On the Origin of Meros, section 1, chapter 1

[Apothecary Meros]

On the Origin of Meros, section 1, chapter 1
A first glance at my current style of writing: advice appreciated.

"Veronica!" He hadn't called her by that name in years - must be desperate for something. "Engines at seventy percent." The Captain's raucous voice hissed down from his raised command dias, and he emitted a feral growl of displeasure. "And tell that cyclops witch to get up here and prepare for a warp jump."

Hastily, the crew obliged through the instinct to survive as opposed to duty - although it had many times crossed the mind of the Auspex Master, as she stared lazily out of the armoured window above her console, to disobey and ultimately damn them all to a painful death in the desolate vacuum of space, as their freighter was torn apart in a nebula of fire and metal. That made her smile. Dreaming about the Captain's demise, and watching his overflowing breeches try and squeeze into his throne, was all that kept Veronica alive these days. Divorcing him in the first place had been fun, she had to admit, but it did little to break her bond to the Rogue Traders of House Bergyss. She often thought to herself 'shit' when she realised that her contract was still 3 years away from completion.

"We're called Navigators, you arrogant grox-fucker." The hoarse, ancient voice of the Navigator did little to sooth Veronica, but she knew he was a kind hearted man - if you ignore the increasingly frequent bursts of profanity. With a rotting staff knocking wetly on the deck, his bare feet pale from months of malnutrition as they tripped over emerald robes too big for his spidery frame, he unsteadily took his seat at the very front of the bridge. Such a setup ensured that his third and only remaining eye did not set its sights upon the other crew. "If only you'd let me stay up here, sire..."

"You're lucky to be up here at all." The Captain called back, in a tone ripe with static interference and mechanised malice from a vox implant bulging from his neck. The amplifier croaked in disrepair. "Hurry up and be done with it! I, Captain Hadrall Bergyss, honourable representative of the God-Emperor's will, shall not tolerate such vile ignorance of authority, especially not from mutants!"

'What a brave, passionate soul he had become' Veronica mused in her head, sarcastically. Religious and political dogma had left her former husband as wise as a servo-skull, and his extensive eating habits made him much less handsome than one. Once warm and gentle, his last grey eye sat in a sad, black socket, and glared angrily into the abyss through a thick cataract. A bionic replacement took up the left side of his face, and brought with it a ceaseless sneer spread across his fat, wrinkled skin - a far cry from the enthusiastic smile of the hero he'd once been. Hadrall could no longer register the bitter grumbling of his crew during their labours, for his ears provided little more than flabby decoration.

Taking Veronica by surprise, the Navigator opened his thin lips and spoke to her. "How fares the precious cargo, miss Grens-?"

Her head shot up, and she reached out with the flat of her hand (before realising the gesture was futile to a blind man). "Miss Rynn, actually." As much as she pitied his kind, the myths surrounding bearers of the warp-eye were more frightening than she cared to admit, resulting in a defiant clearing of the throat arriving as a nervous choke. "All is well, last I checked. Jarosh is keeping an eye on him, in deck seven storage." The exchange ended with the two nodding and grunting in acknowledgement, as most conversations often did aboard the Solstice.