2307
At the beginning of the year, elections were held for the Regency at the instigation of Archibald Tarsenusis, who, in doing this, showed a virtue that had been entirely lacking from his Regency, where he had showed himself nearly as much a fool as Kawalen had been a mass-murderer. For who can tell sufficiently of the curses that afflicted the Regency in those years? The joke even made the rounds that the Regency caused madness, and some even gave this considerable credence. Some other accounts, particularly Anecdes, say that Tarsenusis was actually seriously ill, but most attribute his behaviour to cowardice and weakness. This is truly a lesson to future generations: that no-one should run to be supreme general while being inclined to weakness, or while being in fact no general at all, or while having a particular propensity to such imbecility of character as he showed. Some even say he had a gnoll fetish, while others accuse him of poisoning his predecessor, who died from a particularly virulent strain of tuberculosis. Having entirely resigned responsibility and control over the highest office in the state to Akatas, an even more inept man, he is said to have spent the next few months spending his time lazily on Errovus Secondus, in such an abcess of ignominy and vice that he frequented even the most disgraceful of the brothels of the huge city, and was in fact caught in most compromising circumstances when he was finally informed that Akatas had declared his intention to uphold the vilest of treaties that mankind had ever entered upon. These are the accusations made of Tarsenusis, and the elections brought a relieving end to a shameful Regency that had not in fact been his own, as the first half had been dominated by Akatas, and the second half had been ruled by the Koriate Duke in theory as well as in practice.
This brief excursus from my purpose in these accounts is intended to show the disgraceful circumstances of the end of Jyut Texier's control of the Fleet. At any rate, Texier, in spite of his vicious character, which I shall tell of later, had showed himself a highly capable leader of the Fleet, beating off the greatest attack since the days of the great canonised general Saint Cleary. Symbiot and Imperial ships were felled in numbers unprecedented in my days; a Carrier was destroyed in the battle, as well as one of the chief ships of the Imperial Fleet, a Monitor Battleship. These events all happened, as if it had been ordained by the Pancreator, to happen just so in these six months, and many portents occurred in the months running up to the event that showed without doubt that there would be a brief but glorious Fleet command.
First, in the battlefields of Stigmata, a huge light appeared above in the sky immediately after Sir Eekin's departure from Stigmata. Blue lights shot up into the sky all around the Imperial compound, and the soldiers feared greatly, and sent up calls for assistance to the Fleet, which was quite as unable to understand what was happening, because the phenomenon was utterly invisible from orbit. As it happened, though, it was an entirely optical phenomenon, and not a secret Symbiot weapon at all. Certain prophets among the Fleet interpreted this, and it was certain that the threat that turned out in fact not to be a threat presaged the turning back of the Symbiot assault.
A few days later, a flock of doves flew past the fortress, and, supposing they were Symbiot doves, a fortress emplacement opened fire on them, but they could not be killed, and flew several circuits around the fortress before all colliding with the great wall of the fortress, whereupon all their feathers fell off and fell to the ground, and the bodies of the birds vanished. This portent showed unambiguously that a large Symbiot attack would be defeated at the hands of the Fleet.
So these were the portents that foretold the events of the Command of Jyut Texier. His men all came out on the fourteenth of January for their last inspection, and, as had been his habit, Texier held the inspection in the Grand Hall where the soldiers were accustomed to dine, and, having ordered each man behind his own seat, walked along the long table, and quietly walked to the end. One man had unpolished shoes and another's cap was askew, but he ignored them, passing along in silence. When he reached the end, he stood with the face of his clock in front of him, with the two banners of Texier and the Fleet above it. He carefully detached the long blue and white pennant, and then the long banner with the Texier emblem on it, and placed the pennant and the banner inside the clock, which had a drawer in the front under the pendulum. Without making an ovation, he turned to the Fleet, and they enthusiastically applauded, and called out loud praises to him, chiefly "Woohoo Commander", as the men of the Fleet are accustomed to call to a commander they like; but some even called on him as "Our Saviour" for being the one who commanded the Fleet against such a large Symbiot attack, although most today acknowledge, whatever his other achievements, that he was simply in the right place at the right time; another cry was "Our Saviour from Dante Labis" - and the noises were heard down in the Garrison, where the occasion was being broadcast, and this is said to have aroused echoes of the original cry not to mention shouts of "Thank heaven he's dead!" and "Three cheers for the Scarlet Hand!"
Jyut Texier nodded his head in appreciation of the adulation, and is said to have smiled broadly, before dismissing the inspection with a slight gesture of his hand. He jumped from the table, and, walking without procession or guards, entered his ship. Ten thousand eyes looked up at the spaceship as it darted across the night sky towards the jumpgate and out of sight.
This was the end of Texier's brief but eventful command of the Imperial Fleet.
from Leodore Oxiaris,
Annals of the Imperial Fleet