Strange Bedfellows

by BRBrony9

Unknowns

Lord-General Galen stumbled back against the bulkhead, a steaming hole in his chest. Flag-Captain Bormann's shouted warning had come a moment too late, as he had observed Colonel Harding drawing his laspistol from his right hip. The Colonel swung his gun around to fire again, this time at the Lord-Admiral, but Bormann lunged at him, knocking him off balance. The shot went wild overhead, blowing a chunk out of the ceiling. Marcos ducked down and shouted frantically for assistance.

Midshipman Vinson ran towards the Admiral, as if to protect him, shield him from gunfire. But a glint of steel in his hand showed he had a knife, and his intentions were not noble. Marcos took a step back, grabbing one of the chairs and picking it up, ripping it from its mount with his formidable strength and using it to fend off his attacker.

'This is mutiny!' he roared. 'Come to your senses, boy!' But Vinson kept coming, desperately trying to reach the Admiral, woh had backed up into a corner, against the viewport, with the chair keeping him at bay. Bormann struggled with Colonel Harding, who still grasped the laspistol firmly. He managed to push away, shoving Bormann to the ground and trying to take aim at the Admiral, but the Midshipman was in the firing line. He turned to finish off the Flag-Captain, who was scrambling to draw his own weapon.

The door burst open, several armsmen striding in, shotguns raised. Quick as a flash, Harding turned and fired, dropping one of them to his knees, his jaw missing. The others took aim, but in the small room they could hardly fire with such weapons lest they strike the Admiral or the General, who lay slumped against the wall. One man let off a round high, spraying shrapnel over the heads of the officers, but missing the target as well. Harding ducked behind the large display table, but as he popped up again to return fire, he was struck in the back and grimaced. The Colonel fell forward, face down on the deck plating, a sizzling wound in his back. Bormann lowered his laspistol and turned, heaving himself to his feet to help the Admiral, but the armsmen were there already, grabbing the Midshipman, heaving him bodily to the deck and restraining him. One man kicked the knife away, while another put a swift kick in to the assailant's temple.

Bormann hurried to his Admiral's side. 'My Lord! Are you hurt?' he asked, breathing heavily.

'Mutiny...!' Marcos spat again, brushing past Bormann to attend to the Lord-General. 'Medicae!' He bellowed. 'Get a medicae in here, now!' He knelt down beside his old friend, checking for a pulse and breathing. More armsmen were coming in, flooding the room. The ship's Chief Medical Officer rushed in, holding a case of equipment, urging the Admiral to step back so he could work. A quick once over and a check for vital signs, and the medicae shook his head, turning to the Admiral.

'He is deceased, My Lord...' the doctor informed them. 'His heart was struck...there would be nothing I can do even if he were already on the operating table.' Marcos stood with a furious expression. He took a step back and turned to the mutinous Midshipman. 'Take him to the brig! And this one, doctor, if you can, keep him alive long enough to be interrogated,' he added, giving the slumped form of Harding a nudge with his boot. 'I want to know what happened here!'

The medicae nodded and turned to attend to the downed Colonel, checking on his wounds. The Fleet Confessor was summoned to give the Final Blessing to Lord-General Galen. The armsmen dragged Midshipman Vinson away, handcuffed. The shocked bridge crew looked on as he was led from the ready room, a scene of utter confusion having erupted before their very eyes. Nobody knew the details, but they had heard the shots. It seemed broadly clear what had transpired; an attempted mutiny, on their own flagship, no less. Who else was involved? What else was going to happen? Even as they watched, were parties of mutineers below decks seizing the engine room, the landing bays, the reactor cores? Might they threaten to detonate them if their demands were not followed?

Marcos acted swiftly to quell the potential panic among the bridge crew. He strode out, seemingly unflustered, smoothing down his tunic after a steadying shot of amasec from the flask he would no longer be able to share with his friend. He addressed the men.

'Do not fear, the situation is well in hand,' he assured them, though he was far from sure that it was himself. 'A minor...aberration has occurred. It seems some of your fellow personnel were less than happy with the direction this Crusade has been taking of late. But no matter, they have been dealt with. There is no need for panic, or for spreading rumours. Master-at-Arms!' he called. The Master, a woman despite the title, stepped over with a smart salute. 'Double the guard on all key points,' Marcos ordered immediately and loudly, for the whole bridge crew to hear the confidence in his voice, as they always had throughout the years-long campaign. Today could be no different if he wanted morale to remain steady.

'At once, My Lord!' Master Kaestron, a woman of some twenty years' service as an armswoman, a Sergeant-At-Arms, and finally the Master-At-Arms of the flagship itself, replied. 'Should I restrict travel to and from the ship also?' she suggested, to which Marcos gave an immediate answering nod.

'Yes, secure the ship. Nobody leaves or boards her until we have some answers,' he commanded. Kaestron saluted again and bustled away to carry out his commands. As chief of security, the Master-at-Arms was responsible for all internal operations of the ship's armsmen, who acted as a combined police force, security detachment and raiding party. They broke up fights, solved murders and crimes of sabotage, patrolled vital areas and performed boarding actions aboard enemy ships when required, where they would be supported by waves of lightly armed ratings who, for security reasons, could not be trusted to be armed with more than a cudgel or sword and perhaps a laspistol. But, as events had just starkly shown, it was not only from the men of the lower decks that potential treachery could come. While the armsmen could perform each role competently, they were rather a jack of all trades, master of none. In a boarding action, they lacked the heavy weaponry of the Guard or the armour and sheer power of the Astartes. When performing detective work, dealing with minor crime and riot control, they lacked the training, skill and brutishness, respectively, of the Adeptus Arbites. When patrolling the ship, they lacked the manpower to protect everywhere at once, which was why they concentrated on trouble spots and on guarding key areas.

Master-At-Arms Kaestron dispatched men immediately to all those areas. The bridge was reinforced by another detachment, as were the approach corridors to the elevator and emergency staircase. The engine rooms were put under double guard along with the reactor cores, vital areas that could cripple or destroy the ship if allowed to fall into the hands of mutineers. Armouries were protected heavily, with extra men on guard outside in full armour, shotguns levelled at any passers-by as they guarded their precious cargo of weaponry. The torpedo bays were placed under guard, and the landing bays sealed off entirely, both inside and out. Nobody was to leave or board the ship until things could be straightened out. Colonel Harding had come from the planet, after all, not from the ship's crew- what role did he have in all this?

While Harding was being transported to the medical bay, Vinson to the brig and Lord-General Galen to the morgue, the armsmen scurried to obey their orders. Marcos ordered vox-messages sent to every other ship of the fleet, warning them to be on the lookout for any potential mutinous activities. A wise precaution; men of the fleet often found ways to communicate with each other between ships even outside of official channels, whether by jury-rigging crystal vox-sets, smuggling secret messages within cargo or merely bribing shuttle and lighter pilots. The stain of mutiny may have spread farther than just the Emperor's Judgement, as indeed the involvement of Colonel Harding suggested.

A forensics team of armsmen arrived in the ready room, keen to investigate the assassination of the Lord-General and the attempted slaying of their Admiral. Evidence was scant- there were no vid-recorders in the ready room for reasons of operational security and privacy. They were able to recover some minor blood samples from the Midshipman, who had suffered minor abrasions when being forced to the deck and restrained. The Lord-General's wound and that of Colonel Harding had cauterised on impact from the intense heat of the las-bolts, leaving little trace, not that any was necessary. They had the body, they had the perpetrator, and they had the murder weapon. All they lacked was proof of motive.

Fleet Commissar Aldoric, a hard-nosed and ancient man kept youthful with repeated Rejuvenat treatments, was called to the bridge to hear the story. Aldoric had long since dismissed any foolish notions of fair treatment within the Imperial system as the follies of youth; if it looked like you might be guilty, you were guilty. If something came along later, some new evidence or a confession, that exonerated you, well, that's your hard luck for being near a crime scene. While solving crimes was not exactly the remit of a Commissar, dispensing justice most certainly was. Not just a job requirement, more a vital necessity, the whole purpose for the existence of the role. The threat of execution had pushed many a man onward where he may have faltered, forward when he may have retreated. Better to face the possibility of death from the Ork hordes, the talons of Tyranids or the massed pulse fire of the Tau Empire, than to turn and be met with the certainty of it from a Commissar's bolt pistol. It would not be an exaggeration, Aldoric mused, to say that the Imperium would not exist today if it had not been for its Commissars.

Upon reaching the bridge, he was filled in on the events that had transpired, and he did not like what he had heard. While Harding lay unconscious, being worked on by the medics, and Vinson sat tight-lipped in a cell, they had no proof of what exactly was behind the assassination. A mutiny against the Guard commander would not have necessitated the attempt on Marcos' life, and vice versa. The fact that a Navy man tried to kill the Admiral, and a Guardsman killed the General, was probably more than a coincidence. Aldoric could sense the fury in his Admiral's expression and voice; while he would not necessarily consider the two to be friends, certainly not in the way the Admiral and the Lord-General had been, Aldoric had an immense amount of respect for Marcos, having served as his Fleet Commissar through the entire campaign and, before that, as ship's Chief Commissar for many years when the Emperor's Judgement was serving in one of the many battlefleets of the Segmentum Pacificus. He considered the Admiral to be level headed, of sound judgement, and most importantly of all, of good character. Such men, he pondered sadly, were hard to find in the Imperium these days, and he had been happy to sign on to the Crusade expedition knowing it was in such capable hands. Under the Lord-Admiral's capable leadership, the Crusade had ranged out farther than Aldoric had ever expected it to, into these uncharted fringe worlds, where all kinds of wonders and horrors awaited.

Aldoric reasoned, pondered, ruminated. He gave his opinion to the Lord-Admiral. 'My Lord, given that we have, as of yet, received no word of any other treasonous activities being carried out aboard this ship or the rest of the fleet, it seems most possible that these two individuals were seized by the taint of Chaos,' the Commissar elucidated. 'If that is the case, then needless to say, regardless of their crimes, their executions would be warranted anyway.' Marcos nodded slowly.

'The Colonel, perhaps. He has been operating planetside since the invasion, has encountered the Archenemy several times, has faced down Daemons...but the Midshipman?'

'Ship's records show that Midshipman Vinson has led several resupply parties down to the planet, My Lord,' Aldoric explained. 'It is entirely possible that he was exposed to similar contamination.'

'Master-at-Arms!' Marcos called, summoning Master Kaestron, who saluted.

'My Lord?'

'Have your men inspected the shuttle aboard which the Colonel was brought aboard?' Marcos asked.

'Yes, My Lord. A thorough examination is being conducted. We have found nothing so far,' Kaestron explained, her artificial left eye whirring a little as it tracked between the Lord-Admiral and the Commissar.

'And what of the pilot, Master?' Aldoric asked. 'Has he been interviewed?'

'Yes, Commissar,' Kaestron replied. 'He appears to have no knowledge of the incident, or any involvement in it.'

'I trust the Commissariat are preparing an investigation of Colonel Harding's regiment and the circumstances surrounding his actions?' Marcos asked Aldoric, who nodded.

'Yes, My Lord. I have spoken to Senior Commissar Birbeck. He is in temporary command of the former siege garrison, to which the 40th Parvian Lancers were attached. A thorough investigation is being planned.'

'Good...' Marcos grunted. 'There must be more to this. A Midshipman I can accept. But a regimental commander? Newly promoted, at that, by his very victim?' He shook his head. 'Something just doesn't add up. Master-at-Arms, did the search of my ready room yield anything?'

'No, My Lord, I am afraid not,' Kaestron replied. 'We have recovered no evidence other than forensic material, which is of little use since we have the perpetrators in custody anyway.'

'And is there any sign of dissent or disquiet below decks?' Marcos asked. 'Anything that might precipitate a mutiny?'

Kaestron's eye whirred and buzzed. 'Unfortunately, yes, My Lord. There is some...unsettled talk on the lower decks. Many of the men are unhappy with the alliances we have made with these horse and bird aliens,' she explained. 'They feel such things are...' She paused to search for the tactful choice of words. 'Are...contrary to the ideals of the Imperium. Furthermore, there are rumours and suggestions that we have travelled too far. I'm sure you're aware of them...tales of dread and darkness, this far from the Emperor's Light.'

Marcos nodded, being well aware of the rumours about the edge of the galaxy and beyond. 'I have heard the rumours, yes. But are you telling me that men who have bravely faced down Orks, Eldar, and the Archenemy, should shirk not because of what they know, but because of what they don't?'

'Yes, My Lord,' Kaestron replied. 'In many cases...what is not there is often more terrifying than what is. The possibility of the unknown is what scares men the most. With all due respect...we do not know what lies beyond this galaxy. We did not know what lay here on this planet until we arrived. I believe this Xenos princess, or at least the rumours about her, have unnerved many of the men on board. You both saw what she did with the star, her little trick. I saw it too. I do not profess to understand how she could achieve such a thing, even as a psyker. But that is exactly why it is unnerving the men. They have heard rumours of what she did, both in space and on the planet, and they fear her for it. And then to hear that we have allied ourselves with them...'

'I understand their disquiet, Master, but this alliance was made out of necessity, nothing more,' Marcos replied. 'Consider that without the princess, we would not have even been able to break through the warp storm at all, let alone make landings and rescue our trapped forces. As of now we have no reason to consider her to be a hostile entity.'

'I must caution you, My Lord,' Aldoric interrupted, 'that lack of hostility is not necessarily grounds for alliance, nor for sympathy or clemency. She may be a useful Xenos, but she is still a Xenos, and after all; burn the heretic, beware the psyker and heretic, and abhor the alien.'

'I am well aware of the creed, Aldoric,' the Admiral snapped. 'But you can abhor something and still find it useful, can you not? You need look no further than sanctioned psykers or subhumans for that.'

Aldoric nodded. 'That is true, My Lord, but I would still urge caution. She has made several deliberate demonstrations of her power. She is a force to be reckoned with, that much is clear, but I suspect her danger comes as much from her mental strength as her physical prowess. Observe, if you will, how she has managed to get us to provide the manpower to retake not just her capital city, but her industrial base as well, in which we have happily obliged her. In one fell swoop and with barely any loss to her own forces, she has regained her seat of power and her ability to produce weapons and equipment. Ever since we made planetfall it seems that she has been using us to further her own ends at our expense. I understand the reasons behind our truce, but My Lord, there will come a time when a reckoning is due one way or another.'

'I know, I know...' Marcos sighed. 'But for now, let us focus. The Lord-General is dead, and we have the perpetrator. We just need to figure out the cause.'

The brig of the Emperor's Judgement was meant to hold the hardiest criminal elements that might find themselves aboard the ship, which was far more common than it might be imagined. Imperial press gangs roamed through the areas of ill repute in many cities, gathering up those who looked and sounded like they might suit a life aboard a starship, whether or not they knew it themselves. Many of these men were involved in various nefarious elements; narcotics dealers, organised crime, street thugs, all found themselves swept up in the net of Imperial power. To refuse the press gang was to find yourself in front of a firing squad; refusing to stand for the Emperor was worth nothing less. As a result, many cells were equipped with full-body restraints, intended to keep a violent prisoner fully restrained.

In one of the cells, Midshipman Vinson was chained up. Handcuffed, feet in manacles, a collar around his throat, keeping him still. Staying silent, however, was his own choice. Armsmen interrogators had questioned him, slapped him around a little, roughed him up, with no response. He said nothing. They tried truth serum, with a similarly lacking effect. The master interrogator was summoned, a man with immense and disquieting experience of inflicting pain upon his fellow man. He prepared his tools, but the Lord-Admiral arrived first of all.

'Let me speak to him,' he demanded. Nobody could deny him, and he swept into the interrogation chamber. A thick transparent plasteel window separated the chamber from the observation room. Inside was a simple chair fitted to the wall, in which Vinson was detained. His face appeared emotionless, just staring blankly forward.

Marcos drew his attention with a sound slap across the face. 'I want an explanation,' he demanded, 'and I want it now.'

Vinson looked up at his Lord and master. He said nothing, stubbornly silent even when confronted by his superior, by his target, by the object of his apparent wrath. His blank gaze said as much as his words ever could.

Marcos slapped him again. 'Tell me!' he roared. 'You attempted to mutiny. You tried to kill me, and your compatriot killed my friend. Why? Hm? Were your minds turned by Chaos? Or were you simply disillusioned with how this campaign was going?'

The Midshipman remained quiet, just gazing into infinity, caught up in thoughts only he could know, and would not share with the Admiral. Marcos fumed quietly. His friend was dead, and he wanted to know why, what had driven men to rebel against their leadership. Was it their deal with the princess? Was it the taint of Chaos? Was it the perils of being on the fringe of the galaxy? He tried again, raging at the Midshipman, but still getting no response.

Relenting, he left the room, and engaged the master interrogator. He entered the chamber, preparing his instruments- needles, drugs, blades, a variety of devices not of interrogation, but of torture. He applied them all, one by one, with no result, no effect. Vinson screamed, he roared in pain, bellowed with anguish, but he said nothing. Stubbornly silent still, regardless of pain.

Marcos was fuming with anger. Vinson would seemingly say nothing in the teeth of the worst agonies Imperial torture technicians could impose on him. He had to know what secrets the Midshipman held, but his attentions turned to the sick bay. Returning to the observation room, Marcos put in a call.

'This is Lord-Admiral Marcos calling the medical bay. Come in, Chirurgeon-Major Samitts.' The chief doctor replied over the internal vox.

'This is Samitts. Go ahead, My Lord.'

'How is your patient, doctor? Is he alive?' Marcos asked, referring to Colonel Harding. Samitts responded quickly.

'Yes, My Lord. We are keeping him alive, barely.'

'What injuries did he sustain?' Marcos asked.

'A severed spinal cord,' Samitts began. 'Severe trauma to the left kidney and the small intestine. Major lacerations and burns to the left lung. Several fractured and broken ribs. Third degree burns to 10% of his body. Major...'

'Enough!' Marcos urged. 'Will he live, or will he die?' he questioned.

'It is touch and go, My Lord,' Samitts answered simply. 'We are doing what we can, but I can make no guarantees regarding his survival.'

'Understood, doctor. Just...do your best to keep him alive until we can interrogate him,' Marcos retorted. 'We must know his motivations. We must know what drove to act in such a way. If you can prolong his life enough that we can end it through righteous judicial means, that would be a great bonus.'

'As said, My Lord,' Samitts replied, 'I will do what I can. But his injuries are severe. You should anticipate his death sooner rather than later.' Marcos could only nod, and reply with a similarly fatalistic tone.

'Well, if that is the case, then we may never know what happened up here. What lead to the death of the Lord-General....my friend. Do what you can, doctor. Marcos out.'

Ending the call, Marcos turned his attention back to the subject in custody, rather than in the medical bay. Perhaps Vinson would tell him something. Perhaps he could persuade, perhaps he could be effective where torture and interrogation had failed. Once more he told the armsman guarding the cell to allow him access. Once more, the armsmen complied.

Vinson still sat silent, having resisted all the multifaceted approaches Imperial science could offer towards making him talk. He had ignored pain, refused persuasion, denied torture. What had to be done to make him talk? Were the forces of Chaos empowering his mind to resist?

Marcos strode into the cell, 'Tell me,' he commanded, 'who sent you. Who committed you to such a fool's errand, hm? Was it of your own volition? Was it the princess? Was it the Dark Powers of the Archenemy? Who convinced you to perform such a foul deed? Why did you go along with it? It seems clear to me, you might as well admit your guilt before you die, for there is no clemency for you here.'

Vinson said nothing, still silent in the face of his potential death. Marcos stepped closer, spitting anger into his face.

'Tell me what you know!' he demanded. The Lord-Admiral received no reply, not in verbal form at least. He gasped in shock, scrambling for the door, pounding upon it. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
'

'

Comments

[BRBrony9]

9796176
She was in Griffonstone, and now she's in charge of Canterlot in Celestia's absence. The way I picture it is that she's not as powerful or as confident as Celestia, or perhaps not quite trusted to wield her powers in the same way because of Nightmare Moon etc.

[Animatorsnake]

...Changeling? Really Chrysalis is acting upon her plan this early?

[Bronzer]

a steaming hole in his chest

High-ranking Imperials wear energy shields.