Strange Bedfellows

by BRBrony9

What To Do?

Captain Marsten ordered the armsmen to take General Jahn to the side of the bridge, along with his aide. A call was coming in from the Lord-Admiral; or at least, someone alleging to be the Lord-Admiral. Jahn's case had some convincing points to it, but there had been nothing untoward in Marsten's previous conversations with Marcos to indicate something might be awry.

'This is Captain Marsten,' he spoke into the vox microphone. 'Go ahead, My Lord.'

'Captain, you took aboard a shuttle that launched from this vessel,' Marcos answered. 'Tell me, who was aboard?'

'General Jahn, My Lord,' Marsten replied. 'He has informed me of some apparent troubling news.'

'Oh yes? And pray tell, what news is that?' came the reply from the Lord-Admiral. Marsten glanced over at Jahn before replying.

'He says that the bridge was captured by the Changelings and communications were cut. He also says that you were either captured or killed in the process.'

'Then the General is clearly mistaken, Captain, since you are speaking to me,' Marcos chuckled. 'There were indeed some internal communications problems. It seems the Changelings must have caused some damage to the networks on the lower decks which resulted in relay issues.'

'But with all due respect, My Lord...' Marsten responded. 'How can I be certain that you are not a Changeling? I have reports of the bridge falling to the enemy, with enough discrepancies from the report you gave me earlier that I cannot be sure of the true situation aboard the Emperor's judgement.'

'I see...' Marcos paused for a moment. 'By the same token, how can you be sure that General Jahn is not a Changeling trying to sew disinformation? To turn you against your fellow man?'

'I cannot, My Lord. That is why I have him in custody along with the rest of the shuttle crew,' Marsten explained. 'I have taken precautions to ensure the safety of my ship as best I can, but I need to know. If the fleet is in jeopardy...I have to take appropriate actions.'

'Yes, I understand that, Captain,' Marcos answered. 'But we must stand together against this and every other foe. You are welcome to send over a detachment to investigate conditions here, or even to come yourself if you so wish.'

Marsten knew that, if it was indeed a Changeling making such an offer, that sending a team over would result in their death and, probably, their impersonation by drones, to be sent back to the Indefatigable as infiltrators, to promulgate the spread of their own kind throughout the fleet. He was truly starting to understand the real threat that the Changelings posed, not just to the Crusade but,potentially, to the whole Imperium, if they were to be allowed to leave this planet. The briefings had played down that aspect of the enemy somewhat, but it was being displayed clearly here. He did not even truly know if he was speaking to his own Lord-Admiral or to an impostor, nor did he know of a way to find out for certain. To imagine that paranoia creeping across the whole galaxy was something that Marsten scarcely dared contemplate- and that was the best case scenario. At worst, an undetectable infiltration force, a combination of Genestealer, powerful psyker and Imperial Callidus assassin, numbering in the tens of thousands at minimum, could end up taking over countless worlds, perhaps without the Imperium even becoming aware of its presence.

'With all due respect, sir, if there is any threat of the Changelings on board being uncontained, then I cannot risk any of my crew on such a surveillance mission,' Marsten replied over the vox. 'I will need to find some other way of confirming what exactly is going on over there.'

'Then it seems we have a stalemate on our hands,' Marcos answered a moment later. 'As you say, you have no way of telling the truth of the matter from aboard your vessel, and you cannot potentially risk your crew to find out. I understand that, Captain, a commendable care for your men. I will confer with my senior staff and see if we can find some kind of solution to this impasse. Marcos out.'

The light on the vox went off, indicating the call had ended. Marsten took a step back, pondering. There was much to think about, to be sure. He turned to General Jahn, or the Changeling who claimed to be him; whichever was reality. He was over to the side of the bridge, still cuffed and bound with his aide beside him. Both men had several shotguns aimed at them, and other armsmen stood ready around the bridge in case of any trouble. Yet they had remained docile and silent during Marsten's conversation with Marcos, perhaps an indication they understood the situation perfectly because they were who they claimed to be. Or, perhaps, a coincidence.

'General, once again the Lord-Admiral informs me that all is well aboard the flagship,' Marsten spoke. 'Why should I disbelieve him?'

'You should not, Captain,' Jahn replied. 'At least, not just because I tell you to. Your caution is completely justified, but I do not know how I can convince you beyond doubt of the reality of the situation. I would say this, Captain. You must judge for yourself whether I am telling the truth or whether I am lying, and I would urge you to consider everything you have heard, everything you know about the situation. There must be some clue which can help you decide who is speaking the truth. There has to be an indication. There has to be something.'

Marsten knew the General was correct. There was always something, even if it was just gut feeling, instinct, no more than that. Some tiny inkling that one thing was right and another thing was wrong. What was puzzling him about the General's claims was that the Changelings had apparently captured the bridge without having taken deck 5, where he had been allegedly located in the security centre. How could they have managed that if the decks were sealed and they were supposed to be contained?

Commissar Terkov appeared more impatient than he was. She stood nearby, her hand still on the butt of her bolt pistol, just in case it should be needed. Like many of her profession, she had always been rather eager to dispense the Emperor's justice herself, should it become necessary. Discipline was enforced on board ship by an iron fist, and not a velvet glove; such was the case all across the Imperium, purely out of necessity if nothing else. The glue holding the entire human race together was the fact that, as much internal strife and division they may suffer from, there were external threats that were far greater in scope than any mere man could comprehend. Only by banding together and propping up the walls of the Imperium could it ever hope to survive against the Dark Powers, the Orks, the Tyranids, Necrons...and now, perhaps, Changelings as well.

'General, you say that the Changelings managed to capture the bridge, yet they did not capture the security centre, at least not while you were located there. Did they capture another section of deck 5 but leave the security centre alone?' Marsten asked. 'And how did they manage to overrun so many decks so fast? The last reports we had were that they were contained on decks 10 and 11.'

'They did not capture any of deck 5, Captain,' Jahn replied. 'Not so far as I know. They bypassed us entirely.'

'How? Did the Lord-Admiral not lock the ship down?' Marsten asked with a raised eyebrow.

'Of course he did,' Jahn replied. 'Immediately upon the receipt of the alarm. The ship was sealed, which was why I was not able to return to the bridge. All access ways and turbolifts were shut and guarded.'

'Then how could the Changelings get through? Can they teleport?' Marsten grunted.

'I believe it is possible that some of them can,' Jahn replied. 'But that is not how they did it. They used the pipes. The cable chases, the openings below the deck plating...steam conduits, I don't know. But there were reports from the lower decks as they were being overrun that the drones had appeared from above the deck armoury. As you know, there are no access points from higher decks above the armouries for security reasons. Only tiny openings that no man could hope to fit through. Nothing larger than a rat could ever hope to pass through such openings, and there is no way that a Changeling drone could do so in its natural form. But, of course, they can shapeshift, Captain.'

Marsten saw immediately that Jahn was correct. Whether or not he was trying to trick them into believing his story, his words were more than plausible, and the truth was simple. No crew could hope to block or seal every single tiny connection between decks. There were thousands of them, tens of thousands, maybe millions, of cables, pipes, vents, conduits and wires running between decks, many of which were vital for ship function. They could not be blocked, nor could they all be guarded. If the Changelings knew that they led to other decks, there was essentially nothing to stop them making use of them. To a fly, such openings may as well have been ten-lane superhighways.

'Then they have free reign of the entire vessel,' Marsten pointed out. 'If they can use routes that small to make their way around, then how can they be contained? The entire flagship might be under their control by now.'

'Then the flagship must be destroyed,' Commissar Terkov spoke pointedly, bluntly as she always did. 'If we cannot be certain that it is still under Imperial control, then protocol dictates...'

'I know damn well what protocol dictates, Commissar,' Marsten snapped. 'But I will not be responsible for the death of Lord-Admiral Marcos and a million other men just on the word of one escapee and the suspicions of a couple of officers. We need to be sure. There has to be some way we can determine for certain whether we are still in control of the Emperor's Judgement. I am not going to act until we have proof one way or the other.'

'Then we must contact the other ships in the fleet,' Terkov replied. 'They have to be made aware.'

'And who is to say they will believe us?' Marsten pointed out. 'They may well think it is our ship that has been infiltrated, if it appears we are trying to undermine the Lord-Admiral. So far as the rest of the fleet knows, he is still alive, well, and in command. They know nothing of the potential capture of the bridge, and if the Changelings really are in command of the ship, they are hardly going to pass that message on.'

'And if the Changelings are in command, how long will it be until they strike again?' Terkov questioned. 'The Emperor's Judgement is a far more powerful warship than even the Indefatigable, and if they were to attack without warning, it would be devastating to the fleet. We are in a defensive formation, Captain,' she reminded him. 'A formation designed to defend from an attack from without, not an attack from within.'

Marsten nodded. Terkov was correct, of course. The ships of the fleet were positioned to defend against movement from the Chaos ships still in orbit around the planet, or against some new arrival if they had called for reinforcements. In such a formation, the main guns of the fleet were aimed outward, and while the weapon batteries that dotted the hull of each vessel could engage the flagship if needed, they would not be prepared to do so. They would be caught cold, scrambling for the firing controls, and even then, the gunners would not fire without orders from their own officers, who in turn would have to wait for command from the bridge. There had to be a mistake, they would say. The flagship would not fire on them on purpose, would they?

'Unless we can get on board the Emperor's Judgement, we cannot tell for certain the extent of the Changeling contamination,' Marsten pondered. 'Vox!' he called. 'Try to contact the main security centre of the Emperor's Judgement.'

'Aye, sir!' The vox officer put out a call, not to the bridge and the main external vox net of the battleship, but to the security centre where General Jahn claimed to have come from. He had also said that external comms had been shut down; the call should not get through at all, unless either the General was lying, or unless the Changelings had captured the security centre and lifted the block on external comms in an attempt to maintain a semblance of normality, to keep up the alleged masquerade that all was well aboard.

'I have the security centre, Captain,' the vox officer called across the bridge. 'Do you wish to speak to them?'

Marsten exchanged a glance with Terkov and with the General. Something wasn't adding up somewhere. If Jahn was a Changeling, why would his story have been so easily disproved by a simple call to the security centre that he alleged had been sealed off? He wanted to see if the security personnel's story would match.

'Yes, put them through,' Marsten ordered, activating his vox microphone. 'This is Captain Marsten of the Indefatigable. I received word of possible Changeling activity on your deck, and above. What is the situation there?' he asked.

'This is Lieutenant Sanna, sir,' came the reply. 'Situation is normal. The Changelings did not reach this deck, Captain. They were held down below. None of them made it past deck 9.'

So their stories matched, then. Marcos and this security Lieutenant, Sanna. That either meant it was the truth, or that they both shared the same story because they were being fed information by the same Hive Mind, in an attempt to further the deception. He ended the call, ordered the vox officer to try and contact the lower security centre. He received the same result, the same answers that didn't answer anything, or perhaps answered everything. The vox and Auspex consoles of the Emperor's Judgement would be recording the fact that the Indefatigable was sending vox messages to these locations, but Marsten figured that it did not matter. If the Lord-Admiral was still in command, then he would understand and appreciate the obvious caution that Marsten was exhibiting in trying to confirm his story. If the Changelings were in control, then it hardly mattered if they knew of his vox calls to the flagship, as they already knew he had his suspicions.

'Well, Captain?' General Jahn spoke. 'Their stories match, do they not? A little too clinically, perhaps. Much of the language they used when speaking to you was rather similar, wasn't it?'

'Yes, General, but then it would be. Standard procedure, vox protcols and the like,' Marsten replied. 'It does not prove or disprove anything.' Jahn nodded before replying.

'It does not, Captain. But perhaps there is another vox call you could make which might.'

The Indefatigable was an ungainly craft, at least by terrestrial standards. It was a whale, a vast mountain of ceramite and plasteel and thick metal. It certainly could not fly in the conventional sense. Atmospheric stresses would tear it apart, unable to support its own weight with any kind of significant gravity acting upon it directly. But it did not need to fly, not in space. In space, even a craft of such size could maneuvere relatively easily using thrusters, powerful jets of reaction mass and plasma that could swing the bow of the billion-ton vessel around, sweeping through the degrees in a matter of seconds. Even a battlecruiser was relatively maneuverable in space, though not compared to a smaller, faster, lighter craft.

At Captain Marsten's command, the helm had swung the bow around, bringing the Indefatigable perpendicular to the Emperor's Judgement as the main drives pushed her forward, maintaining the broad formation with the battleship that had been ordered by the Lord-Admiral, but now with the bow facing toward it, rather than toward the planet.The port side of the Indefatigable was now pointed toward the planet, the bulk of the vessel hiding its flank from the Emperor's Judgement. It also hid the secondary vox transmitters mounted there. At Marsten's order, the vox officer transmitted a tight band, mono-directional beam signal, a simple vox call, not over the usual net, but rather over the low-power emergency frequency. It was a frequency monitored by all Imperial personnel on the secondary channel of their vox, a universal guard frequency usually reserved for mayday signals, rescue and search operations, and other emergencies. It was also normally transmitted in the clear, on all bands and across the full spectrum, but this one was narrow, a single beam with a single intended target.

The defences of Canterlot had been manned again, as best they could after taking casualties in the latest attack. The wounded had been removed into the palace for treatment, and some of the civilians, though only adults, had been permitted to head above ground and assist with the recovery. Everypony was wary, still scared that another attack might come in at any time, a fear that was very much shared by the guardsponies and soldiers who would be on the frontline of any action. The airships hovered above, a trio of welcome protective guardians keeping a watchful eye on the city and its surroundings, in case of the reappearance of the Chaos foe. The defences had already broken, buckling under the surprise attack, and there was much doubt that they could offer much in the way of resistance if the enemy came again. They had been repulsed once, yes, but at the cost of numerous casualties, wounded and dead, and some destroyed field guns.

Princess Celestia had sent several messengers to Vanhoover and Las Pegasus, calling for reinforcements for the capital city. No doubt they would be coming, but they would take time to arrive, to travel the distance from the two western cities. Some could be delivered by air, if there were any airships available, but the majority would have to come by land, either rail or by marching. That could take several days, and the enemy could be coming back at any time. That left the city in a dangerous position, undermanned and with holes in their defences that it simply had no spare resources to plug.

As a result, Princess Celestia had tasked the human liaison team, Atter and Mons, to broadcast vox calls from the top of the Celestial Tower, to the Imperial forces to the south, and their main landing grounds and staging area out to the west. They were calling for reinforcements, for aid to the beleaguered city. The humans had provided the forces necessary to clear the city in the first place, but at Celestia's direction, all but a token Imperial force had left, leaving Canterlot in pony hooves. Even that token force had been whittled down, taking casualties during the fighting, leaving just a handful of men in the city in addition to the liaison team. Celestia did not want to have the city occupied by large numbers of Imperial troops, and it hurt her to ask for aid, but she knew that the pony forces in Canterlot could no longer effectively defend it against another large-scale enemy attack by themselves. The Imperial forces, with their dropships and mechanised ground forces, could reach the city much faster than pony reinforcements could arrive, and provide the extra protection that they needed.

Assuming, of course, that the Imperials actually accepted her requests. Commissar Birbeck, in de facto command of the operational ground forces, had already expressed his distrust of the ponies and their true motives, and had been reluctant to commit forces to their aid in the past. General Jahn, out in space, was in overall command of the ground forces, but since the Imperial fleet had been forced away from the planet, his ability to communicate with his own troops had been somewhat limited.

Atter and Mons were able to contact the main Imperial landing ground, where thousands of troops were waiting for orders that were simply not coming from any Imperial source. They were idle since the assault on Fillydelphia had been repulsed, and no new Imperial offensives had been mounted since, due to the removal of orbital support. Instead they had scattered into dispersal positions around the perimeter of the camp and in the wilds of Equestria outside, to minimise the target profile for an enemy orbital strike that could hit them at any time. To the relief of the liaison team, and no doubt to the relief of the pony civilians, if only they knew, several companies had been tasked by the senior officer at the landing grounds to move and support Canterlot; he had no other orders, and a certain limited degree of autonomy with the troops under his direct command. Though it would only be a couple of hundred men and some Chimera fighting vehicles, even that small reinforcement could prove crucial in defending the city if Chaos should strike again.

While they were in a communications lull, in between exchanging messages with the landing ground and the incoming reinforcements, Atter and Mons picked up an unexpected signal. It was on a tight band, and it was on the emergency channel. It was not a shock to receive a message on that channel, given the situation the Imperial forces found themselves in, spread across the continent with enemy remnants and potentially large numbers of Chaos reinforcements being deployed. What was a surprise was the source of the message. Atter quickly sent one of the pony guards galloping off in search of the Princess, who teleported into the room at the top of the tower a moment later.

'You have a message for me?' she asked.

'Yes, Your Highness,' Atter replied with a nod. 'It just came in, on the emergency channel, asking for you in person.' He presented the vox handset to her, and she floated it over to her ear with her magic.

'This is Princess Celestia. Go ahead.'

'Your Highness,' came the reply. 'We have not spoken before. My name is Captain Lukas Marsten, of the battlecruiser Indefatigable. I have some troubling news, and a request.'

'What news, Captain?' Celestia asked. The vox link was crackly, a product of the distance over which the signal was coming. Despite the focused beam there was much signal attenuation. Marsten's reply sent a chill through the Princess, though she maintained her usual calm exterior.

'I believe that the Emperor's Judgement has been captured by Changelings.'

'Captured?' she questioned. 'The entire ship?'

'That is unclear at this time, Your Highness,' Marsten replied. 'But I have reason to believe that the ship has been compromised. I also believe that Lord-Admiral Marcos has either been killed or captured by the Changelings, and the bridge and other key locations on board have fallen under Changeling control.'

'How can you be certain, Captain?' Celestia asked.

'We received reports from the Lord-Admiral of a Changeling attack on his ship, shortly after maintenance teams were taken aboard from another vessel of the fleet,' Marsten explained. 'They were able to take control of several decks and seemed to still be making further progress. The Lord-Admiral requested additional troops to be shuttled to the Emperor's Judgement to assist, only to then cancel that request several minutes later. I then received a shuttle aboard my own vessel carrying General Jahn, who you have spoken to before. He reported that he had received a brief distress signal from the bridge, before finding all internal and external communications had been severed abruptly. He was able to board a shuttle and come aboard my ship to report his findings and his fears.'

Celestia had indeed spoken to General Jahn before, over the vox link, when discussing operations with both him and the Lord-Admiral. She had found him to be a sensible and sober man with much apparent experience, and had no reason to directly doubt his words, unless, of course...

'If the Emperor's Judgement has been taken, how can you be sure that the General Jahn you took aboard is not actually a Changeling?' she questioned. Marsten was ready with a quick response.

'I cannot, Your Highness. Not with absolute certainty. But his story seems to check out. I have him in custody aboard my ship just in case, but there are enough discrepancies that suggest he may well be correct. I have spoken to the Lord-Admiral twice since the General alleged that he had been captured or killed. While I did not detect any direct evidence that I was not speaking to the man himself, I found that he claimed the Changeling incursion had been dealt with and was being crushed, despite having called for reinforcements just minutes earlier. The two security centres aboard the ship reported the same thing, even though General Jahn said he had just come from one of them, and the situation when he left had been very different.'

'I see...' Celestia pondered. 'May I speak with the General?'

'Yes, if you desire it,' Marsten replied. A few moments passed before a different but more familiar voice greeted her over the link.

'Your Highness, this is General Jahn. We have spoken before.'

'Yes, General, we have,' Celestia answered. 'You believe the Lord-Admiral to be dead, or in the custody of the Changelings?'

'Yes, Your Highness,' Jahn replied. 'I was at the main security centre on board the ship when we received a brief signal from the bridge. It was only brief, and it was cut short, but it reported that the bridge was under attack. I believe that the Changelings were using their ability to shapeshift to move between decks despite the ship being on full internal lockdown. I believe they were passing through vents, ducts and pipes that are far too small for a man, or even a rat, to move through. I believe that is how they were able to reach the bridge without capturing the security centre, which is located between that deck and their initial incursion site.'

That was certainly possible. Celestia remembered well the time the Changelings had tried to infiltrate Canterlot using the sewerage pipes and water access tunnels. It would be entirely within both their character and their abilities to attempt a similar thing on board the flagship. Celestia told them as much, and Captain Marsten returned to the vox.

'Do you have any way of confirming that the Changelings do indeed possess the ship?' Celestia questioned him. 'It would be unwise for you to assume that to be the case without definitive proof.'

'We do not, Your Highness. That is why I have contacted you. I must ask you for a favour.'

Comments

[Booster Spice]

The ships are a long way out, further than Celestia or Luna can teleport, or even do so and remain useable? The only thing left, is information and psychological warfare, with Celestia now knowing or at least having a good idea that Crysalis could be there, and the Element also?

[RDDash]

I am waiting until they decide to do something about the invaded ship. Those cliffhangers, man.

[warpsmith]

10445856
No they would not, because inqusition is not cohesive organisation. Even if one inquisitor would do that, others would judge him on a court and mark him as traitor. Like they did in Horusian war book. And in Eisenhorn book when Eisenhorn had a chaos book that could teach them how to trap demons in demonhosts. Because puritans of the inqusition go by the book no matter the circumstances and no matter how useful they would be.