and rituals to maintain the waste extractor servitors attached to the exploratory fleet. Petarca was hidden away in one of the crew dormitories, along with falsified papers and a cover story. While the standard of living was comparable to what he had been accustomed to while working for the savant, if not a little worse, Petarca was in a state of culture shock living among the worshipers of the Machine God. The lives of the devotees he was living with was completely regimented and strictly followed. Petarca tired the best he could to fit in but it was clear to his new living mates that he was not one of them. While you might expect this to create some sort of divide between him and the lowest servants of the Machine God but one they figured out that he was in the same powerless position as they were they wanted to know more about Petarca. At first Petarca tired not to divulge too much information but eventually he couldn't help himself and started to talk about his "historical records". Now Petarca had not exactly been educated in any kind of artistic expression growing up but his passion and zeal brought life to his description of the records. This had an even more profound impact on the servants, who were virtually unexposed to any kind of lively story telling, and they became enraptured in Petarca's endless stories. This put Petarca in a position where he was rattling off a story or two whenever the servants were not engaged in their religious duties, which was not a lot of the time but it dominated their interest. Whenever they were engaged in their religious duties, Petarca simply plugged in the historical records and continued his studies. The tech priest at first tired to minimize this interaction until he noticed a 1.5% increase to his servants' productivity, which he attributed to their increased knowledge, rather then any kind of happiness. On a regular basis Petarca also prepared lessons for the tech priest who took him in. These lessons would then allow the tech priest to gain a better understanding of how the Machine God had blessed humanity and how humanity might once regain the Machine God's blessings. This went on for several months until the exploratory fleet they were all attached to was set to launch into the unknown space.

Petarca was no stranger to space travel but had never traveled on an Adeptus Mechanicus ship. The tech priest, himself, and his living mates were all assigned onto a cargo freighter attached to the exploratory fleet that was sent to explore the regions beyond the Halo Stars. In the long journey out of the system Petarca developed a reputation as a historian and wise in the ways of men of a better age. When the Exploratory Fleet finally reached the translation point a twist of fate change Petarca's fate as well as every soul on his ship. Upon the translation into the warp the warp currents picked up greatly. At once the fleet was broken up and scattered along the currents. The cargo freighter's navigator tired to stay in formation with the rest of the fleet but due to their engines being ancient was tossed into more and more into the tempest of the warp. In the lower decks where Petarca was, everyone was being tossed about in a way all too similar to the historical documents that he has become an expert to. The navigator tired his best but was getting more and more lost. Eventually any further traveling in this flow became untenable and the navigator ordered the ship to translate into real-space. Just before the ship translated it collided into an unknown object.The ripples of the Gellar field failed for a split second and explosions occurred all over the ship. All seemed lost but this was not the case. 

The freighter entered real-space deep into the void, far from any system or recognizable location. One thing became apparent to the crew of the freighter, the ship had translated far more then just the freighter. It seems that the freighter had collided with and pierced another ship of unknown make but definitely not made of the Imperium. As the voids-men and tech priest did a damage assessment they made a shocking discovery. The navigators' quarters was completely destroyed and to make matters worse, the navigator on the bridge had been incapacitated in a coma. This along with damage to the sensors and the engines spelled doom for people living on the ship. The sensors came on first and further compounded their problems.

The other vessel, to which they were currently jammed into was a Tau battleship. The ship was apparently utterly disabled and had only erratic power readings. The tech priest set out to open access to the Tau ship. They found what they believed an area where both ships were connected and still maintaining the life support systems. Everything was going well until the Tau's haul was breached. At once a swarm of demons attacked the servitors that were working at the entrance. A battle alert was at once through out the ships and Petraca's living mates went straight to the armory. Petarca was forced to go along and was issued a lasgun. Given that the vast majority of the servitors were destroyed upon the demonic breach, the tech priest were herding towards the entrance of the Tau ship where they were to give support to the surviving Skitarii. As soon as they crossed the threshold into the Tau ship, Peteraca's companions became visibly shaken and sense of morbidity came over them. Petarca had a fair amount of education about the nature of demons, how to deal with them and a small amount of firsthand experience dealing with demons and possessions; and as such was much calmer then his companions. He ventured to the front of the group and began to offer advice to the people around him on how to deal with the crisis at hand. From a darkened cooridor a single pair of red eyes appeared to glow from with in it. Seeing how his comrades were frozen in fear he screamed with all his might, "Don't Panic!", and rushed into the unknown. Whether if he actually inspired the people around or if his comrades were simply wanting not to be the first into the fray the results were the same, they followed him. The lasgun arcs lit up the corridor to show a beast at least 2 meters tall and wielded ungodly sword. Petarca fired his gun to the best of his abilities but was knocked down by this beast. His gun was scattered into the darkness and Petarca went scrabbling back from the demon that focused his attention the brave or foolhardy human. Petarca was reaching out into the darkness for anything to pick up a weapon and to his luck picked up a weapon, reached up to aim it, and fired. The fire from his companions as well as the point blank range of this unknown weapon finally rendered the demon into a flaming husk of flesh burning away until there was nothing left. Petarca's comrades rushed to Petarca, assuming he was dead and were shocked to see he was okay. They immediately began preying to the omnissiah that their link to a time where man was more in tune with the Omnissiah miraculously survived.

They continued looking for the Skitarii but would only find an odd demon or two of a lesser nature. The demons seemed to become progressively weaker and unfocused until it got to the point where they simply walked up and shot them at point blank range. Petarca's party finally reached a point in the ship where a tapping could be heard. It would have been easy to miss the sound but this tapping was rhythmic in 3 sets of 3 taps: 3 short taps, followed by 3 long taps, and finally 3 short taps. Petarca's companions were unsure of any meaning to this tapping but it was being carried through a piping along the sides of the walls. Due to the extensive nature of Petarca's studies he was able to determine that the pattern meant one word from humans of the past: "help". Petarca insisted they investigate this and his party followed the piping until they found a barricaded door. The opening mechanism had been disabled but the tapping continued. With a little bit of explosives the door was forced open. Inside were a large grouping of humans who were all queer in attire and how they carried themselves. Petarca and his companions, who were unaware of the nature of the ship they collided with, assumed the clean looking humans in sharp clothing and aiming advanced tech at them, meant they were from a previous age. The adepts of the Machine God instantly began to believe that Petarca was placed here by the Machine God to bridge the gap between them and these people. Once these people saw that Petarca was not a part of the demonic horde that had infested their ship they cheered and greeted him as their hero. This only reinforced the adepts beliefs in the matter. These new humans had an unusual language and described themselves as Gue'vesa and were slaves to the xenos known as the Tau. They overlords and their overlords were in stasis until the collision prematurely released a small portion of the Gue'vesa to awaken in a demon incursion. 

Petarca claimed that these humans would never again be slaves to anyone and that Petarca and his companions would help them rid themselves of both xenos overlord and demonic intrusions. The ability to rally complete strangers to their missions raised the morale of the tech adepts to a fanatical level. They began to view their mission with religious righteousness, and conviction drove them onward. Room by room, deck by deck, the group of humans cleared the Tau ship of any demons still left on the ship. Most of what they found was demons gasping for the strengthen to continue existing in real space but were being pulled back into the warp. When the ship was cleared Petarca asked the Gue'vesa to take them to their xenos overlords. The Gue'vassa took him to an area of the ship that contained countless stasis chambers that contained several different groups of xenos but most of them were blue creatures of small stature. Petarca insisted that these xenos be left slumbering for now, lest a new battle to begin. He explicitly stated it would be a bad idea to kill these xenos right now as their freighter was heavily damaged and may not be able to be repaired. He did allow the remaining Gue'vesa to be awakened and prepared to return to the freighter.

While the group did not expect a trimuph to their returned what they found was horrendous. Some of the demons from the Tau ship had made their way to the freighter and begin to slaughter the tech priest. Petarca's party made their way to the bridge and was able to flank the remaining the demons that were beseiging the bridge. With aderline pumping through the minds of Petarca, the tech adapts, and the newly released Gue'vessa paused until Petarca began to charge into the fray. The aura around him at this point was unmistakable and he seemed endowed with the power of the divine and hence unstoppable. Seeing this, the two groups of humans flung themselves into the battle with fanatic zeal. Shot by shot, round by round, the humans felt like they could accomplish anything. Against this force the dying demons fell and quickly dissolved into nothingness.

In the aftermath of the battle Petarca's party was able to finally reach the surviving tech priest. Out of the original compliment only three tech priest had survived the demonic incursion, along with the entire Skitarii compliment and half of the voidsmen working the ship. The only group to be spared heavy causalities was what the tech priest expected to be cannon fodder, Petarca's party. Instead of any sign of gratitude the tech priest were horrified to what they saw in Petarca. The the Magos in charge immediately condemned him and his new found allies for tech-heresy and ordered his death. With a surprise to all the adapts that had lived, learned, and fought with Petarca froze in place as they were unsure what to do. Meanwhile the Gue'vessa raised their arms as they were unsure how their fate could get worse if their one link to these humans was killed for a crime they were also being accused off. A stand off ensued with tensions reaching  high levels. Due to fatigue and fear, One of the Gue'vesa fired a shot, incapacitating the tech priest to the left of the Magos. Immediately the Magos declared that if this was how his adapts would be then he would just depressurize the entire ship instead of let if fall to the heretic. At that moment a mechadendrite instantly wrapped around the Magos' head and severed it. As the Magos' body dropped to the ground the last tech priest stood standing, the one who saved Petarca from the slums of the forge world.

The tech priest then declared that the Mechanicus had faltered and allowed itself to become weak in the eyes of the Machine God. Petarca was sent to them as a guide to return to the higher worship of the machine god and that all the events of the past day was just as planned by the Machine God.