Homebound Sector, Haven System, Battleship Singularity
“You’re insane. Absolutely insane!” Alise Cortana shouted as she sat across from Alba in the cargo hold of a supply runner bound for the Singularity.
“You ordered me to explain.” Alba’s best explanation of the situation was that Reeter had tried to systematically murder the entire crew. “I never said you would like it.”
“Because it’s bullshit.” Alise Cortana refused to believe that, even for an instant. “Admiral Reeter is an upstanding citizen of the central worlds. He’s saved multiple planets from famine and plague. His New Era Movement supports ethical advances in technology.” Reeter was trying to guide the worlds out of the technological depression the Dead Years had put them in.
“The New Era is a perfectionist, genocidal regime.” Alba pushed his back up against the crates of supplies filling most of the hold. “They’re terrorists, but since they’ve got the press trained like dogs, you wouldn’t know that.” A half dozen missions in on the Frontier, and she would change her mind. The Frontier had a special way of bringing honesty out: violence, thievery and more violence. “The Erans are bent on systematically killing anyone who’s not ‘worthy.’ They’re trying to create some perfect future with a perfect humanity, meaning they’ll kill anyone with an imperfection, be it in their genetics, poor family history, or slight physical or mental impairments…”
This was the most outlandish thing she had heard all year. “Admiral Reeter is a bastard child. Why the hell would he support something like that?” When it came to poor family history, he had the whole sob story to a point. It made him the ideal publicity man for the fleet. He had come from nothing and risen to the top on his own potential.
“Not that kind of family history.” The New Era was set to throw out royal and rich lineages. “Family history of disease and psychological conditions.” They’d kill the descendant, even if they showed no signs of disease. If they got far enough, the New Era would kill people off for thinking the wrong thought, even if just for a moment. The movement wanted extreme equality and control for the chosen few.
“Why, though?” What purpose did something like that serve?
“Think about it.” It was just like she’d said. “Reeter suffered his whole life as a bastard son in the huge class divide of the central worlds. Around him, people dumber and weaker than he had everything, while he had nothing, just because he was born lower on the food chain. If the smartest members of the human race had access to the infinite resources hogged by the rich, think about what they’ll accomplish: virtual reality, teleportation, hell, maybe even immortality.”
Alise frowned. “That doesn’t seem bad.” That made sense.
“But what about people who aren’t smart, and aren’t strong, but are kind?” Usually, the smartest and strongest people weren’t the kindest. “The New Era will kill them, but what is humanity without them? Those average people aren’t logical when they pause to help others. Often, they can’t do it alone. They’re not perfect, but without them humanity becomes cruel.” That was the current state of the richest worlds: always craving more, never satisfied. There was no one to hold them back, to be content. “It’s not the New Era’s goal that’s the issue, Sarge. It’s the process. Families will get torn apart, friends and children murdered. That’s just not something we want to see.”
“We?” She echoed.
“We. The Singularity’s crew.” It wasn’t often discussion turned political aboard ship, but the crew tended to be in consensus when it did. It was a strange byproduct of the crew being formed from ‘leftovers.’ “A lot of us are from odd places and backgrounds. We’ve lost friends, families and homes. The New Era shouldn’t force people to go through that. Everyone deserves a chance. There’s got to be a better way to earn that grand future. Systematically killing people isn’t going to better humanity. It’s going to end it.”
“And the Steel Prince, of all people, isn’t supporting this secret plot of mass murder?” That definitely seemed more his style than Admiral Reeter’s.
Alba frowned. “He’s not.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he’d never betray the ship.” The New Era’s goals would bring an end to the very core of humanity, and the Singularity had been commissioned with the mission to save humanity. Following the New Era would be to work against that mission, and Admiral Gives, for all of his otherwise murderous intentions, obeyed that mission like it was his own.
“I don’t think you can betray a machine.” It didn’t make any sense. Would killing someone with it be a betrayal to her sidearm? She thought not.
Where they sat in the mostly dark cargo hold, under the gravity of acceleration alone, Alba sighed. “She’s not going to like you.” Alba could just tell. There was a gut feeling he got when someone was going to make trouble aboard ship and he was getting it now. “Sarge, I’d suggest you grant respect where respect is due.” The engineers likened the ship to a member of the crew. She just reacted better to certain people, and reacted poorly to others.
The boyish engineer was being oddly serious, despite Alise’s immediate urge to laugh.
“And another thing,” Alba said as the supply runner audibly landed with a clunk, “don’t speak against Admiral Gives on the ship. She tends to get fussy.” The ship, for some reason or another, always reacted best to him. Admittedly, out of anyone, Admiral Gives knew the ship best, but there seemed to be more to it than that.
The previous engineering chief had jokingly called it black magic. Most Frontiersmen agreed, only they weren’t joking.
After a few minutes, the doors of the cargo hold opened. The Singularity had sealed off and pressurized the bay to atmospheric standard, allowing the array of cargo haulers that had landed there to be easily unloaded.
Alba thought nothing of it. He’d seen resupply operations before. It was far from exciting, but Alise Cortana gaped out at her surroundings. “It’s huge.” The cavernous landing bay yawned out before her. It was bland, the way the aging lamps beat down upon the grayness of her surroundings, but it was huge.
“She is very large, yes.” Alba corrected, noticing how quickly the Marine had switched from disdain to awe. “The Singularity is the largest ship in the fleet by length. Her landing bays were designed for more than resupplying and recovering fighters. Most civilian and governmental ships can dock in these bays. With the bay and passenger ship secured, the Singularity can carry them through FTL maneuvers.” The same was true for any battleship, though size was a limiting factor. “We can carry a crippled ship out of a bad situation or escort a ship securely through dangerous territory.”
Of course, this being the Singularity, that was not the most common use of the bay. Most of the crew had come to the conclusion Admiral Gives despised letting other ships leech off the Singularity’s air, water and power. He refused missions that involved carrying ambassadors and their transports through dangerous territory. He did not, however, seem to mind pressurizing the bay to let the crew enjoy a sports game in the wide-open space.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“It is larger than I expected.” Sergeant Cortana said, refusing to grant a machine any semblance of personality.
Alba shook his head, leading her out of the landing bay. “Keep that up and she’s really not going to like you.” On a good day, Alba classified the ship as particular about her people. On a usual day, that made her cantankerous, and on a bad day, it kind of made her a bitch to work with. The crew usually got more amusement out of it than anything else. Typically, visitors like Command’s inspectors got the brunt of her attitude. Well, them and Colonel Zarrey.
“I don’t need the ship to like me,” Cortana huffed as the corridor they’d entered narrowed into a dark and dirty tunnel. “I’m a Marine.” If she could help it, she wouldn’t be working with the machinery. It wasn’t her job. This ship was her ride to combat, and nothing else.
“You say that now,” Alba chided, noting the dampness on the walls. There must have been frost in the bay. The heating systems had sublimated it, leaving it to condense here as water. “You’ll be trained in basic DC,” and that was going to be a lot less fun if the ship hated her guts.
“Damage control?” she asked, as Alba creaked open another hatch, leading them out of the darkness. “I’m a Marine!” Her job was to fight, not fix broken down machines.
“Every Marine and every pilot gets trained for DC aboard ship.” And every yeoman and every engineer was trained in self-defense, as well as the use of fleet’s standard-issue sidearm.
“That’s outrageous,” she coughed as the odor of the hangar deck reached her. Fuel, rubber, smoke. It was overwhelming. Disgusting.
“Those are Admiral Gives’ standing orders.” Alba told her. “And those orders have saved lives more than once.” Despite any personal issues and misgivings they had regarding the Admiral, he was one hell of a commanding officer and the entire crew knew it.
Cortana followed Alba closely as he stepped through the ranks of planes tied down to the deck. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She hefted her bag higher onto her shoulder, barely managing to avoid getting it caught on the fighters’ wingtips. She misjudged a distance and promptly smashed her arm into one of them as she struggled to follow Alba. “Dammit!” she cursed, “Those things are sharp.”
“Split scimitar winglets,” Alba supplied for her, “they lessen the Arcbirds’ drag in atmosphere.” Normally the wingtips were covered, but presently, the ship was at Condition Two, thus ready to scramble the fighters to launch.
“I don’t give a fuck what they are,” Alise snapped, rubbing her arm. “That hurt.”
Alba made a mental note to avoid the more crowded places on the ship. It seemed like the Sergeant was going to need some time to adjust. Navigating spaces cramped with machinery came second-nature after a few months aboard ship, but Cortana was not yet ready for that.
“Do you want a moment to look around?” Alba asked.
“No, the stench of this place is giving me a headache.” Her throbbing arm already had her in a bad mood, that wasn’t making it any better.
“You’ll get used to it.” The engineer shrugged but lead her away.
The change from the hangar deck to the corridor was abrupt. The scent of anything just vanished. The colors of the technicians’ orange suits and vintage planes disappeared as well. She was left staring at drab metal bulkheads that had clearly seen better days – or years as the case may be.
It got quiet, too. The noise of tools and people disappeared. In a sense, it left her ears ringing. Alba seemed unbothered, “I’ll take you to the other Marines, but it’s going to be a long walk.” The fastest route would be disrupted by the resupply, so he’d avoid that for now.
“Sure.” She gestured him onward, only to have something new reach her ears: a low, raspy chirr. It seemed to be echoing from everywhere around her at once. She resisted the urge to throw her back against the wall and brace for a crash. “What the hell was that?”
Alba scratched his head, uninterested, gesturing vaguely around him, “Ship.”
The noise came again, quieter this time, but still just as uncanny. She already hated it. “Is that normal?”
Alba recognized that as the groan that was slowly driving all the engineers toward insanity. “That particular noise, no. Other creaks, yes.” The Singularity was rarely, if ever, completely silent. “You’ll get used to it.”
Alise thought not. She was quickly growing to despise this bucket of bolts. “Let’s just go.”
She said that like being elsewhere on the ship would make the noise go away. Alba knew better, but just nodded and led her onward, his steady footsteps rattling the deck tiles.
Cortana followed him closely, already lost amongst the uniform corridors. It was a maze, a creaky, creepy maze. A few minutes into their walk, the ship creaked again, softer this time, almost like a living, breathing sigh. Damn, Alise hated it. That just wasn’t right. Machines should be strong and silent. Noise in them was weakness: a sign fatigue or strain.
Ensign Alba could sense the dark cloud growing behind him. “If you don’t knock it off, she’s really not going to like you,” he whispered to the old ship.
“What?” Cortana called, unable to catch his words,
“Nothing,” Alba said, slightly picking up his pace.
Oh good, Cortana thought, the kid talks to himself. It was just perfect. The ship’s armory officer had run off and gone AWOL, the supply officer was a known smuggler and the engineering bridge officer was a nutty conspiracy theorist that talked to himself. Everything about this assignment was just great.
The thud of approaching footsteps interrupted her thoughts. A crewman ran past her, “Alba!” It was another engineer, this one looking somehow younger than the boyish bridge officer. Hell, she should have still been in mandatory schooling on Cortana’s home world.
“Hey, Callie,” Alba greeted as she caught her breath. “What’s up?” It was rare to see her in such a hurry.
“Sorry,” she panted, “You guys are tall. You walk fast.” She’d had to jog to catch up. It didn’t always pay to be small. “I was wondering if the Admiral came back with you?”
“No, he was meeting with Admiral Reeter.” Alba could safely say he had no idea where ship commander was. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know.
“Oh.”
Alba read the uncertainty in her expression. “He seemed alright when I saw him though, in the Admiral Gives sense.” In one word: scary. “Clarke threatened to decommission the ship, so Admiral Gives probably threatened to throw him into the Tantalus Rift, and now it’s fine.” Alba wasn’t sure what else to tell her.
Callie nodded, suddenly realizing that there was someone behind Alba. She waved. “Hello, I’m Ensign Smith.”
Sergeant Cortana gave the small technician a once-over. She looked barely old enough to serve in the fleet: a few inches over five feet tall with her short hair tied in pigtails. “Someone of your rank is in no position to seek out the Fleet Admiral.”
The smile instantly disappeared from Callie’s lips. She knew that, but…
Stars, it had been such a long time since anyone had looked down upon her like that. It reminded her of her life before coming aboard this ship, a life that had left her scared and hungry every single day. Tears were welling up before she knew what to do with them.
There had been a moment there, during the final hours of the Admiral’s coma, where she had realized that if he died, she would likely be deported back to Sagittarion, with or without the planet being in open rebellion. Nothing in the worlds frightened her more than that, so she couldn’t help it. She ran from that corridor.
“Callie!” Alba called after her, “Wait!”
Cortana stared after her in surprise. I didn’t mean to make her cry. She couldn’t have known that one comment would set her off like that. How was she supposed to know which members of this insane crew were emotionally unstable?
Alba whirled to face her, “First of all, fuck you!” That had been totally uncalled for.
Her first day aboard the ship was clearly not getting any better. “I am your superior, Ensign.” Alise replied, “Mind your tongue.”
Oh hell no. The fastest way to piss off the entire ship was to go after Callie. She was like a little sister to most of the crew. “Second of all, I don’t give a fuck what your rank is compared to the Admiral or to Callie. We all get equal respect here.” It was one of the ship’s few actual rules. “And third of all, don’t think for a single damn second that Admiral Gives would have condoned that.” He was the strictest out of anyone when it came to the crew respecting one another. “He would have thrown your ass in the brig for two days if you were lucky.” Since it was Callie, Cortana probably would have been unlucky.
“Pipe down and keep walking.” Cortana told him coldly. Her arm hurt, her head hurt, the ship was damn creepy and she’d been told this would be a long walk. She just wanted to get it over with.