Voyage

Chapter 5

"Sir!" said the Armsmen Squad Leader on duty at the Barracks, saluting Al and briskly coming to attention as Al breezed in. The other Armsmen in the squad followed suit and came to attention also. In addition to the Armsmen's quarters the Barracks contained the small arms armoury and the security node Deveral plugged himself into to join with the Dolphins Voyage when required, so always had a security detail.
    "At ease," said Al, "I'm trying to find the Sergeant-at-Arms."
    "He should be on the Command Deck to meet the other command staff, Sir," answered the Squad Leader without hesitation.
    "He's not arrived yet, and the Armsmen at the Psyker Chambers haven't seen him." The two Psyker Chambers, the one containing the ship's sole Navigator, and the one containing the Astropaths for communication, were both on the Command Deck a short distance from the Bridge and were considered critical, so had a security detail dedicated to them. Other areas with dedicated security were crucial parts of the Engineering Deck such as the Reactor Room.
    "In the event he was delayed he would have proceeded to inspect the teams." said the Squad Leader, who hesitated with uncertainty.
    "Which, as I just said, he hasn't." said Al bluntly. It wasn't like Deveral to late, anywhere, ever. He was usually early to the point of making the other Officers feel uneasy at the awkward silence while they waited for meetings to start. "Put out a ship-wide call for him. Now," commanded Al.     With military-drilled speed one of the Armsmen sat beside a cogitator that operated the ship's internal Vox radio network and broadcasted the request for Deveral to attend the Barracks.
Al waited patiently for a reply. Al was tempted to pace as he did so given how rare it was for any crew, never mind Deveral, to be late for shift, or to not respond to summons. Al didn't pace to maintain an air of normality, he could see the fleeting looks being exchanged by the Armsmen, who were no doubt also aware of the significance of the situation.
No one replied to inform Al that they had seen Deveral, nor did Deveral respond. Al waited for as long as he thought it would take a Stubborn Deveral to nonchalantly walk the length of the ship to meet him, assuming Deveral's own Vox earpiece was broken and he had refused to pass a message via another crewman to avoid rumours, or if he was behaving even more out of character and not responding at all to the chain of command simply to infuriate his First Mate.
Deveral didn't arrive. It was peculiar but Al wasn't unduly concerned yet, he did swear at Deveral under his breath. Al expected Deveral to be stewing over his concerns about Wulf being dismissed by the Captain the night before. It was peculiar though, and Al didn't need twenty years experience on ships like Dolphin's Voyage to know to take precautions when something wasn't right.
Chiefly with irritation in mind Al stormed into the Armsmen's quarters, which unlike the rest of the crew quarters were within the Barracks. Five Armsmen jumped up from their own, sobre, game of cards as Al entered. "Come with me," he said.

The Officer quarters were adjacent to the main crew quarters, the closest of the quarters to the Command Deck and a short distance from the barracks. Al marched to Deveral's quarters double time with his new entourage in tow. As was the protocol for when on-duty the Armsmen wore full void combat body armour and carried their standard issue Autogun submachine guns. Deveral's door was locked and Al speculated how many times it would be acceptable to shoot Deveral as he hit the door alarm button and banged on the door with his fist three times.
After about ten seconds without a response from within Deveral's quarters the Squad Leader, who Al had recognised earlier as being from the new batch of Armsmen, asked if they should force Deveral's door open. "No need," said Al. Al slid open a small panel next to the door and tapped in his Officer override, the door unlocked and Al stepped to the side to let the Armsmen enter ahead of him.
Deveral's quarters were of the larger size due to his position, but had been left sparsely populated, and even with the lights off it was immediately clear he wasn't there. The bunk was neatly arranged, with the sterile sleeping roll still tightly wrapped in its bindings, so Deveral either hadn't slept in it the night before or had had time to collect a fresh sleeping roll that morning. "Where are you Deveral?" said Al. Al flipped on the lights which flickered into life and gave more clarity to the room. Al then noticed the freshly pressed and laundered uniform laid out on Deveral's dresser and the absence of any used uniform that would usually be collected at the end of the work cycle by the cleaning crew as they dropped off the fresh ones. "He's not been here since last night," said Al. bewildered but still angry. "Feck you Deveral, what's going on?"
"We can search for him Sir," offered the Squad Leader.
"Yes. Begin a sweep, all security teams. Check the whole ship until he is found, do it now."

Wulf's Deputy, a jittery red-robed Techadept who had been dispatched in Wulf's place, and a number of other Officers, maintenance crew, and most of the Armsmen on the ship had been summoned by Captain Janosch to an empty storage hold that could take their number. All of the other non-essential and off-duty crew had been ordered to remain in their quarters.
Janosch stood in front of the assembled crew to address them with Al at his side. "As you now know Sergeant-at-Arms Sauvage is missing." As Janosch had rightly assumed, the crew had already heard the news, and no one made any noise beyond a shuffling of feet. "Every accessible deck of the Dolphin's Voyage has been searched by the Armsmen but there has been no sign of him." The Acting Sergeant, the longest serving Squad Leader, was standing at the front only a few metres from Janosch and conspicuously frustrated with the situation.
    Wulf's deputy stepped forward to hand Janosch a dataslate to which Janosch replied curtly, "Is this complete?". Wulf had sent the Deputy to the meeting in his place as the Warp Drive remained a problem - their speed traversing the Warp was slowly returning to normal but it was agonisingly slow and Wulf was doing everything he could to increase the pace of the recovery.
The deputy nodded and backed away with a small bow as he whispered, "Thorough."
Janosch held the dataslate up in the air with his right hand and pointed to it with his left. "Here is a list of every maintenance hatch, tunnel, and pipe that a crewman could have accessed off-duty, using a standard toolkit." Janosch and Al had spoken briefly about the possibility of stowaways on board but it had seemed more than likely that Deveral had found himself trapped in a part of the ship he wouldn't ordinarily go into, or worse - that a member of the crew had trapped him there. "The Maintenance crews will have armed escorts as they search every one of these locations."
One at time the four person teams made up of two from Maintenance and two Armsmen, were handed their designated zones and headed out to search the Dolphins Voyage for Deveral. Eventually only Al, Janosch, and Wulf's Deputy were left in the hold.
"Half of the pict feeds on this ship are not functional," spat Janosch at the deputy. "It's a disgrace!"
Without saying anything the Deputy fiddled with another dataslate as Janosch paced back and forth, demonstrating surprising patience. Even so, Al didn't move or say anything, he wasn't going to interfere with Janosch at that moment. "Yes?" said Janosch after his patience ran out.
"Captain," said the Deputy quietly, "The pict feeds are low on the priorities. Critical engine maintenance, plasma moderators, atmospheric recycling are all listed above-."
Janosch raised his hand to silence the deputy. "Enough. At least the ones at the waste disposal are functioning, so we know no one threw his body in there."
"At least we have that," said Al softly, carefully choosing his words. It meant Deveral had to be somewhere and there was no other way to dispose of a body without leaving a trace or walking right past the entire engineering crew.

    "I should help with the search," said Al after the Deputy left to return to Wulf, insisting he was best suited to work on the Warp Drive issue.
    "Yes of course, I must know what is happening here." said Janosch, sounding weary, "I am returning to the Command Deck where I am most useful."