Rook Meets King is part two of a series of faction quests that involves helping the UC Vanguard accumulate enough evidence to take down the Crimson Fleet faction in Starfield. In this mission, you are tasked with taking down a former Crimson Fleet pirate, Austin Rake, to prove your loyalty to the Crimson Fleet.
In this guide, we’ll go over how you can complete the Rook Meets King mission in Starfield. We’ll touch upon whether you should spare or kill Austin and what rewards you receive once you’re done with the quest.
How to unlock the Rook Meets King mission
Rook Meets King can be instantly unlocked after you’ve completed the Deep Cover faction mission in Starfield. This is right after you agree to become an informant for the UC Vanguard and infiltrate the Crimson Fleet gang members.
Meet Naeva Mora
To complete Rook meets King, you must rendezvous with Naeva Mora at the Astraea Space Station located on Jupiter’s Moon called Europa in Starfield. Approach Astraea and accept the request from Mora to make contact with you. Mora will ask you to take out Austin Rake to prove your loyalty to the Crimson Fleet.
Austin Rake can be found in a Ragana ship orbiting near Saturn’s moon, Enceladus. Ragana ships come under the category of medic ships with no defenses at all, making it easier for you to take out Rake. Once you’ve found the Raganna ship, make comms with it and inquire about Austin. The ship’s captain, Dmitri will confirm that he’s on board, and you can choose to kill or spare him.
Kill Austin Rake or spare him?
There are no long-lasting implications for killing Austin. You’ll still be in good standing with Commander Ikande and Naeva Mora if he lives. Dimitri Moldavski even gives you fake proof of his death in case someone doubts you. On the other hand, if you kill Austin, you can loot his body for a few credits and a Mark I Spacesuit and Pack and the Ship Captain’s uniform.
Defend Astraea from the mercenaries
Once you’ve dealt with Austin Rake, return to Europa, where you’ll find out Ecliptic Mercenaries have opened fire on Astraea. Charge your weapons and defend Astraea.
The Mercenaries will have level 12 ships, making it a bit difficult to take them down. Once they’ve been defeated, Mora will accept you as a Crimson Fleet member and invite you to the Key.
The Key is a station that houses the Crimson Fleet members in Starfield. The Key can be found orbiting Suvorov in the Kryx system, but before you head over to the Key, you must report back to Commander Ikande.
Speak with Commander Ikande
Make your way to speak with Commander Ikande at the Sydef HQ orbiting near Mars. He will be inside the UC Vigilance.
Commander Ikande will ask you about Austin Rake. He will inform you that the attack done by Ecliptic Mercenaries was his idea to help you gain Mora’s trust by defending her.
Visit the Key
After speaking with Commander Ikande, travel to the Kryx system to visit the Key in Starfield. The Kryx system is quite far and out of the UC-controlled territory. You’ll have to refuel between your Grav Jump a few times.
Once you dock with the Key, you’ll instantly encounter a gruesome murder in front of you. Crimson Fleet members will be responsible for this carnage.
Mora will sit next to the Crimson Fleet member, speculating on the incident. Speak with her, and she’ll give you a tour of the Key.
At some point during the tour, Mora will ask you to speak with Shinya Voss, who will tell you to go up the elevator to the center of the Key, where Delgado will be waiting to speak to you.
Join the Crimson Fleet or stick with the UC?
Delgado is the boss of the Crimson Fleet. After speaking with him, you can either accept his offer and become a Crimson Fleet member or double-cross him to stay an informant for the UC Vanguard.
Meeting with Delgado marks the end of the Rook Meets King faction mission in Starfield.
If you have a bounty on your head from killing members of the Crimson Fleet faction, you will not be able to progress the mission further, as the Crimson Fleet is completely hostile against you when you board the Key.
The easiest way to fix this is to not commit any crimes that would earn the ire of the Crimson Fleet. Alternatively, you can pay off your bounty or reload a previously saved file.
Starfield – Rook Meets King mission rewards
For completing the Rook Meets King mission in Starfield, you receive the following rewards:
- 8300 Credits
- Pirate Swash Buckler Gear
- 250XP
Starfield Rook Meets King bug
Sometimes, during the Rook Meets King quest in Starfield, you may encounter a bug that prevents you from starting the quest. In this bug, no character will spawn at the space station in Europa. This bug can be remedied in several ways:
- Reloading a previously saved file
- Restarting the game
- Fast traveling to another place and coming back
- Complete all previous faction missions you have in your activity log
If these fixes do not work, you can try and use the console command function on the PC to force start the mission. To do this, open the console command dialogue box by pressing ‘~’ and then type in ‘setstage 000192D2 300’. This will force start the quest you, and you can continue with your adventures.
