Rook Meets King Walkthrough - Starfield Guide - IGN (2024)

Rook Meets King is the second Mission for the Crimson Fleet Faction in Starfield. This quest can be undertaken in a few ways, depending on how well you want to play the role of a ruthless pirate or undercover operative. This guide contains help on solving the encounter with the Ragana and dealing with Austin Rake, as well as meeting the leader of the Crimson Fleet at The Key.

• Rewards: Experience, Access to The Key
• Evidence Slates: Voss's Parts, Mira's Demise, Request A17

Rook Meets King Walkthrough Guide

The previous mission leaves off with Adler giving you the coordinates to meet a true member of the Crimson Fleet for your initiation, she can be found orbiting Jupiter's moon of Europa in a ship called the Astraea, not far from Cydonia on Mars.

When you arrive, the Crimson Fleet operative known as Naeva will contact you, and you'll be able to play it cool or be direct about what is expected of you. In order to prove yourself, you'll need to pass an initiation test - one that involves killing a former member of the Fleet. This will involve finding another ship and killing the man, but how you go about it is up to you.

Fair Warning: Depending on your actions, your own crew and companions may disagree very much with taking innocent lives, so if you want to indulge an evil pirate nature, you would be wise to dismiss any members of Constellation tagging along with you!

Deal with Austin Rake

When you reach Europa, the ship called the Ragana will warp into view and hail you, declaring themselves an honest cargo ship heading for New Homestead. You'll have several actions to choose from depending on where you stand on the Crimson Fleet vs UC SysDef -- plus just how bloodthirsty a pirate you want to be:

• You can open fire on them immediately and simply destroy the ship and everyone on board. This is actually Naeva's preferred outcome since she doesn't like witnesses or survivors, and since the ship has pitiful weapons and shields, even the basic Frontier ship should be able to destroy it without much trouble. As you might expect, SysDef will NOT like this outcome.

If you want a face to face talk, it won't be hard to gain an audience. Using either the UC SysDef or Crimson Fleet dialogue option will make the Ragana immediately stand down and prepare to be boarded by you. If you try the other option, you'll have a to win a Persuade minigame otherwise.

Once inside, the captain will meet you with several armed crew members, and demand to know your intentions. Again, you'll have a few ways to go about this:

• Attacking them all head-on is definitely an option, and one that will allow you to loot more than just whatever cargo got tossed out if you destroyed the ship, but it's also a messy option where you can quickly get overpowered in the small confines of the compartment you're in.

Telling the captain you've come to kill Austin Rake has multiple tiers to it. By default, you need to pass a persuasion check to convince the crew that Austin needs to be killed, but certain dialogue choices can let you bypass this:

• If you have the Wanted Trait, you can easily convince the captain that Rake is a wanted criminal and needs to die if they want to live.

• If you want to play up the inside informant angle and please UC SysDef, you can select their option to convince the captain to smuggle Rake off the ship and deliver him to the Defiance where no one dies and your cover remains intact. He'll even give you some medical supplies to make it look like you robbed them.

Note that convincing the captain to kill Rake himself isn't exactly the outcome UC SysDef wants to hear about, as you'll be putting innocent civilians at risk, and there's a good chance some crew will be killed in the cross-fire. Even if you take initiative and drop Rake while they're still talking, you'll still get chewed out for "going to deep into the role". But while you'll be warned that one more crazy act will get you fired, it's only a slap on the wrist right now.

Return to The Astraea

Warp back to Europa after you finish your business with the Ragana, and you'll find Naeva under attack be a few Ecliptic Mercenary Ships. They shouldn't be overly powerful to deal with, but having the Targeting Skill will help isolate and cripple the ships one by one. If not, help Naeva by tag-teaming the enemy ships one at time until they've been destroyed (and be sure to loot their cargo after you talk!).

At this point you'll have to tell Naeva how you fared - which will involve disclosing that either the entire crew is wiped out (she likes this), or that Rake has been killed (she also likes this, and knows her boss appreciates not adding further deaths).

If you didn't kill Austin Rake, you can lie and say he did (which should be done if you told the captain to discreetly transport him to UC SysDef to get locked up, or you can be honest and say that he got away. This is probably the worst outcome you can make, as she'll demand the medical supplies you took from the ship for daring to profit over a failed mission.

Still, regardless of your choice, saving her from the mercenary attack is enough to warrant signing you on as a true member of the Crimson Fleet. She'll hand over the coordinates of their home base in the Kryx System, and advise you head there soon -- but first you need to check in with UC SysDef (unless you told them to shove it in the previous mission).

Meet with UC SysDef

Before heading to the Kryx System, you'll need to do a quick debrief at the UC Vigilance ship orbiting Phobos outside Mars. Fly back over and dock with the ship and meet with the Commander back at the large command center.

As mentioned earlier, your performance with how you handled the Ragana may have Commander Ikabe pissed or congratulatory - depending on if there were any fatalities. Luckily, that won't stop the mission from proceeding, and from here on out, UC SysDef will be shadowing you from a bigger distance while you get cozy with the fleet and start gathering evidence. Be sure to also read the Crimson Fleet Profile Slates you are given to get some background info on some of the major players.

Explore The Key

Your next stop is the Kryx System, which is located far to the right of the Sol System, past the Cheyenne System to the next cluster of Star Systems.

Now that you've been given the all-clear, the entire fleet won't kill you on sight as you approach the star station, and you can now dock when you get close.

Once you arrive, you'll get a friendly introduction by way of one pirate murdering another, and Naeva will take you on a walking tour of The Key while showing you all the new shops and services you'll have access to:

• Jazz is the Key's main technician, and after she's done fixing the door to the Reckoner's Core, you can bug her for ship parts and repairs - including buying Cargo Shielding for smuggling illegal contraband to major settlements.

• To the right of the Reckoner's Core gate is The Depot, where you'll find vendors like Aludra who sells weapons, Taryn (TK) who sells suits and gear, and Isra who sells general goods.

• Just past The Depot is Zuri, who sells more exotic exports and goods, including Neuroamps that can alter your persuasion skills and other effects.

• Across from Zuri is The Trade Authority, making it one of the few places you can freely sell your contraband without having to worry about evading scanners!

• Just past these two merchants is the Medbay that's run by Samina, who can heal any afflictions you may get.

• Across from the Medbay is The Last Nova, a bar that may contain a few potential crew-mates that have no qualms about killing or stealing, making them good crew-mates for Crimson Fleet quests.

Finally, you'll meet Shinya in the opposite entrance to the Reckoner's Core, who handles all the Fleet's finances (and has a bomb strapped to him as a preventative measure installed by the boss). He'll patch you into the Fleet's network, and after which you can take the lift nearby to reach the command center where the Crimson Fleet leader waits.

Speak with Delgado, and the next stage of your initiation will begin. Delgado is obsessed with the planet The Key Orbits - home of "The Lock" super-max prison whose escapees took over the station you now find yourself in. He believes the founder - Jasper Kryx - hid clues to a treasure trove back on the planet they escaped from, and wants to use it to finance a war against the UC SysDef.

Your next mission may be another initiation, but it won't be an easy one, as many don't survive the trip to the icy planet below.

Side Objective - Locate Evidence for UC SysDef

Though the mission is complete, there's a secondary quest that Commander Ikabe and Lt. Toft have for you while you're running missions for the Crimson Fleet: Find incriminating evidence to lock their members up.

The evidence you find will be in the form of text or audio slates left lying around both The Key, and certain other areas as you undertake main assignments for the Crimson Fleet. They often deal with particular members of the fleet, and when submitted to Lt. Toft aboard the UC Vigilance, some guilty parties will be picked up when they leave The Key, and transported to the brig aboard the Vigilance (that you can even visit like Austin Rake!).

To start, there are three pieces of evidence you can find early after getting your formal introduction to the Crimson Fleet:

The first can be found as soon as you are done talking to Delgado in the Command Room. Take the stairs up to the higher level and enter Delgado's personal office. There's a large navigation table to the left as you enter, and past it is a small desk with a terminal. Look to the left of the terminal on top of the console, and you'll find Voss's Parts (Evidence) Slate to add as evidence against the fleet.

The second is a bit harder to find as it's in a bit of a maze. Leave the Command Room and move past the lifts back down to the lower floor to pass several Captain's Quarters rooms that are all numbered. This will lead to stairs down to an area designated "Bunks". Head straight from the entrance to the bunks, and look for a small room at the back with a lot of netting around various storage crates. On a black box at the foot of the the bed, you'll find Mira's Demise (Evidence) Slate, another vital clue.

The last bit of evidence you can find this early is located over in the ship services area that Jazz will return to after completing the repairs to the door. Enter the large warehouse area with ship parts and look for a sign that says "Jazz Only"! Head past Jazz to find a terminal in the far corner, and past an intercom on the table is a slate holder where you can find Request A17 (Evidence) Slate, a key item to help implicate Jasmine in all of these nefarious deeds.