Lord-Captain McKraken, the hellion of the Expanse. Trapped in his own brig as his ship exploded around him, he raised his hands and cursed his circumstances. All his vile heart yearned for as the air was sucked from his prison was freedom - and revenge.
Months later, the hulk of the
Restless Cove drifted into the sensor-view of another ship, a nameless vessel of dark origins, crewed by degenerate hereteks and fugitives from the justice of Mars. Like a swarm of insects the inhabitants of the black ship descended upon the hulk, salvaging what they could - machine and flesh alike. When they pried open the brig, they found the corpse of McKraken, preserved by the airless void of space. Alongside many others, they ferried the body back to their vessel for dubious purposes.
Sure enough, deep in the belly of their nameless vessel, hundreds of corpses were laid out on cold slabs. A ticking, whirring army of dark medicae moved amongst them, stitching, implanting, and sealing in preparation. When their work was done, they retreated and the masters of etherics took their stations.
A strange note filled the cavernous chamber. It rose in volume, then dropped entirely from the range of human hearing, leaving only a terrible throbbing permeating the air and even the very flesh of the arrayed bodies: the Sarcosan Wave. A terrible tech-heresy, created in darkness by a mad Magos and used only for terrible purposes.
The Sarcosan Wave re-animates dead flesh, and imbues it with a dread mockery of the life it once had. Most under its effects become mindless shamblers - but not so Lord-Captain McKraken. With an awful roar he lurched back to life, all of his spirit returned to his flesh, and every inch of him thrumming with hatred and evil. The hereteks' control devices failed. McKraken drew himself to his feet, look around at his spasming and pale crew, and gave a single shout - "Avast me hearties! Awake and plunder for your Captain anew!"
Their Captain's voice drove straight into his dead crewmen's brains, and with a gurgling cry they, too, rose and joined him. Dread Captain McKraken had his army.
The heretek priests withdrew in horror. Their devices had failed them, and they did not know how to proceed.
The Dread Captain made their decision for them. "Ye renegade priests, who have restored me to life. I know your kind - you are crawlers in the dark, hiding from sight. I am Lord-Captain McKraken, and it is my ship, my crew, and my body ye have desecrated in the pursuit of your arts. Join me! Take me as your Captain and I will lead you to plunder, and riches, and discoveries beyond your cold imaginings! Or turn away, and be torn to pieces by me and my crew!"
The cast-offs of Mars clicked and whirred amongst themselves, but McKraken is a Rogue Trader, and none who hold that title can be ignored. They took his offer, and joined his crew.
Now Dread Captain McKraken forges through the void in a new ship. The heretek vessel, now the
Blood Nautilus, has been modified at McKraken's orders to bear colossal and forbidden copies of the sacred mechadendrite, which it uses to grapple and board its prey. McKraken himself is half undead, half machine, his crew the same. He plunges fearlessly through the Warp, raiding the furthest edges of the Expanse with impunity.
But his voyages do take him into the Expanse, as well - and if he catches wind that the two men who overthrew him still ply the stars there will come a time of a terrible, and bloody, and vengeful reckoning.