- Joined
- Jul 18, 2017
I realized too late that I actually wrote a shitpost of a warhammer 40k fanfic, but posted it in the wrong thread. Perfect opportunity to repost it here.
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Administratum Scribe Jarndyce Carn walked through the magnificent halls of the great Palace of Justice on Terra. Today was a momentous day, the culmination of literally 10 years of menial work, bribes, office intrigue and even a murder (or two). Everything to be able to gain a coveted seat as a scribe at one of the rarest events in the labyrinthine beaurocracy of the God Emperors most diligent Adeptus Administratum. A trial.
An actual trial! Jarndyce was giddy. Certainly, somewhere on Terra, the wheels of Justice turn and a trial is happening. At least one. Possibly even two. But when you consider the fact that there are uncounted billions (possibly even trillions, the Administratum to this day is unsure) of humans amidst the seething mass of the throne world, the law of averages very quickly makes plain that an actual sitting of the Court is a rare event indeed. Imperial Justice in M41 has become a very informal affair, where even the Arbiters who dispense their brand of “on the spot” street justice are such a rarity most citizens can go their entire lives never seeing one of these lowly foot soldiers of the law, let alone the august personage of a Lord Justicar sitting on his throne in a court room.
No, most offenses against the God Emperors law are punished by countless menial foot soldiers, if they are punished at all. Which mattered little to Jarndyce but for one issue. His career advancement from “Scribe” to “Ordinates” has strict requirements as written down by the Sigilite himself in the Lex Imperialis 10 millennia ago. Among such requirements was that to be promoted to Ordinates he must have experience as a Scribe in a trial of Imperial Law. Ever the go getter, Jarndyce knew from the day he became a Scribe that this particular requirement would be among the most challenging, and so he bent all his efforts, connections and intrigue to getting a seat. As he walked down the massive marble corridor with its vaulted ceilings disappearing into the gloom above he could only marvel at the immensity of the Imperium and his own achievement. Even the massive statues of saints, warriors and Administratum officials of renown that towered above him seemed to be gazing down at him not with the stern gazes their artists carved with intention, but instead looks of pleased indulgence.
Finally Jarndyce entered the court room itself, gazing up at the great frescoes, statues, the circle of judgement before the throne, and the high balconies where the Great and the Good could observe the proceedings.
By law, any Imperial Citizen may enter the Court and watch from the Balconies. But in practice only those of great wealth and influence could leverage the necessary connections and bribes to attend any sitting of the court. Yet today Jarndyce was above even a bored Nobleman. He was a scribe of the court, and was allowed to sit at one of the intricately burnished desks.
As he was taking his seat a loud gong sounded from its place high above and sent its reverberation echoing through the vast hall. An Arbiter in full armor and hefting his bolter at “port arms” stepped into the circle of judgement and shouted his pronouncement.
“All persons present are commanded to take heed and keep silent! The Court of the Imperium of Man is now in session! Those who break the laws of this court and bring it to disrepute shall be punished to the greatest extent possible under the law! May Imperial Justice account in all balance! The Emperor Protects!”
“The Emperor Protects!” Intoned all those present in the room, solemnly making the sign of the Aquila.
As the last echoes faded away, the Arbiter came to attention. “Presenting her esteemed esquire, Lord Justicar Agrippina von Uta!” The Judge of the Court stepped from a small door behind the altar, and ascended to the ornate throne. Bowing ritually before the chair upon which only the God Emperor himself may sit, the Judge then proceeded to a small (but no less ornate) seat in front of it and sat down. A soft exhale of breath echoed through the hall as everyone else slowly relaxed and sat back down as well. From above, a cherubim servitor descended on wings clasping an ornate scroll that was presented in the lap of the Judge, who very theatrically opened it and began reading.
“Before the Court of the Imperium this day is case Number 20-cv-00647-23log5 M3-usa: Greer v. Moon. A civil dispute between the noble houses. Are the parties present? At this point the Judge peered to the left at the plaintiffs side of the room. Jarndyce began taking notes on his observations for later review, as he was a scribe on the defense side. “We are your eminence. May it please the court, we are the Noble family, the Digi-Foundatori of Barristers representing the cause of Greer in this case as a matter of tradition. Sadly, the plaintiff in this matter has since passed away, but as a matter of honor our noble house must continue the case that restitution may be given to his posterity”. After this pronouncement, a troop of servitors entered the chamber carrying voluminous tomes, some of which seemed so old that Jarndyce would be shocked if they even had legible ink on their pages. “Before the court, is the proof parentage and contracts entering our house into this service, and we move to proceed as representative of Greer’s estate”.
“Present the genealogical records and contracts to the opposing side then”, the judge commanded with a bored wave. “My scribes have already reviewed these contracts and records and found them sound. Any objections by the defense are discouraged. This case shall proceed in estate format, with the Digi-Foundatori representing Master Greer who has returned to the Embrace of the Emperor”. With a thud, several dozen of these tomes were dumped on Jarndyce’s desk, with similar piles being dropped on fellow defense scribes as well. Jarndyce’s eyes boggled. Even by the standards of the Imperium this seemed excessive.
“Is a representative of the Defendant Moon present before the court?” At this, an Administratum Adept stood up. “Lamentably, Defendant Moon too has passed from the mortal restraints of existence and returned to the embrace of the Emperor. As no next of kin is known, by law the matter must be represented by the Administratum itself. And may it please the court to know, it is the opinion of the Defense that the purpose of this trial is solely to enrich the Digi-Foundatori clan. They know full well that there is no estate for Moon with which they may extract justice from”. The Judge peered down at the irate Adept “Mind your tongue worm, you know as well as I do that if a case comes before the court and there is no defendant left to answer for the crimes and make the victim whole of his damages then the Administratum must pay the renumeration from the tithes it collects. I imagine that is why this case has taken so long to reach trial in the first place!”
“Approximately 1300 terran cycles yes, your eminence, but we must protest that this was simply an appeal to the High Lords of Terra by the Digi-Foundatori, that overturned a victory for the defense in Millenia 37! And God Emperor Knows how long it took for that Trial too happen! This case has wasted uncountable trillions of Thrones and the lives of entire Administratum clans! We respond with the record of the last trial and present it before the court!” At this an even longer train of servitors entered the hall and began dumping entire bags papers, tomes, and even the odd vox recording on the Plaintiffs’ desk. “Objection, your eminence, this is meaningless! The entire case file of the Millenia 37 hearing of Greer V. Moon was struck down by the High Lords in Millenia 39”
Jarndyce for his part had been ignoring the back and forth, furiously flipping through the stack of papers that had been dumped on his desk. Looking for anything that might be helpful for his side. If he found something useful, he could gain the support of the Adept in this matter. If he prevailed and saved the Administratum having to pay the Digi-Foundatori, his career would be assured. Suddenly, in a decrepit folder a single piece of paper fell out and glared up at him like the eye of the God Emperor.
The heading at the top read “PACER ECF LIST”. Jarndyce had no idea what that meant, but he recognized the text below it. “Greer v. Moon”. And the dates! The dates used the old pre-imperial solar calendar, but the Millenia title was there. Millenia 3! And there was a record of the case being transferred between two different courts and then…dropped. There was no indication as to where or how the case was resumed, but it was clear no court addressed the issue back in M3 about who was in charge of the case!
Swiftly typing out a message, he handed it off to a servo skull along with the file, and ordered the skull to deliver it to the Adept of the Defense who was in a shouting match back and forth with the Digi-Foundatori’s lead barrister.
As the Servo skull deposited Jarndyce’s memo in front of him, the Adept for a moment seemed angry at being interrupted. But after quickly scanning the memo’s contents his eyes went wide. “Your eminence, we must raise a new objection. The trial cannot proceed as this Court does not have Jurisdiction in the matter!”. At this the Judges frowned and she looked visibly shocked. “On what grounds do you make this claim?” “Your eminence, a Motion to transfer this case from the…the “”district of Utah”” to the “”Northern District of Florida””…was made back in M3. The Florida court then sent the case back and the matter was dropped for” …at this the adept snapped his fingers and a scribe quickly presented him another scroll which he scanned quickly “For 30 years, at which point both the Utah Court and the Florida courts were closed during a period of unknown civil strife. The Documents of the cases were preserved, and then the Estate of Greer resumed the case represented by the progenitors of the Digi-Foundatori clan.”
The Judge remained impassive. “Are you implying the Court of the God Emperor himself is not allowed to hear this case simply because it started before the Imperium was founded? The Emperor is eternal, and so is the Imperium. Imperial Law applies across all of time and space”. she stated with a cold voice “Never my thought your Eminence!” came the slick rejoinder. “I am however saying that there is a critical error in the paperwork required for this trial to proceed. This court can certainly hear the case, but before that happens the issue of which court had jurisdiction back in M3 must be addressed! Without that the record is incomplete and Justice cannot be done!”
At this the judge’s face turned several different shades of purple and red. Jarndyce was not certain but it seemed to him that for a moment she had glared at him, as if she somehow knew he was the source of this current predicament. It suddenly occurred to him that the Judge may have been on the take. After countless millennia of litigation and the requirement for the Administratum to bear the cost of the case should the now long dead Moon be adjudged guilty, the Digi-Foundatori stood to gain astronomical sums of money. A percentage of which could even be enough to bribe a Lord Justicar! Jarndyce felt a premonition of doom.
The Judges color cooled as the wheels visibly turned in her head. “Then the Record must be completed before the trial can commence, is what you are saying?” She looked slyly at the Adept. Sensing danger but not knowing where it came from the Adept cautiously responded with “Yes your honor!” The Judge leaned back in her throne with a satisfied smile. “Very good, and since clearly this break in the records is due to poor record keeping on the part of the Administratum, the Court herby orders the Defense to correct the record so this trial may resume. Since this matter is one of Jurisdiction, it’s a simple fix. Find the descendants of the Judges in the M3 case and have them stand for their ancestors to fill out the appropriate paperwork. You have one solar year and a day to accomplish this task.”
At this the Adept sputtered “Your eminence, even if we dedicated an entire Administratum world to the task, its doubtful we could search back 40,000 years and find direct descendants of ONE person, let alone TWO…”. At this the Judge smiled serenely “I would never seek to impose such an onerous demand on our devoted scribes. No, the court is of the opinion this task rightly belongs to the Scribe who found the clerical error.” At this her gimlet gaze settled on Jarndyce whose brain began gibbering nonsense silently. His short circuited brain idly noted the warmth pooling in his groin waas most likely urine. “Scribe Jarndyce is ordered to accomplish this task. Court will resume in a year and a day!” At this the Gong once again filled the room with its sonorous bellow. The Lord Justicar stood up from her throne and stalked out of the room.
Jarndyce sat at his desk shell shocked. His brain was already rebooting as it tried to grapple with the immensity of the task before him. The Adept however was in a Jovial mood as he walked over to Jarndyces’ desk and clapped him on the back. “Excellent work my boy! You bought us a year and day! Honestly my orders when I walked into this room was to just mitigate the damage! That pompous cunt was going to rule against us no matter what we said! Now we got time to really wrap this case up in red tape! In 6 months I’ll have this case transferred out of Segmentum Solar entirely! After that we can delay it again for another few centuries so all the records and the people assigned to the case can be transferred a few thousand light years!” The adept chuckled a little at his joke before turning serious.
“Even so, you had better get to work my boy. Von Uta will not appreciate being denied her cut of the flesh the Digi-Foundatori were about to carve out of us. Naturally of course, you have access to all the Administratum records as your task is ordered by the court. You will also be permitted to issue any orders needed to carry out your task. But unfortunately, you will do this alone. If you succeed in fixing this clerical error the case will resume, and that could cost us…well…more then you can imagine. So you are on your own my boy. We can’t hinder you, but we won’t help either! Good luck!” With that the Adept strode away, trailed by his subordinate Ordinates and Scribes. Jarndyce just sat at the desk until the room was almost empty and the Arbiters began shooing the stragglers out.
The next year was one of frantic work by Jarndyce. He even submitted to a sacrament of the Mechanicus to implant a cerebral stimulator into his brain that removed his need for sleep. Anything to give him more time. He dived down into the depths of Imperial palace. Into the old records rooms, haunting the vast repositories of pre-Imperium data. He spent his entire accumulated fortune to pay a Mechanicus Magos to perform operating rites upon ancient cogitators. 5 months into this frantic work, one such rite brought fruit. While anointing an archeotech cogitator with sacred oil and chanting the catechism of standard procedure it became operational, revealing immigration records of humans departing earth to a nearby colony world that was still inhabited even after the Age of Strife. Among which was a Great Granddaughter of one of the Judges in Greer v. Moon! It was simple child’s play at this point to find a living relative, since by now probably a third of the planet qualified given how small the initial colony wave was and the proclivity of humans to procreate like rabbits on new planets. Some creative corruption and outright soliciting of bribes gave him the money needed to pay for an astropathic choir to submit orders to the world and command the Judges descendent be brought to Terra. Yet the chosen representative never survived the journey. “Lost in the Warp” was the stated reason.
Jarndyce knew better. He wandered the Scriptoriums and Bureaucratic halls like a ghost. His fellows refused to talk to him and most pretended he did not even exist. At night by arc light Jarndyces’ only company was the never-ending files of Greer v. Moon. Maddening in its complexity. On top of trying to carry out the court’s orders, Jarndyce attempted to figure out just what the case was about, and how it had lasted for over 40 millennia. Yet maddeningly even this seemed to have been forgotten.
A year and a day after the fateful day he first entered the Court Room, Jarndyce once more found himself within it. Only this time instead of at a desk he found himself in the circle of Judgement with Lord Justicar Agrippina gazing down at him. “Any explanation for why you failed to carry out this courts orders Defendant?” She demanded with the appropriate level of indignant outrage. Jarndyce did not respond. Simply staring down at this feet as if weighed down by the enormity of his situation. “Silence is the same as pleading guilty.” The Judge intoned in a lofty voice. “This court finds Defendant Jarndyce to be guilty of Contempt, and hereby sentences him to Servitorization Perpetious. Perhaps once suitably augmented this pathetic Scribe can do its job more efficiently”.
The Gong sounded once again and uncaring arms seized Jarndyce, dragging him from the room. His brain was numb but a part of it seemed to know he had started screaming. It was hard to be sure. Everything was too much. The statues towering above him seemed to be laughing. Their rictus grins and mocking eyes followed him as the Arbiters carried him bodily into the catacombs beneath the courthouse and strapped him to a blood-stained table. The frightening, almost spider like form of a Mechanicus Magos entered the room. The green glow of 5 eyes stared out beneath the cowl of its red hood. A mechadendrite of pure silver metal with two tiny blades upon it slowly appeared from beneath the Tech Priests robes and painfully, so painfully, drove its way up his nose and into his brain cavity.
As the blades went to work separating his frontal cortex from the rest of his brain, Jarndyces’ last conscious thought was “What was Greer v. Moon even about?” As the lights went out in his mind, Jarndyce prayed to the God Emperor his earnest hope that whatever it was, it was important and somehow mattered.
An actual trial! Jarndyce was giddy. Certainly, somewhere on Terra, the wheels of Justice turn and a trial is happening. At least one. Possibly even two. But when you consider the fact that there are uncounted billions (possibly even trillions, the Administratum to this day is unsure) of humans amidst the seething mass of the throne world, the law of averages very quickly makes plain that an actual sitting of the Court is a rare event indeed. Imperial Justice in M41 has become a very informal affair, where even the Arbiters who dispense their brand of “on the spot” street justice are such a rarity most citizens can go their entire lives never seeing one of these lowly foot soldiers of the law, let alone the august personage of a Lord Justicar sitting on his throne in a court room.
No, most offenses against the God Emperors law are punished by countless menial foot soldiers, if they are punished at all. Which mattered little to Jarndyce but for one issue. His career advancement from “Scribe” to “Ordinates” has strict requirements as written down by the Sigilite himself in the Lex Imperialis 10 millennia ago. Among such requirements was that to be promoted to Ordinates he must have experience as a Scribe in a trial of Imperial Law. Ever the go getter, Jarndyce knew from the day he became a Scribe that this particular requirement would be among the most challenging, and so he bent all his efforts, connections and intrigue to getting a seat. As he walked down the massive marble corridor with its vaulted ceilings disappearing into the gloom above he could only marvel at the immensity of the Imperium and his own achievement. Even the massive statues of saints, warriors and Administratum officials of renown that towered above him seemed to be gazing down at him not with the stern gazes their artists carved with intention, but instead looks of pleased indulgence.
Finally Jarndyce entered the court room itself, gazing up at the great frescoes, statues, the circle of judgement before the throne, and the high balconies where the Great and the Good could observe the proceedings.
By law, any Imperial Citizen may enter the Court and watch from the Balconies. But in practice only those of great wealth and influence could leverage the necessary connections and bribes to attend any sitting of the court. Yet today Jarndyce was above even a bored Nobleman. He was a scribe of the court, and was allowed to sit at one of the intricately burnished desks.
As he was taking his seat a loud gong sounded from its place high above and sent its reverberation echoing through the vast hall. An Arbiter in full armor and hefting his bolter at “port arms” stepped into the circle of judgement and shouted his pronouncement.
“All persons present are commanded to take heed and keep silent! The Court of the Imperium of Man is now in session! Those who break the laws of this court and bring it to disrepute shall be punished to the greatest extent possible under the law! May Imperial Justice account in all balance! The Emperor Protects!”
“The Emperor Protects!” Intoned all those present in the room, solemnly making the sign of the Aquila.
As the last echoes faded away, the Arbiter came to attention. “Presenting her esteemed esquire, Lord Justicar Agrippina von Uta!” The Judge of the Court stepped from a small door behind the altar, and ascended to the ornate throne. Bowing ritually before the chair upon which only the God Emperor himself may sit, the Judge then proceeded to a small (but no less ornate) seat in front of it and sat down. A soft exhale of breath echoed through the hall as everyone else slowly relaxed and sat back down as well. From above, a cherubim servitor descended on wings clasping an ornate scroll that was presented in the lap of the Judge, who very theatrically opened it and began reading.
“Before the Court of the Imperium this day is case Number 20-cv-00647-23log5 M3-usa: Greer v. Moon. A civil dispute between the noble houses. Are the parties present? At this point the Judge peered to the left at the plaintiffs side of the room. Jarndyce began taking notes on his observations for later review, as he was a scribe on the defense side. “We are your eminence. May it please the court, we are the Noble family, the Digi-Foundatori of Barristers representing the cause of Greer in this case as a matter of tradition. Sadly, the plaintiff in this matter has since passed away, but as a matter of honor our noble house must continue the case that restitution may be given to his posterity”. After this pronouncement, a troop of servitors entered the chamber carrying voluminous tomes, some of which seemed so old that Jarndyce would be shocked if they even had legible ink on their pages. “Before the court, is the proof parentage and contracts entering our house into this service, and we move to proceed as representative of Greer’s estate”.
“Present the genealogical records and contracts to the opposing side then”, the judge commanded with a bored wave. “My scribes have already reviewed these contracts and records and found them sound. Any objections by the defense are discouraged. This case shall proceed in estate format, with the Digi-Foundatori representing Master Greer who has returned to the Embrace of the Emperor”. With a thud, several dozen of these tomes were dumped on Jarndyce’s desk, with similar piles being dropped on fellow defense scribes as well. Jarndyce’s eyes boggled. Even by the standards of the Imperium this seemed excessive.
“Is a representative of the Defendant Moon present before the court?” At this, an Administratum Adept stood up. “Lamentably, Defendant Moon too has passed from the mortal restraints of existence and returned to the embrace of the Emperor. As no next of kin is known, by law the matter must be represented by the Administratum itself. And may it please the court to know, it is the opinion of the Defense that the purpose of this trial is solely to enrich the Digi-Foundatori clan. They know full well that there is no estate for Moon with which they may extract justice from”. The Judge peered down at the irate Adept “Mind your tongue worm, you know as well as I do that if a case comes before the court and there is no defendant left to answer for the crimes and make the victim whole of his damages then the Administratum must pay the renumeration from the tithes it collects. I imagine that is why this case has taken so long to reach trial in the first place!”
“Approximately 1300 terran cycles yes, your eminence, but we must protest that this was simply an appeal to the High Lords of Terra by the Digi-Foundatori, that overturned a victory for the defense in Millenia 37! And God Emperor Knows how long it took for that Trial too happen! This case has wasted uncountable trillions of Thrones and the lives of entire Administratum clans! We respond with the record of the last trial and present it before the court!” At this an even longer train of servitors entered the hall and began dumping entire bags papers, tomes, and even the odd vox recording on the Plaintiffs’ desk. “Objection, your eminence, this is meaningless! The entire case file of the Millenia 37 hearing of Greer V. Moon was struck down by the High Lords in Millenia 39”
Jarndyce for his part had been ignoring the back and forth, furiously flipping through the stack of papers that had been dumped on his desk. Looking for anything that might be helpful for his side. If he found something useful, he could gain the support of the Adept in this matter. If he prevailed and saved the Administratum having to pay the Digi-Foundatori, his career would be assured. Suddenly, in a decrepit folder a single piece of paper fell out and glared up at him like the eye of the God Emperor.
The heading at the top read “PACER ECF LIST”. Jarndyce had no idea what that meant, but he recognized the text below it. “Greer v. Moon”. And the dates! The dates used the old pre-imperial solar calendar, but the Millenia title was there. Millenia 3! And there was a record of the case being transferred between two different courts and then…dropped. There was no indication as to where or how the case was resumed, but it was clear no court addressed the issue back in M3 about who was in charge of the case!
Swiftly typing out a message, he handed it off to a servo skull along with the file, and ordered the skull to deliver it to the Adept of the Defense who was in a shouting match back and forth with the Digi-Foundatori’s lead barrister.
As the Servo skull deposited Jarndyce’s memo in front of him, the Adept for a moment seemed angry at being interrupted. But after quickly scanning the memo’s contents his eyes went wide. “Your eminence, we must raise a new objection. The trial cannot proceed as this Court does not have Jurisdiction in the matter!”. At this the Judges frowned and she looked visibly shocked. “On what grounds do you make this claim?” “Your eminence, a Motion to transfer this case from the…the “”district of Utah”” to the “”Northern District of Florida””…was made back in M3. The Florida court then sent the case back and the matter was dropped for” …at this the adept snapped his fingers and a scribe quickly presented him another scroll which he scanned quickly “For 30 years, at which point both the Utah Court and the Florida courts were closed during a period of unknown civil strife. The Documents of the cases were preserved, and then the Estate of Greer resumed the case represented by the progenitors of the Digi-Foundatori clan.”
The Judge remained impassive. “Are you implying the Court of the God Emperor himself is not allowed to hear this case simply because it started before the Imperium was founded? The Emperor is eternal, and so is the Imperium. Imperial Law applies across all of time and space”. she stated with a cold voice “Never my thought your Eminence!” came the slick rejoinder. “I am however saying that there is a critical error in the paperwork required for this trial to proceed. This court can certainly hear the case, but before that happens the issue of which court had jurisdiction back in M3 must be addressed! Without that the record is incomplete and Justice cannot be done!”
At this the judge’s face turned several different shades of purple and red. Jarndyce was not certain but it seemed to him that for a moment she had glared at him, as if she somehow knew he was the source of this current predicament. It suddenly occurred to him that the Judge may have been on the take. After countless millennia of litigation and the requirement for the Administratum to bear the cost of the case should the now long dead Moon be adjudged guilty, the Digi-Foundatori stood to gain astronomical sums of money. A percentage of which could even be enough to bribe a Lord Justicar! Jarndyce felt a premonition of doom.
The Judges color cooled as the wheels visibly turned in her head. “Then the Record must be completed before the trial can commence, is what you are saying?” She looked slyly at the Adept. Sensing danger but not knowing where it came from the Adept cautiously responded with “Yes your honor!” The Judge leaned back in her throne with a satisfied smile. “Very good, and since clearly this break in the records is due to poor record keeping on the part of the Administratum, the Court herby orders the Defense to correct the record so this trial may resume. Since this matter is one of Jurisdiction, it’s a simple fix. Find the descendants of the Judges in the M3 case and have them stand for their ancestors to fill out the appropriate paperwork. You have one solar year and a day to accomplish this task.”
At this the Adept sputtered “Your eminence, even if we dedicated an entire Administratum world to the task, its doubtful we could search back 40,000 years and find direct descendants of ONE person, let alone TWO…”. At this the Judge smiled serenely “I would never seek to impose such an onerous demand on our devoted scribes. No, the court is of the opinion this task rightly belongs to the Scribe who found the clerical error.” At this her gimlet gaze settled on Jarndyce whose brain began gibbering nonsense silently. His short circuited brain idly noted the warmth pooling in his groin waas most likely urine. “Scribe Jarndyce is ordered to accomplish this task. Court will resume in a year and a day!” At this the Gong once again filled the room with its sonorous bellow. The Lord Justicar stood up from her throne and stalked out of the room.
Jarndyce sat at his desk shell shocked. His brain was already rebooting as it tried to grapple with the immensity of the task before him. The Adept however was in a Jovial mood as he walked over to Jarndyces’ desk and clapped him on the back. “Excellent work my boy! You bought us a year and day! Honestly my orders when I walked into this room was to just mitigate the damage! That pompous cunt was going to rule against us no matter what we said! Now we got time to really wrap this case up in red tape! In 6 months I’ll have this case transferred out of Segmentum Solar entirely! After that we can delay it again for another few centuries so all the records and the people assigned to the case can be transferred a few thousand light years!” The adept chuckled a little at his joke before turning serious.
“Even so, you had better get to work my boy. Von Uta will not appreciate being denied her cut of the flesh the Digi-Foundatori were about to carve out of us. Naturally of course, you have access to all the Administratum records as your task is ordered by the court. You will also be permitted to issue any orders needed to carry out your task. But unfortunately, you will do this alone. If you succeed in fixing this clerical error the case will resume, and that could cost us…well…more then you can imagine. So you are on your own my boy. We can’t hinder you, but we won’t help either! Good luck!” With that the Adept strode away, trailed by his subordinate Ordinates and Scribes. Jarndyce just sat at the desk until the room was almost empty and the Arbiters began shooing the stragglers out.
The next year was one of frantic work by Jarndyce. He even submitted to a sacrament of the Mechanicus to implant a cerebral stimulator into his brain that removed his need for sleep. Anything to give him more time. He dived down into the depths of Imperial palace. Into the old records rooms, haunting the vast repositories of pre-Imperium data. He spent his entire accumulated fortune to pay a Mechanicus Magos to perform operating rites upon ancient cogitators. 5 months into this frantic work, one such rite brought fruit. While anointing an archeotech cogitator with sacred oil and chanting the catechism of standard procedure it became operational, revealing immigration records of humans departing earth to a nearby colony world that was still inhabited even after the Age of Strife. Among which was a Great Granddaughter of one of the Judges in Greer v. Moon! It was simple child’s play at this point to find a living relative, since by now probably a third of the planet qualified given how small the initial colony wave was and the proclivity of humans to procreate like rabbits on new planets. Some creative corruption and outright soliciting of bribes gave him the money needed to pay for an astropathic choir to submit orders to the world and command the Judges descendent be brought to Terra. Yet the chosen representative never survived the journey. “Lost in the Warp” was the stated reason.
Jarndyce knew better. He wandered the Scriptoriums and Bureaucratic halls like a ghost. His fellows refused to talk to him and most pretended he did not even exist. At night by arc light Jarndyces’ only company was the never-ending files of Greer v. Moon. Maddening in its complexity. On top of trying to carry out the court’s orders, Jarndyce attempted to figure out just what the case was about, and how it had lasted for over 40 millennia. Yet maddeningly even this seemed to have been forgotten.
A year and a day after the fateful day he first entered the Court Room, Jarndyce once more found himself within it. Only this time instead of at a desk he found himself in the circle of Judgement with Lord Justicar Agrippina gazing down at him. “Any explanation for why you failed to carry out this courts orders Defendant?” She demanded with the appropriate level of indignant outrage. Jarndyce did not respond. Simply staring down at this feet as if weighed down by the enormity of his situation. “Silence is the same as pleading guilty.” The Judge intoned in a lofty voice. “This court finds Defendant Jarndyce to be guilty of Contempt, and hereby sentences him to Servitorization Perpetious. Perhaps once suitably augmented this pathetic Scribe can do its job more efficiently”.
The Gong sounded once again and uncaring arms seized Jarndyce, dragging him from the room. His brain was numb but a part of it seemed to know he had started screaming. It was hard to be sure. Everything was too much. The statues towering above him seemed to be laughing. Their rictus grins and mocking eyes followed him as the Arbiters carried him bodily into the catacombs beneath the courthouse and strapped him to a blood-stained table. The frightening, almost spider like form of a Mechanicus Magos entered the room. The green glow of 5 eyes stared out beneath the cowl of its red hood. A mechadendrite of pure silver metal with two tiny blades upon it slowly appeared from beneath the Tech Priests robes and painfully, so painfully, drove its way up his nose and into his brain cavity.
As the blades went to work separating his frontal cortex from the rest of his brain, Jarndyces’ last conscious thought was “What was Greer v. Moon even about?” As the lights went out in his mind, Jarndyce prayed to the God Emperor his earnest hope that whatever it was, it was important and somehow mattered.
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