by Kelne » Sun Apr 17, 2011 6:02 am
((Apologies for the lengthy delay. I'll strive to have more timely updates in future.))
A lack of astropaths aboard Glory reduced Rajender's worries in one respect. Where there were no astropaths, there was no chance of their corruption. While all ships traversing the Maw of necessity had a navigator aboard, astropaths were optional, and as such were not always found on smaller ships, or those lacking a well-connected master. The single aged navigator likewise remained free of corruption, though he cut a less than imposing figure, lacking the servants and colleagues to be found aboard Satisfaction. He claimed the lineage of House Cierl, not one which any among the crew were familiar with, and his loyalty was purportedly to the Glory, an arrangement which meant he was unlikely to challenge whoever sat atop the Captain's throne.
That worthy was one Avram Bair, formerly in command of the torpedo platform and selected as a man both capable and hopefully unlikely to incur their new master's wrath. Scuttlebutt as reported by Dauphin's agents was that he was ex-navy, and not a native of Glory. As one of the outcasts' number, Bair would not incur the veiled hostility of an appointed outsider, while his lack of ties to the old captain gave him a certain freedom to make changes. Bair was, moreover, popular with the crew for having stood up to that fething lunatic commander who'd nearly gotten them all killed. Which wasn't to say he'd have an easy time of it. Inevitably, the influx of officers and crew from Satisfaction would displace people used to being at the top of the heap.
Vipsanius' subordinates, by contrast, were not so much integrating into the command structure as they were replacing it wholesale. The Mechanicus, it seemed, had not survived the original mutiny, leaving laymen to keep Glory functioning. It was a testament to the ship's holy mechanisms that they had not seized up down through the years. Given proper training and time, some among the technicians might well prove worthy of induction into the mysteries of the Omnissiah. For now, they would be observed at their duties while the true tech-adepts went about correcting the effects of decades of ignorance and ineptitude. Magos Scauth, as senior adept, was simultaneously scathing in her criticism of the existing state of affairs and optimistic that the bones of the ship were solid and matters could be set right. As a born perfectionist, it might be years before Scauth pronounced herself satisfied, but Glory's mechanisms would be in good hands in the interim.
During the two days spent waiting for the roiling warp to subside, a substantial transfer of crew took place, both steady officers and enlisted personnel, no doubt liberally sprinkled with adherents of the death cult, though of course Rajender was given no names as to who these individuals might be. Whether the cult would ultimately take root aboard Glory was an open question, but for now, Rajender had suitably loyal and ruthless agents aboard.
An astropathic dispatch to Port Wander was acknowledged in short order. A repair barge would be dispatched under escort by two destroyers of Battlefleet Calixis. Depending on what the Fleet found, there might well be consequences to Traveler's owners for wasting His Navy's Most Valuable Time by braving the Koronus Passage unprepared. If the transport could not be fixed, it was unlikely the pilgrims would reach Footfall. The navy was not in the business of charity, and few would be able to pay for passage a second time.
Satisfaction and Glory made the warp transit early in alpha shift of the third day, the smaller ship settling into the light cruiser's wake. Aside from a single night of unsettling dreams of something large and unnatural gliding alongside the ship, which in turn stirred up certain flighty members of the crew, the transit was uneventful, culminating in a brief drop into real space well outside the Furibundus system to check bearings and make whatever esoteric peparations the navigators deemed necessary for their voyage to the pulsar designated Magoros. Now clear of the Maw, the crew's mood lifted somewhat. Although no warp transit was routine or pleasant, the worst was surely behind them. Glory remained in formation, and according to the navigators, they would surely notice and be able to track her were she to fall away.
Some two weeks after departing the Battleground, the two ships dropped out of the warp some ten AUs from Magoros. From the bridge, the explorers observed as their crew undertook an augur survey of the system. This was interrupted around ten minutes in by a sleet of radiation, which thoroughly degraded augur returns and caused the void shields to flare with shed energy. An unshielded hull might block out the pulsar's deadly radiation, but it would be best not to put that to the test. At any rate, both ships had weathered the burst well enough, and another hundred odd minutes should pass before the next struck. Time enough for a decent augur return.
With time, three worlds revealed themselves to the augurs. Closest to Magoros was a blasted, tidally locked cinder of a world, most likely scoured clean of all life by the sleeting radiation. Further out, in what might charitably be termed the habitable zone, hung a globe of dust grey. Against all odds, augurs registered an oxygen-nitrogen spectral return, suggesting the presence of at least some life. Orbiting further out again was a world with an atmosphere more fluid than gaseous, frozen well beyond human tolerances, but still within the limits of the ship's void suits. Finally, encircling the system well beyond Satisfaction's orbit, drifted chunks of ice and rock, forming a vast dispersed halo of material.
These were the points of interest in the Magoros system, any one of which might be the final resting place of the Righteous Path.