Diem Infamia Chapter 8
The First Concourse of Salamis base was the headquarters of Battlefleet Karyl, the fulcrum around which all things revolved. Here decisions were made that affected billions: where fleets were dispatched, what wars would be fought and which ignored, what worlds would be saved and which ones abandoned. Armies of clerks spent their lives sorting out requisitions for supplies and munitions, projections of training quotas and death notices, many of them never even seeing the millions they condemned to death with the stroke of a quill.
Captain Mandas sat patiently on a bench, staring out a window into the Concourse. This section of Salamis base had been meticulously designed for opulence. He was five floors up, looking over a wide plaza where bustling officers and clerks hurried to and fro. The floor was polished marble and the light came from gold plated electro-scones that illuminated statues of noble heroes. Cyber-cherubs flittered to and fro over the crowds, waving smoking chasubles of incense as vox-horns blared hymnals. Among the crowd moved more senior officers, moving between receptions and parties, where whispers and gossip would play more important parts in decision making than any official meeting. Some of them had their wives with them, bedecked in all their finery and others had their official mistresses, a few had both in tow, this being entirely acceptable among the old blood. Indeed, wives were expected to vet courtesans for their husbands and often they got together to arrange social calendars, the matter of where their husbands spent their nights being far less important than improving their social standing.
Mandas' eyes drifted over the oblivious crowds, who seemed blissfully unaware that the galaxy was at war as they played their petty politics, and settled on a statue of Admiral Themistocles. The founder of Battlefleet Karyl was set in a heroic pose, one hand lifted to the heavens and Mandas wondered what the ancient hero would have made of what his descendants had done with his legacy. Themistocles was lionised by Battlefleet Karyl, held up as the exemplar of their aristocratic virtues. Yet when he read the history books Mandas had been surprised how unlike them he had been. Themistocles had been a wild-card, always taking risks and coming up with unorthodox strategies, ever at the sharp end of a battle. He had also been egalitarian with his subordinates, promoting men on merit rather than thousands of years of pedigree, something today's Admiralty certainly did not practice.
Mandas turned his attention back to the waiting room, where he sat alongside various lesser ranking officers. They all had the look of rear-echelon quill-pushers, men and women who would never fire a shot in anger. They in turn looked at him as if he had wandered up from the outer docks on a whim. They could tell he wasn't one of them at a glance, yet his Captain's epaulettes kept them at bay. Their aristocratic sensibilities were up against the iron-hard regulations of the Imperial navy and the paradox left them baffled.
Mandas had spent days arguing with such clerks, going over the Averof's condition and readiness. Nothing had been said out loud but Mandas had spent enough time in the Navy to tell what was written between the lines. They were trying to deduce what a new Captain would need to know to assume command; they were definitely angling to replace him. Mandas hadn't taken it lying down but his attempts to counter them had fallen short, a bureaucratic struggle was not his arena. In the end he had bypassed the lot of them, calling on old friends and using up his stock of favours. They had come through for him and arranged a meeting with Admiral Mikolas, who was his last chance to fight back. Mandas' thoughts were interrupted by a young Lieutenant who was standing over him saying, "Captain, they will see you now."
Mandas nodded and stood up, following the boy to a meeting room, that was covered in wooden panels. Waiting for him were three men, all sitting behind a large Nalwood desk. Mandas passed an eye over them, the first was a grey-faced man, whose apathetic expression declared him to be a Munitorum drone more clearly than his drab robes ever could. The other officer wore the uniform of a Naval Commander, but his body was soft and his fingers inked by long hours wielding an auto-quill. One look told Mandas this man had never fought in a boarding action, never swung a cutlass at a foe who wanted to kill him and fought to keep from fouling his britches in the midst of battle. His face however had the distinctive hooked-nose of the Dousmanis family, some minor relative Mandas guessed, coasting along on his family name.
Yet it was the third man who demanded Mandas' attention. This was the man he had come to meet, Admiral Flintof 'Ironheart' Mikolas. Admiral Mikolas was bald, his scalp covered in liver spots and his face was creased by the passage of centuries. His body was supported by an exo-skeletal frame, not some third-rate knock-off but the very finest example of the Adeptus Mechanicus' craft. He looked withered and worn, yet his grip was strong, his eyes sharp and his voice still bore the steel of command. Age had not weakened the Admiral; it had hardened him like old oak. Mikolas was ancient, already five hundred years old, the very limit of what rejuvenant treatment could achieve before resorting to extensive augmetic replacement. The Admiral however declared that he would die before becoming some clomping servitor-like hybrid, or a decaying revenant floating in a tank. Mikolas fought old age as he would a horde of Orks, facing it head on and battering it into submission through sheer will.
He was a cantankerous, hard-bitten fighter, the only man in the Admiralty who would dare contradict the Lord Admiral to his face and Battlefleet Karyl loved him for it. The whole Navy looked at him like a stern father figure, one who had long since passed his prime but whose sons couldn't bear the thought of breaking it to him and let him win at everything. It was commonly known that Mikolas ran the race track in Salamis' naval academy every day and loudly proclaimed that the day he couldn't keep up with a first-year cadet was the day he would take a fire ship and hurl himself at the nearest Ork base. Yet it was far less known that the academy officers habitually took new cadets aside and told them not to run faster than the Admiral, a secret kept from Mikolas at all times.
Mikolas smiled as Mandas entered and called, "There you are boy, don't think I've seen you since Sacellum. How have you been?"
Mandas saluted the old Admiral and said, "Keeping well Sir, can't complain."
"Complain away," Mikolas chortled, "It's all these milksop nursemaids let me do nowadays."
The other two officers grimaced and the commander said, "Captain Mandas, be seated. I am Commander Kiloa Perso-Dousmanis and this is Proctor-General Alcander Delcis. Thank you for coming, we have some worrying discrepancies to go over."
Mandas settled down and asked, "Discrepancies?"
The Proctor-General, a fancy way to say a quartermaster, held up a data-slate and declared, "During your deployment, you used up forty percent more ammunition than the Strategos predicted. How do you justify this waste of resources?"
Mandas snorted, "I wasn't counting rounds, when one is mid-battle such niceties lose their importance."
Delcis frowned and said, "Surely you could have been more economical with your shooting."
Mandas replied, "I suppose I could have written the pirates a note asking them to die faster."
Delcis frowned as he snapped, "This is no laughing matter, in your last engagement you fired six torpedoes to destroy one frigate. Would not one have sufficed?"
At that Mikolas butted in, "No it bloody well wouldn't, at that range a single torpedo would definitely miss. Better to be sure than let the bastard slip away, else Mandas would still be out there looking for the damn wretch."
Commander Perso-Dousmanis leaned in and said, "Admiral, I advise we take this slowly."
"Frak that," Mikolas spat, "I'm too old to waste time pussyfooting about. Let's get to the real business. Mandas what would it take to get the Averof ready to sail in three days?"
Mandas practically leapt out of his chair and exclaimed, "Three days?! Sir the Averof has spent a year in the void, she's scheduled for another six months in dock."
Mikolas held up a liver spotted hand and said, "I don't want to hear impossibilities from the man who ran the gauntlet at Sacellum."
At that Delcis leaned in and said, "Captain, perhaps you do not understand. Tectum is to host a refit of the Indomitus Crusades' Primus fleet. Hundreds of vessels are breaking Warp on the edge of the system as we speak. The inload of requests is staggering; we are expected to refit the entire fleet in two weeks, once they arrive."
"Two weeks!" Mandas exclaimed, "It can't be done. That's barely enough time to throw supplies on board, let alone conduct any repairs."
Delcis looked like he agreed but he said, "The schedule was devised by the Imperial Regent, it is… challenging but his attention to detail is astounding. If we follow his timetable, to the second, it can be done. But we need to clear the dockyards of all other ships."
Mandas swallowed and said, "I suppose if I cancel leave for all personnel, recall my staff and throw supplies onboard the Averof can set sail in three days. But the reactors will have to blessed on the way, not an easy job at the best of times."
Perso-Dousmanis sniffed and said, "We don't require your officers, replacements can be found. We only need you to oversee the restocking and consecration of the engines."
There it was, they finally said it out loud, they planned to take the Averof from him. Someone else was going to take her out, one of the Lord-Admiral's favourites no doubt. Mandas would be left on the dock, watching his ship sail away with another man and he would be relegated to a supply depot or some such. Well, he wasn't going to take that lying down. The Captain drew in a breath and said, "You don't have time to find someone else, nobody could be ready in three days."
Perso-Dousmanis replied, "I assure you…"
But Mandas cut him off saying, "I've spent decades commanding that ship, I know her inside and out. I know what she's like in the turns and how much damage her shields can take. I know which macrocannon only works if hit with a silver hammer thrice and which plasma drive has a flutter. I know every nut and bolt, every battlefield repair and unorthodox fix. It will take months to get another man up to speed, time you don't have."
Mikolas nodded and said, "The man speaks truly, this is no time to be settling in a new Captain. Rear-Admiral Dimakos hasn't even selected a Captain yet; I'll have a word in his ear."
Perso-Dousmanis stiffened and said, "Sir, with all due respect the Lord Admiral…"
But Mikolas snapped testily, "Were you at Sacellum? No, of course you weren't, you were still sucking at your mother's teats. Well I was there and I tell you that Mandas was a throne-damned hero that day."
Perso-Dousmanis scoffed, "I fail to see how that's relevant."
Yet Mikolas slammed his hand onto the table and barked, "Two Night Lord Cruisers off my port bow, the Dusk Queen and the Skinning Knife, and another off my stern, the Bleeding Edge. The Hyperion was ablaze on thirty decks, port launch bays gone, shields down and we were hard up against the gravity well. My only chance was to pull into a lower orbit and try use the gravity to turn but I knew it was futile, they had me, they had me stone dead. Yet as they came in for the kill this son of a bitch entered the fight."
Mandas smiled as he said, "It was your manoeuvre that gave me the shot."
"Grox-dung!" Mikolas snorted, "Fire on the left of him, death on the right and this crazy bastard decided to throw caution to the wind. He ran five Cobras right under the Skinning Knife's batteries. They saw him coming and prepared a broadside to wipe him out but he didn't hesitate. He flew their gauntlet, death chewing off his stern and against all the odds he got three ships through that firestorm. He launched his torpedoes at point-blank range, blowing the Dusk Queen's bridge clean off and breaking the back of their assault. That takes courage like you milksops have never known, that take Frakking balls! The man who can do that deserves one last chance."
Perso-Dousmanis looked sullen but stated, "The Lord Admiral won't stand for it."
But Mikolas snapped, "If the boy has a problem with this he can tell me to my face or sod off! I told him this purge was a bad idea but the whelp has cousins and nephews coming out his ears, all hungry for posts. He overruled me, but he won't shout me down over this."
Perso-Dousmanis sank into silence as Mikolas said, "Now Mandas here's what I want you to do, the miners of Lesser Tectum are kicking up a stink. Falling behind on quotas and agitating for more rights. Lazy rock-grubbers think they can negotiate with us, hah! Dimakos is taking a flotilla out to remind them who's boss. I want you to go out there, fly the flag and get them back on schedule. We need those minerals, if we're to meet the Regent's deadline."
Mandas nodded and said, "Very good sir."
Mikolas concluded by saying, "Do us proud and I expect a glowing report from Rear-Admiral Dimakos when you get back."
Mandas understood what he meant, the Admiral was giving him a chance. If he could get this Rear-Admiral Dimakos on his side they might be able to salvage his command. Everything rested on convincing this Dimakos that Mandas was the right man for the job; it looked like his future was in this stranger's hands.
