Chương 63: Volume Two - Chapter One - Translation

[Vol 2 cover by Sebastian Jr - Commissions Open (@Sebastiann2810) on X]

"Warp translation in five minutes. All personnel, to your stations." Alexis had no business being on the bridge of this or any other warship, and yet here she was. Since she didn't belong, she was doing her level best not to catch anyone's eye. She had stashed K84-321, her almost-a-Castellax Class Battle Servitor in the corridor leading into the bridge, and CS-3-2/11 was hanging off the ceiling at the back, half-hidden in the shadows where she could overlook the room.

KYS was the only one of Alexis' servitor friends who was staying close, and even she was frozen on the spot like a coiled snake that had been spotted. The people on the bridge were still giving her a wide berth. She decided not to read too much into it. The bridge was a grand room, fifty or so metres long, with three floors built up in tiers. At the top was the platform where she stood.

The ship's throne overlooked the floors below, and behind it was a walkway around a massive auspex display, with walls of cogitator screens around it. The main bridge crew was stationed there, each one at their station and able to relay information back to the Lord Captain's seat. Below was the second part of the bridge crew. That entire tier had large cogitator banks and vox stations and small desks where auto-quills were scribbling out entire reams of information that was being looked over by teams of experts.

The ship's helm was there, at the end of the tier the same way the Lord Captain's throne was at the end of the uppermost tier. And finally, the lowest tier of the ship had the gun controls and other systems. The more complex but slower-moving parts. There was a gaggle of Tech Priests down there, waving incense burners and coaxing machines to function as best they could.

At the fore of that tier was the Master of Guns' station, where the ship's many weapons could be coordinated under the supervision of the Lord Captain. That was apparently where the last Lord Captain, Rogue Trader Solm Caduceus, had landed after The Broken Scale had made its jarring stop. The current, temporary, Lord Captain was in her throne. Clarice looked a little too small for the grand seat. A girl playing with her parent's things. It wasn't all bad.

Clarice had swept into the room with her retinue and quickly took command, establishing herself as capable. Unfortunately for Alexis, she was part of that retinue. When she agreed to join, she hadn't expected to be dragged around so much. She had things to do in her new workshop. It was only half-painted! Being here was probably more important, but it rankled her to be standing here with nothing to do.

"Warp translation in four minutes. All personnel, to your stations." Alexis looked over to the Vox Master, a wrinkly older gentleman with a complex array of vox-casters built around his head like a mantle. He wore long, stately robes that reached to the floor and were covered in dozens of old purity seals. It was strange hearing him from so close even as his voice was carried across the entire ship.

Stepping back, Alexis spun around and walked all the way across the upper tier of the bridge with a confidence she didn't feel. That was where she discovered the members of Clarice's retinue. Octavia was sitting on a smaller cogitator, legs swinging. She was playing with the end of a purity seal that was affixed to the shoulder pad of her armour. Next to her were two other Sisters of Battle, both standing at attention off to the side.

They were obviously here for Octavia, but their presence also meant that the Lord Captain was a little safer too. Alexis wasn't certain about everything involved in bridge politics, but having them here was somehow a point in Clarice's favour. Something about the austere women being a good representation of Clarice's faith in the God Emperor, and his favour upon her. The third member of the retinue would be able to explain it better. Vena was tucked in a corner. Literally.

She was sitting at a small, cleared desk not too far from the large auspex display. The desk was built for people of an average size. Vena's knees were bent up awkwardly to let her fit. Alexis moved over to her side and glanced at what she was doing.

"Working on something?" she asked.

"Warp translation in three minutes. All personnel, to your stations." Vena glanced up. She had a stack of dataslates on the desk, as well as a few scrolls and a pair of large tomes.

"Indeed," she said before touching one of the dataslates with long fingers.

"These are the notes copied from the former directors on the medicae deck."

"Ah," Alexis said. The warp cultists?

"Is that safe?"

"Moderately," Vena replied.

"Vyper has assured me that the cognitive hazards have been censored. I'm mostly working out the accounting of their little operation. It's giving me good hints as to who is responsible for what."

"Good?" Alexis asked. Vena's lips thinned. She touched a scroll. It had a list of names on it, with positions next to it.

"These seven, at the top. I'm going to order their immediate execution once we're out of the warp. It's the only way to be sure. The next twelve will be held on suspicion. There are interrogators on the ship, from the ecclesiarchy. They may be able to ensure that they're not tainted, but they are criminals. I don't know what will come of them. The next twenty are merely suspicious. I suspect that they didn't know what they were dealing with, or they were just assisting a higher-up as ordered."

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. Alexis winced. That was a mess.

"It gets worse," Vena said.

"Warp translation in two minutes. All personnel, to your stations. Reminder: as per the orders of Temporary Lord Captain Caduceus, all personnel must be seated and loose items must be anchored."

"Worse?" Alexis asked. She looked over to the side, where a bunch of seats were anchored to the ground. The few members of the crew that weren't sitting already moved over and buckled in. The Sisters of Battle moved to their seats reluctantly, but Octavia just grinned and moved her bolter up and onto her lap. Was she going to use its spatial-anchoring as an excuse?

Alexis noticed another Tech Priest, one of the Enginseers assigned to this tier, moving his mechadendrites around and clamping them to the ceiling and floor so that he was anchored without stopping his work. She did the same and returned her attention to Vena.

"Worse," Vena agreed.

"This cult has been on The Broken Scale for at least a decade. In that time, we visited... eight planets and three stations. The medicae were called to act seven times, not including smaller operations." She rubbed her eyes.

"Back-tracing the potential vectors of corruption will be the work of months. I'm compiling a report to hand over to, hopefully, the Inquisition."

"R-really?" Alexis asked. Vena's reply came in something like a whisper.

"Yes. I fear them as much as you, but we need to warn people, and they're the best means to do so."

"I guess so," Alexis said. This felt a lot like a lowly menial discovering that a mistake had to be reported directly to a magos, and they were the one that was going to have to deliver that report in person. It was terrifying, but she could understand the need.

"Hopefully, Chrysis will be a decent world from which to work," Vena said.

"We're here to restock, repair, and maybe ply our trade so that Clarice can establish herself as a decent Trader." Alexis nodded. She knew what was in store for them here.

"Warp translation imminent! All personnel, brace!" Alexis did just that, bracing herself while turning to look ahead. Clarice was trying to look calm upon the Lord Captain's throne, but Alexis could see how white her knuckles were. There was a last-minute surge of activity across the bridge, then a strange calm.

"This is the Lord Captain speaking," Clarice said, her voice amplified across the bridge.

"Transition to realspace." Someone tripped a breaker, and then the whole world went uncomfortably fuzzy. Alexis had been through several transitions, and none of them were the same except that they were all horrible. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to think of the Omnissiah, his grace and benediction, the certainty of the machine that would pull them through.

"Translation... successful." Alexis blinked, then glanced around. Other than one man who was puking into a bucket one tier down, and an astropath having a seizure, the damage seemed almost... missing?

"All stations, report," Clarice ordered.

"Helm, confirming translation, Lord Captain," came a booming voice from below.

"Stable. Nothing on the short-range auspex. We're sailing smooth." The next voice came over the Vox.

"Astropathic choir. No major losses. No significant psychic communications. Though we're detecting a large gathering of presences that match an active hive world."

"Good," Clarice said.

"Navigation?" Another reply over the vox.

"Navigation. Translation was nominal. The warp was exceptionally calm. We are within the system's Mandeville Point. Estimated four days to Chrysis."

"Sensors?" Clarice asked next.

"Auspex. Nothing on the near sensors. Long-range auspex reveals some traffic around Chrysis. Nothing specific yet." Clarice nodded.

"Let's not poke anyone just yet. Passive scanning only for now. Gunnery, shields? Engineering?" More reports came in, a dozen or so from as many stations on the bridge. Overall, it looked like things were nearly untouched by the translation. Not that that was bad. Most of the time, that was normal, even, but with the number of things that had happened over the last few days, Alexis was expecting trouble.

She jumped when the large steel plates covering the windows shivered, then slowly rose, filling the bridge with the light of a real sun for the first time in weeks. Squinting, she looked for Chrysis, but didn't see anything, only a sea of stars and some distant nebulae. The auspex display nearby was a little more illuminating, showing a small sphere of a planet, way off in the distance.

Chrysis was a dirty little ball of a planet, with heavy clouds over six different shades of brown, with just a few tiny specks of green near the poles. She supposed it was nice enough. Hopefully, once they made it there, they'd find it a calm and welcoming world.