Diem Infamia Chapter 18
In his quarters Captain Mandas sat back in his leather chair and rubbed his temples, feeling a headache coming on. He thought about taking some pain-tabs but decided against it, they would make him woozy and right now he needed to have a clear head. He breathed in a measured rate, stilling his heartbeat, an old trick he had learned from a certain courtesan who had granted him her favours after a notable victory in his younger days. Mandas' thoughts cleared slightly and he reflected on the last couple of days.
The flotilla's journey to Lesser Tectum had proceeded as expected, the convoy drifting through the empty void without incident. Their series of wargames had continued, simulations and exercises being played out in the logic engines of the ships but notably without the Admiral. Dimakos had locked himself away in his quarters and made a recluse of himself, only sending out the occasional commentary upon their performances, reports so lacking in character they could have come from a stock file. Mandas had done his best to cover, if word spread of the Admiral's behaviour the flotilla would fall apart, but he was sure word was spreading through the lower decks of his odd conduct. Finally the games had come to an end and they had thrown their formal reception, bringing together the various ship's Captains and commanders. Mandas had known it would draw the Admiral out of his hiding hole, and it had, but he had been a withdrawn throughout and barely said a word. The dinner had been an awkward and stilted affair, barely any of the comradery typical of Naval officers evident.
A soft cough brought his attention back to the room and he saw Commissar Kaath-Dousmanis sitting across from him. A select few guests had retired to his quarters following dinner, officially for drinks but really to talk about their concerns. The Commissar was adjusting his belt and announced, "That was a fine dinner, I am full to the gunwales." The Commissar had set into the meal like a true trencherman; downing plate after plate like it was going out of fashion. He had topped this off with a number of coarse remarks and crass jokes. Normally such behaviour would have been born of thoughtless laxity, but today it had been deliberate, the Commissar had drawn away eyes from the Admiral and made sure the talk of the fleet would be his boorish behaviour, not the sullen Flag officer. It was the most useful service Mandas had got out of him in years.
The Captain shook his head and said, "So… what are the other officers saying?" Across from him his other two guests scowled. One of them was Commander Grenfeld, who had sat through the dinner in icy primness. The other was Captain Elias, whose thin, grey face looked troubled for he was the only other officer Mandas trusted to understand the severity of the situation. Elias reluctantly answered, "I engaged a number of captains in conversation, the skippers of the civilian transports are blissfully unaware that anything occurred. They think all is well."
Grenfeld added, "I spoke to Commander Lambros, of Moirai squadron, he knows something is off but not what. There were a lot of odd looks at the Admiral, but none of them said anything outright."
Mandas was relieved to hear it, he and his compatriots had arranged among themselves to section off the reception and keep the guests separate, trying to prevent any gossip spreading through the fleet. Elias had been a surprising addition to their efforts, but he seemed to know what they were thinking and Mandas suspected he knew more than he was telling them. The Captain steepled his fingers and said, "I got into discussions with Commander Gerou, skipper of the escort carriers, and a Fury Wing Commander named Marco. They know something is wrong, their own role in the simulations gave them enough insight to tell our orders weren't right, but they didn't have the guts to say anything out loud."
"Who would?" Grenfeld muttered, "Speaking ill of a Flag Officer, men have been executed for less."
Kaath-Dousmanis remarked, "A lowly escort carrier commander wouldn't dare, he must already have hacked someone off royally to get assigned such a humiliating command."
"Still rumours are inevitable," Grenfeld sighed, "Everybody know something is off with the Admiral."
"We don't know though," Kaath-Dousmanis argued, "How can we cope if we don't know what we are dealing with?"
Mandas noticed Elias had gone quiet and he leaned forward to say, "Jonto, you know something don't you?"
Elias shook his bald head and demurred, "Just scurrilous whispers, not worth mentioning."
Mandas wasn't deterred by that and pressed, "Jonto, this is no time to be shy. Tell us what you know."
Elias looked down for a moment, then lifted his eyes and said, "There was talk among the old blood, my new in-laws love to chin wag and I overheard things I shouldn't have. Dimakos was injured recently, terribly injured, in ways no man should ever suffer."
Mandas frowned as he said, "I know he was on the Hyperion when the Noctis Aeterna came, he was lost in the Warp for years."
Elias grimaced as he muttered, "Rumour has it that was only the beginning. Apparently the Hyperion suffered a Gellar field failure."
Utter silence reigned as expressions of total horror spread over every face, the awful, sickening realisation sinking in. The Gellar Fields were gossamer thin barriers that held back the Warp from consuming a starship in the Immaterium. Without one a starship would be overrun by hordes of Daemons, manifesting within the ship and devouring the crew body, mind and soul. It was every voidfarer's worst nightmare, a horror so dreaded that they did not even talk about it. A silent spectre over every Warp jump, utterly feared by all yet never discussed, lest the mere mention of it cause it to happen.
Grenfeld broke the silence saying, "No… no, it can't have. It can't be true."
Kaath-Dousmanis looked sickened as he breathed, "How… how did they survive?"
Elias shook his head and said, "I don't know, but they got out of the Warp somehow. The ship was damaged but the crew was beyond saving, men were turned inside out and twisted into forms too vile to imagine. The few survivors were raving madmen, killing themselves and each other like rabid animals. The Inquisition took one look and declared them all lost souls, no one could witness what they saw and be allowed to live. They looked into the heart of Chaos, the taint of it was in them and all were condemned to die."
"What of the Admiral?" Mandas asked.
"Apparently the Admiral and few select officers sealed themselves in the Navigator's sanctum; they missed the worst of it. The Inquisition nearly killed them anyway, merely to be sure, but the Dimakos line has serious pull in high circles, they managed to save the Admiral's life."
"Would have been a mercy to kill him," Grenfeld muttered, "If I lived through something like that I would put a laspistol in my mouth and pull the trigger."
Mandas couldn't argue with that, to live through such a nightmare would scar a soul for life. Not that the Inquisition would spare him in similar circumstances. Knowledge of Chaos was suppressed in the Imperium of Man, the common folk's understanding of the abomination that came from the warp being half-myth and half outright lie. Only high ranking officers, politicians, Governors and adepts were permitted to know that Chaos was a genuine force in the universe and even that had its limits. Mandas had seen a Daemon once and counted himself astoundingly lucky not to have been silenced by an Inquisitor, an experience he had no wish to repeat.
Mandas drew in a slow breath and said, "Combat fatigue, the Admiral has combat fatigue, what the Guard would call Shell shock. I've seen it take good and brave men, turning their courage to jelly. Once it gets its claws in its hard to shake."
"I'm stunned that's all he has," Elias muttered, "By all rights Dimakos should have been reduced to a gibbering madman."
Grenfeld rubbed her jaw thoughtfully and said, "Do you think the Admiralty knows?"
"They must do," Mandas uttered, "They rebuilt him from scratch, they couldn't have not known. This is probably why they gave him an easy run out to Lesser Tectum, a light assignment to ease him back into the saddle."
"If that was the intent it has failed," Grenfeld sighed sadly, "We have to report this."
Kaath-Dousmanis jolted upright and spluttered, "Are you joking?! He is an admiral; the Imperial Navy does not permit subordinate officers to question their superiors. And may I remind you we are counting on his political support to keep our postings. If we try to have him removed we will be stripped of our ranks and thrown into the gutter."
"We can't keep silent," Grenfeld snapped, "Dimakos is unfit to command, we have a duty to the Navy to consider."
Yet Mandas muttered, "Unfortunately there is no provision for us to remove Dimakos from his position. Only a medical ruling can declare him unfit."
"It won't matter," Elias sighed, "The Dimakos line is allied to the Lord Admiral, any question of his competence will be swept under the rug. His family will see to it that any doubts are quashed, no matter the truth. They won't let a little thing like sheer incompetence reflect badly on them."
"So we're stuck with a broken Admiral," Grenfeld muttered, "Serving under a man who could freeze up at any moment."
"Actually," Mandas mused, "There is one other person who could do it… the ship's Commissar can remove any officer from duty."
All eyes slid to Kaath-Dousmanis and he blinked in shock as he exclaimed, "Oh no, I'm not doing it."
Elias leaned in and said, "But you could…"
Kaath-Dousmanis collapsed inwards as he uttered, "I can't do it, I'm not the man for the job. I'm a joke."
"Deetor…" Mandas urged.
Yet the Commissar wasn't done and continued, "You think I don't know what the crew think of me, how they laugh behind my back? Soft, fat and lazy, that's what they say of me. Even my junior Commissars think they can run rings around me. Only my family name keeps them from reporting me to the Commissar-Generals but I know they think I'm useless. Everybody always did, even my own family. I'm a fifth son to a nephew of the household patriarch's wife, so far down the line of succession that nobody even noticed I was born. My brothers were bought good placements at the Naval academies and in the Priesthood, while my sisters married wealthy merchant traders. I was an afterthought; nobody gave me anything because nobody expected me to succeed. I was packed off to the Commissariat as a boy and told I'd spend my life sitting behind a desk, I wasn't even allowed to dream of glory. The Averof was meant to be a temporary assignment, before I was dumped in a corner and forgotten. I know you only keep me around because a real Commissar would make your life hell. Me, facing up to an Admiral… that is truly a joke."
Mandas was shocked by the revelation, he had no idea the Commissar knew everybody was laughing at him behind his back. No wonder he had sunk into apathy. Mandas left him to wallow in his misery and changed the subject, "So we can't remove Dimakos and we can't report him. We have no other option save to support him and that means we have to find a workaround."
"How?" Elias asked, "He's liable to freeze up at the drop of a pin."
Mandas declared boldly, "A good officer knows how to anticipate his superior's intent. I can be very good at 'anticipating' orders."
Elias looked doubtful as he said, "Covering for him in case he freezes again? The other Captains will know what you're up to."
"Which is why I need you to set an example," Mandas replied, "Any instructions coming from the Averof must be treated as if they came from the Rear-Admiral's mouth. If the Spartan complies the others will follow."
Grenfeld sighed, "Thankfully this is a milk-run: fly a few laps around Lesser Tectum and force some miners back to work, the Admiral may not even have to say a word. We can complete this mission without firing a shot and go home to fob off Dimakos onto someone else."
Suddenly the chamber's intercom bleated into life, making everyone jump as Mr Avergis called from the bridge, "Captain, please respond. We have a problem."
"Why did I have to open my sodding mouth," Grenfeld muttered as Mandas leapt out of his chair and hit the intercom button barking, "Captain here, what is it?"
Avergis' tinny voice came back, "Sir, we are on final approach to Lesser Tectum but we can't raise anyone, the vox is silent."
"A communication failure?" Mandas wondered aloud.
"No sir," Avergis said firmly, "We are being deliberately jammed."
"How do you know that?" Mandas queried in bewilderment.
"Because it's not just the vox," Avergis explained, "The Astropaths have started screaming, all of them across the flotilla. Every single one of them, all at once, I think they are going to die. We're completely cut off."
A thousand questions ran through the Captain's mind, implications swirling around him. Who could have done this and why, there was no way to tell. Yet one thing he knew for certain, he had to act fast and he yelled, "Sound general quarters, bring the ship to combat readiness. All hands to Battlestations!"
