The only good thing that can be said about today is that we found the Cranach system. As for the rest… Once telemetry had confirmed our position, we hailed Kiava Gamma, in the hypothesis that some loyal forces might still remain there and be in control of a few systems. No one answered; the Astropathic choir then tried to get in touch with Governor Gaprak's own, unsuccessfully. Just as we were about to resolve ourselves to go in blind, however, Vox Master Vigdis reported Kiava Gamma was sending a request to exchange data, and asked whether we should accept it. This is not an uncommon protocol, particularly when a situation is unstable: binharic is a much denser language than Gothic, and many tactical informations can be relayed in a single burst of data. It is also, from my understanding, harder to hijack than a vox communication. Her Ladyship, therefore, accepted. There was to be over fifteen minutes of delay, due to our great distance from from the planet, and while we waited both excitement and curiosity were palpable on the bridge. If some faction had escaped the fate of the techpriest of that Mechanicus ship, their tactical analysis would be invaluable indeed! Only Magos Pasqal was — not uneasy, but more wary than hopeful. He privately asked Her Ladyship to cut her memory implant from the ship's noosphere, as a measure of precaution. She complied and asked that us of her retinue similarly equipped, as well as key superior officers, do so, too. A good many others, however, had to remain linked to decode the data when it arrived: several enginseers, who would translate the binharic parts into plain gothic, but also all those whose mind was used to consider the Emperor's Mercy a natural extension of their native senses and body. Cables were ritualistically joined to cogitators. A team of decryption experts and analysts took its place at our side by the hololithic display.

The data transfer began silently at first, and nothing happened until suddenly, a deafening screech erupted from the bridge's vox-system. Violent tirades of garbled binharic code, like low chuckles of machinery, poured around us. Lumens went out. Shouts from the sentries: the blast doors had fallen shut. Vox Master Vigdis fell to her knees, eyes revulsed, teeth chattering; it all went so fast! In a desperate move that appeared to cause her great pain, the Vox Master tore away several of the data-tethers that link into her brain and stuttered that interference had been detected in the compartment's vox system; the bridge was cut off from the rest of the voidship.

'Keep deciphering,' ordered Her Ladyship. 'At all costs. We must understand what's going on.'

Then, mayhem erupted. The Vox Master wasn't the only one affected by whatever had stricken her; a madness seized the bridge crew. In the dim glow of candles and emergency lights from errand servo-skulls, one of the vox-clerics, who had been writing something on a piece of parchment, burst in maniacal laughter and stabbed herself in the eye with her steel quill. Another screamed — a tech-priest, mid-prayer, tore himself to pieces with his own mechadendrites. An enforcer shoved a rabid servitor away from the lord-captain. Lunatics, in growing numbers, began not only mutilating themselves, but others too. It spread like a blight, some resisting, some failing; some cried out to the Emperor and tried to slit their own throats while others silently took out their weapons and aimed at the sane. I was reminded of what those Footfall refugees had said, of the madness that had more than decimated their crew — and the lord-captain must have, too, because she drew her laspistol and, taking aim, began to methodically exterminate any who showed signs of madness. She relayed short orders to us through our comm-beads: forbidding Sister Argenta to fire her bolter and enlisting Mistress Heydari and Mistress Lanaevyss's help thanks to their less destructive weapons, ordering van Calox and I to lay low and out of the line of fire. For a few minutes or so, the bridge was nothing but flashes and explosions. When the sounds of the massacre died down, the lunatics had been destroyed, as well as some of the sacred cogitators, oculi, and consoles.

The Vox Master herded her surviving enginseers and voidborns to the remaining consoles. Dutiful to the extreme, they let not the surrounding carnage sway they dedication and immediately went back to work. One of the enginseers, however, turned to Her Ladyship and informed her we had been attacked by scrap-code. Magos Pasqal enlightened us more, explaining it was a tech-heresy designed to corrupt machines.

'The transmission received from the planet was infected with this taint,' further said the enginseer. 'It it now running through the ship's veins. Omnissiah preserve us!' Making the sign of the cog, he saluted in a hurry and ran back to his station.

'Pasqal?'

I keep forgetting the Magos is our prime enginseer! He fights too well for one. 'Whatever tech-heresy is despoiling our systems,' he explained in that unnerving calm of his kind, 'a backup procedure can circumvent the vox-barrier. In the atrium leading to the bridge, a terminal for an isolated system has been precise…'

Before he could finish, however, there was a loud pop and the pipes over our heads burst (probably the result of a stray lasbolt which is why I, like most Navy officers, favour melee weapons over ranged ones). A blast of hot air slammed us down, like a harvest under the storm; a catastrophic cascade of explosions rang against our ears. Mistress Heydari swore, and a junior attendant shouted the most fearsome word, perhaps, aboard a voidship: 'Gas! Gas on the bridge!' If any doubt remained, the corresponding alarm began blaring.

Her Ladyship scrambled up and immediately doubled over, coughing. It would take more to cast her down, though, and, hands on her thighs to prop herself upright, she shouted: 'Evacuate immediately. All hands! Evacuate the bridge! Abelard, Heinrix! Bring those doors down!'

While I do find heartwarming Her Ladyship's faith in my ability to tear through voidship blast doors, rated for hard vacuum and radioactive warheads, with only my power hammer and the strength of my convictions, I must confess that I made use instead of the plasma cutters stored by the doors precisely for that contingency. For many long minutes, van Calox and I worked to cut through the armoured plasteel. Survivors trickled around us; in the engulfing darkness, the only light came from our cutters and the white-hot edges they created. A poisonous mist impeded our vision; Sister Argenta had found a stash of medi-kits and, together with Mistress Heydari, worked to rig crude masks from dressings and nasal oxygen cannulae. The crew wasn't too proud to accept the help of an eldar and Mistress Lanaevyss made the rounds to distribute the results of our friends' labour. From the corner of my eyes, her tall silhouette faded and reappeared in the boiling clouds that filled the bridge as she walked, disdainful as ever, among us mon-keigh.

Finally, I was able to kick in a door panel; before the edges had even cooled, Mistress Heydari rushed through and manoeuvred open the other half of the air-lock separating us from the next module of the ship. Despite the earlier bloodbath, there was enough panicked survivors that we were all needed to shepherd them to safety. To my great shame, I wasn't the one to notice Her Ladyship was missing. The unhappiness of the discovery laid on van Calox. I thought she'd be at the back, pushing people forward, but when the end of the line reached the air-lock… no lord-captain in sight. I grabbed one of the survivors, asking, and she told me with wide eyes that Her Ladyship had been rounding up the crew on the lower part of the bridge. She coughed a few drops of blood as she spoke and my heart nearly stopped: gas concentration was bound to be higher down there, and up here we could barely breathe! Meanwhile, van Calox had rediscovered the use of his comm-bead (which he wears all the time now, and which did come in handy as it doesn't rely on ship network, unlike my own vox-box).

'Katov,' he called. 'Come in. Where are you?' Silence, and more silence, but his concentration told me he was listening. 'You need to leave, now.' With a shocked expression, he tried to voice another response but the channel must have been shut by Her Ladyship, because he looked at me, bewildered, and said: 'She told me to fuck off.'

'Coming from the lord-captain, that's an order, young man,' I said. 'Let's fall back to the other door and keep it closed. You go on the other side and fuck off making yourself useful to Sister Argenta or the Magos. I'll wait for Her Ladyship here and be her doorman once she's done.'

It was a lonely and worrying lookout, I won't lie. The airlock opened once; Sister Argenta gave me an auto-injector loaded with some anti-toxin that helped my breathing, as well as a rebreather. She must have found some more complete medi-kits. Odd lights — flashes of electric arcs — sometimes shone through the dark, only reinforcing the oppressive sensation that the void itself, somehow, had taken over the ship. A ridiculous notion. A group of three stumbled together to me, having found their way by following the railings: the lord-captain had pulled them from a utility closet below. Time stretched as I feared for Her Ladyship's life, but searching for her blindly would have been more than useless. If — Emperor forbid — she died, her First Officer would be needed. Waiting for her at the edge of lethal danger was the very most I could do. Van Calox had left me his comm-bead, but all channels were off. Her Ladyship takes a stern approach to distractions in moments of emergency. And to whom would the Warrant of Trade pass? No, the Emperor couldn't allow the von Valancius line to come to an end, I reasoned with myself.

At last, my soul leaped with joy when I heard footsteps — and saw the hovering light of a servo-skull slaved to Her Ladyship's position! In its cone of light, rendered blinding by twirling vapours, the lord-captain came along, half-carrying Helmsman Ravor, whose leg was bloody and bent. His arm she had flung over her shoulder and I could hear Ravor's never-ending complaints, that he had augmetic lungs, that he'd been fine, that the lord-captain would have been better occupied doing anything else… I palmed the door open and rushed to them, helping her over those last meters. Ravor, the old fool, had been stuck under a length of pipe, he explained — Her Ladyship never relaxed her gritted teeth. Once we were past the airlock, as the door shut again with a hiss and I gave the order to vent the deck into open void before corrosion set in, Her Ladyship took a few steps in the Atrium, steadying herself along the art displays. She looked around without seeing the wounded and sick Sister Argenta was triaging, and opened her lips to speak. Nothing but a pink froth came from her mouth; she collapsed, pale as death, thick beads of sweat on her brow, gasping for air. She coughed, sending splashes of crimson on her clothes, on the carpet — on van Calox as he propped her upright and she shook her head, rivulets of blood staining her cheeks. I called for Sister Argenta — for the Magos to find a way to call the medicae — for a medi-kit, for anything. Sister Argenta planted an auto-injector through Her Ladyship's uniform; the air suddenly cooled to near freezing temperatures as Master van Calox called to his powers. Someone affixed a rebreather, linked to an oxygen tank, on Her Ladyship's face; her fingers, that had gone blue, regained some colour. Fighting back to consciousness, she struggled with half-closed eyes, trying to get the mask off her face, but I held it there until it became obvious that she needed to cough out the muck filling her airways. Which she did, bent, half-vomiting red froth over, well, everything.

'Fuck', she croaked in a low voice. 'Situation report.'

Two junior officers — scared out of their wits — gave it to her. Intermodule comms were slowly going back online under Magos Pasqal's and the Vox Master's efforts. The Sanctum Navis, thankfully, appeared to be unscathed, although cut off too from the ship; dear Lady Cassia! She had taken bravely the news, it seemed, and encouraged her people to wait out patiently for help. Losses, from what could be gathered, were close to devastating. Weapon systems were off-line, we were adrift (although at minimal speed, as per translation protocols, and therefore couldn't possibly hit anything)… the situation was dire, and would have been so even had we not been in a system housing a planet clearly overrun by heretics.

Little by little, we were surrounded by those survivors who could stand and weren't otherwise occupied. Their eyes were full of terror — shoulders slumped, uniforms filthy with blood — a crew about to break. The lord-captain put the rebreather against her face and took several deep breaths before putting it down. Master van Calox helped her sit in a more or less dignified position, one arm around her shoulders, propping her upright. The other she grabbed and held onto as if her life depended on it, and perhaps it did: frost was forming on the carpet from van Calox's continued healing efforts. There was no mistaking the deep concern of van Calox's expression: he had eyes only for the lord-captain. She, meanwhile, struggled to collect herself and find words to address the crew.

'It's bad,' she said. 'You know it. There's no hiding it from you, because you're good. Good at what you do.' They all looked down to her — her stern face, frowning with the effort speaking required. 'Which is why we'll pull through this. I'll be in the medbay for some time, but the ship's in good hands. The Emperor's Mercy is a tough old girl and her crew's a tough bunch. Resourceful, too.' She spat some blood again and, before putting the mask back on, said: 'A true Rogue Trader's crew.'

The lord-captain spoke in that manner for some time, alternating between the rebreather and short sentences, stoking a rising hope in the bridge survivor's souls. Seeing her — who had well and truly risked her life to get them all out — assure them of her absolute trust in their abilities did something to them. To me, as well: I have seldom seen such commitment to a crew. The late Lady Theodora, I think, would have been the first out of the bridge in order to safeguard the dynasty — which would have been the rational decision. For all of Lady Katov's strange ways, I could see all those present would walk through fire for her, and while that kind of display of faith could have been calculated to ensure the crew's loyalty… I don't think it was. She understood they needed to be whipped back in shape, true, but her concern and her words felt truly genuine. She spoke of human tenacity and ingenuity — of the value of each singular member of the crew. But she tired; soon, the blue tint was back on her lips, and she was forced to finish. 'For house von Valancius,' she said. 'For the Emperor.'

It was all the assistance was waiting for. They took up the cry with enough force to get the crystal candelabras to shake and went back to finding ways to get busy and help. They walked with a purpose, now; they weren't just survivors — they were victors. Her Ladyship let herself go in Master van Calox's arms, her head lolling against his shoulder, the rebreather mask unable to give her enough oxygen. Muscles along her neck pulled, cordlike, trying to get more air in, but it just wasn't enough. Mistress Heydari caressed her hair, tried to keep her awake. The blood on her face was drying in flakes. Her eyes were shut. She needed the medicae.

The medicae arrived, at last, accompanied by serfs with plasma-cutters. I was surprised to see the head chirurgeon with them, but had no time to voice anything before they set up an antigrav stretcher and, laying Her Ladyship down on it, set to work. The head medicae pulled a small scythe-like device and slid it down Her Ladyship's throat, pulling her jaw up, before shoving down a tube that immediately filled with pink froth. An assistant healer pinned down her hands and knees, because she thrashed against what was done to her; van Calox, without a word, pushed him away and held Her Ladyship more gently. Patches were glued to her brow, hands and ankles; cables linked her to a monitoring servo-skull.

'Can't you sedate her,' I asked, desperate before her suffering.

'Later,' they said.

Another servo-skull, holding a pump-like device that carried many purity seals, was brought by. Pipes were connected and great quantities of clear liquid were sent, swiftly, down the lord-captain's trachea to fill her lungs, while the tube was tied around her face by a length of thick ribbon. Her Ladyship convulsed in silent cough and went limp, either from shock or from relief, there was no saying. Minutes went by — five, ten, fifteen — during which intravenous lines were placed and drugs injected, and the medicae's expression remained grim. By then, the lord-captain still hovered in and out of insensibility, and was therefore spared to hear the medicae discuss against moving her to the hospital suite. Still too unstable, they said, and it's true her skin was now marked with dark, irregular splotches. After some more discussion, the head chirurgeon grabbed scissors and tore Her Ladyship's uniform away at the throat and at the hip and then, after some reflection, along the full length of it. A minion lathered counter-septics over Her Ladyship's skin; their potent smell filled up the Atrium and, realising what was to come, I ordered everyone to back off. Onlookers went back to work. Only Mistress Heydari and Master van Calox (him having been chased away from her side by a zealous medicae) stayed with me. I can't pronounce myself as to their state of mind, but mine was definitely greatly agitated. Yet, it was my duty to bear witness to Her Ladyship's treatment; the rest of the bridge crew, as she had aptly said, could take care of themselves for a little while.

The head chirurgeon had put on those sterile gowns and gloves they use; her face, behind the mask, was unreadable. Before anything else was done, she took an oath of moment, writing it down with a sterile quill on similar paper. The head medicae gravely received the oath in the name of the Emperor and the prayer slip was affixed to a servo-skull that then lit up, pouring a bright light over the sterile field.

A large, long, needle went into Her Ladyship's groin; black blood trickled from it and she moved ever so slightly. At the chirurgeon's request, a drug was pushed in her system, and Her Ladyship was at last fully sedated.

'How fracking inconvenient when they move,' she grumbled to herself, and proceeded to thread a wire through the needle. Then, removed the needle, leaving the wire in place — I was transfixed, the wire was so long, I couldn't look away, although it felt too intimate, sacred, maybe — and jammed a larger one along the wire and into Her Ladyship's body. When she removed it, the trickle of blood became a flow, and then she pushed another still thicker dilator, and another, working swiftly. At last, a large — thick as my thumb, at least — clear cannula went in Her Ladyship's veins, for over twenty, maybe thirty, centimetres or more. Her dark blood replaced the clear fluid and the cannula was sewed on her skin with a black thread that I could have used for buttons.

'She's moving again,' complained the chirurgeon. 'Just knock her down, will you? I'm trying not to bleed her here, if that's all right with you arseholes.'

An assistant turned Her Ladyship's head to the side, exposing her stretched neck, and the same procedure repeated itself in her jugular vein. It was no easier to witness, as her face was getting hard to recognise for all of the tubes, and the ribbon that dug at the crease of her lips, and without the fire that lights up her expression at all times. I winced when some of her blood dripped below the stretcher. Mistress Heydari clutched my arm with enough force to leave bruises behind.

The second cannula was pushed through the lord-captain's neck, and both were connected to a set of clear tubes leading to a pump — a bulky affair, made of an assembly of several parts of gleaming steel. Whirring to life, the machine spirit within got the lord-captain's blood moving; it advanced in dark red swirls, almost black, and filled a square filter inscribed with the blessing of the Imperial Aquila. The head chirurgeon administrated a ritual of percussive maintenance to hasten it through, and when Her Ladyship's blood came out of the other side, it was a bright, arterial red. Master van Calox had covered his mouth with his gloved hand and let out a sigh of relief when, soon, healthy, clean, blood came back to the lord-captain's motionless body.

Dressings were put over the cannulae. An enginseer stood over a portable console connected to the pump, tinkering with it. It took, it felt, a long time before the head medicae declared himself satisfied and Her Ladyship stable enough to be moved to the medical deck. Her colouration had improved, and they covered her half-naked body with a sheet. As the drugs appeared to lift, she half-opened her eyes, sightless; her hand moved slowly, aimless; she seemed to bite the tube in her mouth, unless she was attempting to speak. The medicae got busy untangling cables and fluid lines — ready to take her away.

'One of us should accompany her,' said van Calox. 'I… it would be unseemly for the Rogue Trader to be deserted by her people in her hour of need.'

The man, it bears writing, looked haunted. Deep down, I agreed with him, but I wondered aloud if the medicae would allow it; they are notoriously stringent about visits, and one has to be the lord-captain to barge in and stay there. Mistress Heydari shrugged in a flurry of silk; with a hard look in her eye, she said no one, so far, had kept her outside a room she wanted to be in.

'Will you go, then, all watch over her for us all?' Now van Calox's voice was strangled; my old suspicions were renewed, stronger than ever, but there is a time and a place for confrontation, and this wasn't it.

'I shall,' agreed Mistress Heydari, and she looked at me. 'I am more than useless here, Seneschal of my heart, sun of the bridge, or what is left of it, and the Anointed One considers care to the sick a great virtue. As for myself, I consider friends deserve taking care of, wouldn't you agree? Particularly one so upright and praise-worthy as our revered Lady Katov, who certainly didn't have to stay behind for stragglers.'

'Go, then, Mistress,' I agreed. In the characteristic pattern of people giving her a hand and then allowing her to take their whole arm instead, Mistress Heydari turned to van Calox and said, curtly:

'Let's go, Master Interrogator.'

'But,' I said.

'No buts,' she said. 'There's no door that needs taking down and I hate being alone. Come on, Master van Calox, we need to hurry.'

And, just like that, they were gone, leaving me to deal with a few scores of shaken officers, a scrap-code infestation that kept all of the Magos and the Vox Master's attention, and wounded who were being salty at getting taken care of by an eldar because the Sister of Battle was arguing with a stray medicae who was hoarding medi-kits. I noticed the same servo-skull that had accompanied Her Ladyship on her search for survivors still followed the gurney; someone probably ought to send it somewhere else before the chirurgeon had a fit about germs. Everyone in the Atrium lined up in a spontaneous guard of honour and saluted when the lord-captain's gurney passed them by.

Getting a whole voidship to turn off their implants and cut off their link to the noosphere is, well, impossible. In the two days since my last entry, we've had more people going mad from scrap-code on the loose — and needing taking down — that my worst fears would have allowed. Enforcers have been busy in the middle and lower decks. The stench of blood is everywhere.

Her Ladyship, I am glad to report, fully awoke today at noon, and I could visit her during the afternoon. A great surprise was to find Helmsman Ravor, broken leg fixed, moping by the door of Her Ladyship's room. There cannot be a man alive who is such a sour puss of a misanthropist, and yet he asked me to convey his most humble gratitude to Her Ladyship, as well as his apologies for, as he put it, 'complaining the whole time she was saving my neck.' Which I did, before sending him back to the secondary helm he should never have left even if we are, at present, dead at void.

That dreadful blood-purifying machine has been removed, but Her Ladyship still has that tube down her throat and it appears to be dreadful. She therefore cannot talk yet; when I dropped by, she tried to communicate by signs and failed to do so. Mistress Heydari meant to act as an interpreter, but her attempts were poorly received — or so I thought, until I noticed those alarms beeped because Her Ladyship was trying not to laugh. My status report, unfortunately, sobered her up. Master van Calox — who, the medicae said, probably saved her, stabilising her enough that they could reach her before the terrenic acid vapours she had inhaled could finish melting her lung — fetched her a data-slate and a stylus. Mustering what seemed to be a great deal of her energy, she scribbled NO HERETIC BATTLESHIP?

'None, lord-captain,' I was happy to reply. 'We won't be sitting waterfowl under enemy fire.'

YOU WON'T NEED A TEASPOON THEN

'Lord-captain?'

Van Calox cleared his throat before saying that Her Ladyship was still under significant amounts of painkillers, and elegantly took the stylus and data-slate from her. 'The head medicae,' he told her as well as me, 'insisted that the Rogue Trader needs to rest for now.'

The lord-captain pointed to herself, then to the door, and then, with her fingers, mimed the motion of walking away.

'No, shereen,' cooed Mistress Heydari, 'we cannot go dancing just yet.'

Her Ladyship gave her a rude gesture and closed her eyes.

So, all in all, she is rather well, and it truly is the most important thing. The medicae do work wonders! I was very much relieved to see for myself her spirit, even, is going back, and I hope that tomorrow or the day after she will be fit to join us again on the bridge, where repairs are going on night and day. The emergency crew has already finished replacing the pipes, although the technomats have barely started setting up new cogitators and consoles. And we have no vox-casters. Magos Pasqal tells me that, in a surprising blessing of the Omnissiah, the ancient and hallowed machine spirits of the Emperor's Mercy appear to be fighting back the scrap-code on their own, which should certainly cut back on the time separating us from a renewed capacity to translate into the Warp. In any case, I shall have Her Ladyship's orderlies prepare her room — add an oxygen tank, maybe, and ready some light reading for when she gets inevitably bored but too tired to move. With her approval, once her mind is clear of the healers' drugs, I'll send a shuttle to recon over Kiava Gamma. Visual only, of course, as it would be unwise to risk another scrap-code infection; I don't think the Emperor's Mercy shall reach orbit before two weeks anyway.