Starfield Rook Meets King: Should you kill or save Austin Rake?

So, you’ve decided to join the Crimson Fleet as an informant for the UC SysDef in Starfield. It’s up to you who you’ll ultimately side with, but either way, we’ve some jobs for the Crimson Fleet to be cracking on with while we earn their trust, and the ‘Rook Meets King’ quest is one of them.

This is another initiation mission of sorts for the Crimson Fleet, and will see you finally invited to their headquarters, the Key. Though, you will have a decision to make depending on where your morals lie in Starfield. Without further ado, here's how to complete the 'Rook Meets King' quest in Starfield.

Starfield Rook Meets King quest guide

The ‘Rook Meets King’ quest is assigned to you after you do your first job for Adler Kemp. This is after UC SysDef will have asked you to be an informant for them.

For this quest, you’ll first need to head to Europa space (in the Sol system) and accept the incoming transmission from the Astraea ship. You’ll speak with Naeva Mora, who will ask you to destroy the Ragana so that you can kill Austin Rake, a traitor of the Crimson Fleet who is aboard the ship.

You’ll then want to travel to Enceladus space, which is fortunately also in the Sol system. The Ragana should appear in front of you, and you’ll have a choice to make; you can attack the ship, or hail the ship and try to find another way of getting the job done.

• If you attack the Ragana

If you attack the Ragana, you’ll be able to claim some supplies from it before returning to tell Naeva Mora that the traitor is dead. The Crimson Fleet will approve of this.

• If you hail the Ragana

If you hail the Ragana, you’ll have yet another choice.

You can try and convince the crew of the Ragana to kill Austin Rake for you, sparing the rest of the crew, which will please the Crimson Fleet. Alternatively, you can talk to the crew about how to spare Austin Rake, which UC SysDef will approve of.

Both options will require you to dock at the Ragana and board the ship. On board, you’ll speak with Dmitri, and you’ll be presented with more dialogue to cement your decision:

• [UC SysDef] The Fleet want Rake dead, but I want to resolve this without violence. - The Ragana will erase Austin Rake’s existence from the Fleet, and he will be forced to turn himself into UC SysDef. They’ll also give you some loot so that you don’t return to the Crimson Fleet empty-handed.
• [Persuade] Austin Rake is a Crimson Fleet pirate. Kill him, and I let you go. - Perform a speech check. If successful, the crew will kill Austin Rake for you. Job done!

The decisions you make here completely depend on what path you want to go down. I’m planning on being a fully-fledged space pirate, so I made decisions that the Crimson Fleet would approve of.

Once Austin Rake is taken care of, return to the Astraea fleet in Europa space. It’ll be getting attacked by Ecliptics, and you’ll need to help attack them so that you can safely speak with Naeva Mora.

After the fight, hail the Astraea and tell Naeva Mora how your mission went. She’ll then give you the coordinates to the Key, where the Crimson Fleet’s headquarters is located. First, though, we need to report back to UC SysDef.

Return to UC Commander Kibwe aboard the Vigilance. Considering I made the Ragana’s crew kill Austin Rake for me, he wasn’t best pleased, but we finished the job and that’s what matters!

The Commander will then tell you to continue infiltrating the Crimson Fleet. So, make your way to the Kryx system and dock at the Key. Once aboard the ship, speak with Naeva Mora, and then follow her around the ship while she gives you a history lesson on the Crimson Fleet.

She’ll then leave you with Shirya Voss. He’ll tell you all about how to take on more jobs with the Crimson Fleet, and then it’ll finally be time for you to meet the boss, Delgado. Take the elevator upstairs and speak with him.

Delgado will ask you to meet him on a planet called Suvorov to do yet another ‘initiation test’ of sorts, that’ll see you learning more about the legacy of Jasper Kryx. As a result, your ‘Rook Meets King’ quest will be done, and you’ll be sent to complete ‘Echoes of the Past’ next.