The main engines of the New State fell silent.
As the plasma trail—stretching thousands of kilometers from the stern—gradually dissipated, the pristine white starship glided into the calm void on inertia alone. It had been twenty-five hours since the New State first plunged into deep space. After traversing "The Maw," they had finally emerged.
Andy stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows of the bridge.
Ahead lay a massive, ugly, and precariously balanced urban belt floating in the void.
Footfall.
On the map of the Warhammer universe, this place was legendary, more famous than many Hive Worlds. It served not only as the terminus of the Maw passage but as the sole gateway to the Koronus Expanse. Any Rogue Trader looking to strike it rich, any smuggler transporting xenos artifacts back to the Empire, or any fugitive hoping to avoid an Inquisition "water meter check" had to pass through here. Every ship entering or leaving the Expanse stopped here to resupply or fence stolen goods.
"Truly spectacular—"
Standing behind Andy, Sisyphron let out a sincere exclamation of awe. This was his first time leaving his home world and his first time seeing such a legendary location.
Andy silently activated the STC scan. In his vision, this so-called "void city" was nothing short of an engineering miracle. Footfall wasn't a single, unified space station. It was a conglomerate forced together from dozens of massive asteroids, hundreds of derelict starship hulls from forgotten eras, and gargantuan stone statues of the Emperor that were larger than the ships themselves.
What held these disparate pieces together weren't high-tech force fields or rigid docking bridges.
It was chains.
Countless adamantine chains of preposterous thickness. These chains stretched taut in the vacuum, binding the asteroids and shipwrecks together to prevent them from drifting apart under gravitational forces. To the orthodox architects of the Adeptus Mechanicus, such a structure was heresy—a synonym for instability and danger. Any novice apprentice would be tempted to curse at the sight of it.
But in Footfall, this was reality.
There was no unified gravity plan or atmospheric circulation system. Each asteroid and wreck had its own independent gravity generator and life-support system. In some areas, the gravity was heavy enough to crush a man; in others, one couldn't walk without a spacesuit. Massive pipes and cables were exposed like intestines, connecting the various sectors.
Countless illegally built shanties, towers, and even small palaces clung to the surfaces of the asteroids and statues like barnacles, making Footfall look like a massive interstellar tumor composed of trash and scrap metal. Neon signs, searchlights, and navigation beacons lit the void as bright as day. Swarms of ships buzzed around it like flies—landing, docking, and unloading—pulsing with a savage vitality.
"Six, contact the tower," Andy commanded, withdrawing his gaze. "Request a berth."
Andy knew the rules of Footfall. Nominally, it was under Imperial jurisdiction, but it lacked any actual Imperial administration. In practice, it was a lawless land ruled by seven gang leaders known as "Liege-Barons." They divided the territory, set the rules, and collected exorbitant protection and docking fees from passing ships. They didn't care who you were, where you came from, or what you carried. As long as you paid, you were a guest of honor.
"Accessing public channel—" Six's voice rang out. "Done."
A moment later, an image popped up on the bridge's main screen. It was a bald man with a face full of scars and an eye patch. The background looked like a cluttered dispatch room, filled with the sounds of shouting and fighting.
"This is Footfall Traffic Control. I'm Old Harry." The bald man puffed on a thick cigar, not even looking directly at the camera. "Newcomers? I don't recognize the model. Where do you want to park? The outer debris belt? Or the Barons' private berths? Don't waste my time—give me a quote first."
Andy remained silent, turning his head toward Sisyphron. Dealing with gangsters was a task best suited for a professional drug dealer.
Sisyphron understood immediately. He straightened his collar and stepped up to the comms console.
"Supervisor Harry, we are a free merchant vessel from the Segmentum Obscurus. We're carrying some local specialties and looking to rest our feet while doing a bit of business." Sisyphron flashed his signature hypocritical, professional smile. "We need a large berth in the middle-tier sector, preferably one with an independent loading platform. As for the price—"
Sisyphron entered a string of numbers into the console. "This is a token of our sincerity."
It was an electronic draft for two hundred Imperial gold coins. In an era where credits were abundant but heavily devalued, solid gold coins remained hard currency.
Old Harry glanced at the number, and his impatient expression vanished instantly. He spat out his cigar and squinted his single eye.
"Aha! A generous boss indeed. Mid-tier berth? No problem! A spot just opened up—it was meant for some—well, forget that unlucky bastard. It's yours now. Berth B-74. Coordinates sent. Just don't blow up the port or kill my pilots, and you can do whatever you want."
The transmission cut out, replaced by docking guidance on the screen.
"See?" Sisyphron shrugged. "That's Footfall."
The ship began to move slowly. Under Six's precision control, the New State avoided drifting shuttles and space debris, closing in on a berth located near the shoulder of a massive stone statue of the Emperor.
The closer they got, the stronger the visual impact. Andy could clearly see that the once-solemn face of the multi-kilometer-tall statue was now covered in illegal structures. Someone had opened a bar in the Emperor's nostril; someone else had built a casino in his eye socket. Thick chains were draped with drying clothes and the jerky of unknown creatures.
Such desecration of the sacred would be enough to warrant orbital bombardment a hundred times over on any Imperial Civilized World. But here, it was just life. Even the Ministorum priests had opened a branch here, the "Cathedral of the Emperor's Breath," specifically to perform last rites for explorers about to die in the Expanse—for a hefty fee.
CLANG—
A heavy thud echoed. The side of the New State hit the berth's buffers, and massive mechanical arms reached out to lock the hull in place. The airtight umbilical docking was complete.
"Docking finished," Six reported. "External scan: Oxygen levels low, gravity at 0.8G, radiation slightly above standard. It is recommended that personnel wear respirators when heading out."
Everyone on the bridge breathed a sigh of relief. Footfall housed the largest black market in the Expanse. Here, contraband wasn't illegal; it was a hot commodity. Xenos tech was traded under "Cold Trade" deals by Rogue Traders who made a living off it. As for prohibited drugs, as long as they got people high, no one cared what was mixed into them. Human trafficking was legal here too; with enough money, you could buy labor from any race—even the Aeldari.
Andy felt as though this place had been tailor-made for him. He had high-purity antibiotics and absurdly powerful infantry weapons—in Footfall, these were gold mines. More importantly, he needed supplies. Though the New State was repaired, many components were temporary fixes. He needed high-grade materials, rare xenos tech for analysis, and he needed to consider recruiting more crew.
The few hundred men he had brought were loyal and technically proficient, but they were army personnel, not sailors. To turn the New State into a warship capable of conquering the Halo Stars, he needed professional gunners—specifically the scum and desperate void-dwellers that Footfall had in spades.
"Sisyphron, Roger." Andy turned to face his two key subordinates. "Rest for two hours, then organize our manifest. We're going ashore. It's time to show these local hicks what real 'good stuff' looks like. And also—"
Andy's electronic eye flickered. "Ask around to see if there's any unwanted xenos tech or cold-trade facilities. I don't care what race it belongs to; if people don't understand it, I'll take it all. And find star maps of the deep space regions. That is even more important."
The STC database needed new samples to unlock more of the tech tree. And Footfall was the perfect, ready-made super-channel.
"Understood, boss!"