The suit that the sartorial staff outfitted Alcander in would have paid the salary of a senior Castellion for a year. Impeccably fitted with last minute micro tailoring, it fit the probator like nothing else he had ever owned. It was woven of cerise wormsilk in a shade of green so dark it bordered on black, herring boned with shade the differed so little from the first that it was almost impossible to distinguish with the naked eye. The effect was to give the fabric a slightly rougher look than it's silky smooth texture, the faintest hint of armor and martial prowess. It hung open with an abbreviated cut designed to showcase the shirt of Ilmarvian cotton, bleached until the white bordered on the eye searing before being treated with a very faint golden stain that made it seem to shimmer metallically to the eye. A cummerbund of cloth of gold was provided woven through with green silk thread in an intricate pattern of interconnected knots that curved and looped in an attractive asymmetry. The boots were similarly grand, tigh high black leather with golden buckles worked with the crossed shield heraldry of Navare.
He was ushered by liveried servants into the grandest dining room he had ever seen. The starlight dining room was well named for the ceiling was entirely open to the void save for a shield of armorcrys that was only visible when starlight impinged at just the right angle to make it glitter. This dazzling effect fell to waist height where the walls were replaced with crenelations of sculpted ceramite wrought to resemble the battlements of some ancient tower, complete with torches thrust through sconces. The smoke from the torches left blackish imperfections on the armorcrys as though the flames were somehow casting a shadow. A vast table, thirty feet long on a side, sat on a raised diaz, flanked by great high backed chair with red and cream party colored upholstery. Each placed had been meticulously set with an elaborate service of silver utensils and place cards had been set out. Jonas Horvath - Master of Ordinance, Lyza Keppler - Helmsman, Borgan O'Rouque, Master of Soldiers, at first Alcander thought that he had been summoned early but as his eyes fell on Camilla. She was resplendent in a black and gold tunic with a scarlet cloak and sandals with laces so elaborate they reached her knees. She sat not at the head of the table, but beside it. The card read Orthelleo Balthazar Belchite - Master and Commander.
The sparsely attended dinner represented all that survived of the bridge crew of the Navarre. Camilla stood with her glass and turned to look out into the starfield. Beyond the armorcys were distant flashes of fire. Every few seconds another blossomed bright against the infinite darkness of space.
“What aer thoose?” Alcander asked, straining to make out the objects before they burst into flame.
“Mutineers,” Camilla said, a slight queasiness in her voice despite her best efforts.
“Yer bernin' them?” Alcander asked. He didn’t sound judgemental, only curious, no one could work as long as he had in the Imperial legal system and be squeamish about such things. Camilla sighed as another flash lit the darkness.
“They are going out the airlocks, asphyxia will have killed them long before fire. As they clear the ship's mass shadow the sunlight lights them up,” she explained.
“How meny?” Alcander asked.
“Almost a thousand,” Camilla admitted, “Mostly senior officers in the combat arms.”
“How'd ye noo they aer gelty? Ye couldae asked me to setup trebunals,” Alcander asked, this time a little steel in his voice. Camilla smiled tightly. He believed in justice as much as any man in the Imperial Arbites. Camilla made a sour face and tilted her head towards the astropath.
“We used readers, I had to be sure,” Camilla explained. Two of the junior astropaths had died of their exertions in the gruelling purge. The guilty had been put to hard labor, cleaning the bridge of the tacky sheen of blood and vicera left by the attempted coup. When that labor was complete, they were one by one put out airlocks.
“Assumin' ye can trust the astropaths, o'course,” Alcander pointed out.
“If you cant trust a psyker who can cast their mind out across the warp who can you trust?” Camilla replied, swirling her wine around in her goblet before swallowing it down with an obvious effort. In truth the services of the guild astropathicus were so apolitical that they were as close to reliable as anybody could be. Had Yvraine’s coup succeeded there was no doubt the astropaths would have served her just as loyally. There was a burst of color, a flare rather than another combusting body. There was a sudden mechanical clanking sound as far above them a shield began to clank into place, slowly occluding the starfield beyond.
“Ah notice yer navigator isnae in attendance,” Alcander posited suddenly guarded.
“Xavros, is attending his duties,” Camilla replied, unable to keep a slight guilty undertone from her voice that the probator did not fail to pick up on.
“Ye sed ye would teke me back!” Alcander objected, turning angrily and then realising he was on a void ship, the control of which could not effect. Camilla grinned slightly, seeming like her old self.
“Actually you said that,” Camilla corrected, “I just didn’t correct you.”
“So, yer abducting me? Is tha' the whoole of et?” he demanded. The void shield had cranked almost halfway closed now, closing down as the Navarre boosted out of orbit towards the ecliptic. The bright spots of the planets vanishing towards the empty void.
“I am conscripting you,” she announced, standing up straighter. She turned back to the table where a liveried crew member was laying a place card for Alcander. It read ‘Seneshal’ in bright golden letters.
“Congratulations, please do not resist.”
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