Homebound Sector, Haven System, Battleship Singularity
Ensign Alba was having a bad day. It climaxed when he woke up with the commander of the ship’s Marine contingent looking down at him. “Alba, you shouldn’t be sleeping ‘ere.”
All Alba could do was groan as he reached up to his aching head. A bump the size of a rock was growing on it. “What happened?”
Lieutenant Colonel Pflum pulled the engineer to his feet with an exasperated sigh, “That’s what you’re supposed to be telling us, mate.”
On his feet, Alba’s world was put back in clearer perspective. Yes, here, right here in this plain and empty corridor, the Sergeant had turned on him. No, wait. They’d bumped into someone else. A stranger. The inspector. “Code Blue,” Alba said, tapping Pflum’s shoulder.
The Marine paused, but quickly took in the seriousness of Alba’s expression. “Hostiles aboard ship?”
“Does she not seem hostile to you?” Alba gasped out, gesturing to the lump on his head and the bruises on his throat.
Valid. Pflum turned to the Marine beside him, “Call it in.” The Sergeant had made herself into an armed hostile. She’d attacked a bridge officer, twice. “Let’s get you to the conference room, Alba.” The Admiral would meet them there. “You’ve ‘ad quite a day.”
The young engineer clung to Pflum’s tactical vest, feeling dizzy and nauseous. “She’s with the inspector.” The inspector’s sudden appearance had distracted Alba, and Cortana had seized the chance to grab her side arm and knock Alba out.
“Beezlenac.” Pflum cursed, half-dragging Ensign Alba to the conference room. The inspector alone had been enough trouble. Now that inspector was being guided by a Marine Sergeant who was armed and dangerous, which likely wasn’t going to end well, at all.
Alba had no recollection of arriving in the conference room or being deposited into one of the leather chairs around the table. His head throbbed, a combination of exhaustion and injury leaving him completely dazed.
The next time he came to, it was with cheek picking up splinters from the conference table’s old, split wood. The room was spinning, and there was a slight ringing in his ears. Admiral Gives was standing across the table, his commanding presence filling the room. “Hi, sir,” Alba drowsily.
To everyone else in the room, that greeting was a completely incoherent gargle. Admiral Gives turned to Pflum, “Is he injured?”
Pflum shrugged, “He was unconscious when we found him. He passed out again when we brough him ‘ere.”
Admiral Gives noted the lump on the ensign’s head. “The moment we finish here, take him to the medical bay. Full concussion protocol.” This lax, sleepy behavior was very unlike the young bridge officer. The Admiral had come to expect it from his second in command, but not from Alba.
“I suppose he’s looking a might green,” Pflum agreed. The engineer looked downright motion sick, but the ship’s inertial dampening systems kept everything in static equilibrium. Even if they were under acceleration, Alba shouldn’t be feeling it.
“Ensign,” the Admiral said, “I need to know what happened.”
“Iwas walkingda-“
“Oi, kid, ‘ead up,” Pflum called, gesturing for Alba to peel his face off the table. “We can’t understand anything you’re trying to say.”
Alba pulled his head off the wooden tabletop, ignoring the resultant dizziness. “I’m not a kid.” He’d been on this ship for five years, despite still being younger than most of the crew.
Pflum opened his mouth to argue, but the Admiral held up a hand to stop him. “The point, Ensign.”
“I was walking the new Sergeant to the brig when we found the inspector.” That coward had been hiding in one of the corridors not being used during the resupply. “He took me by surprise, and the Sarge… she grabbed the gun and then knocked me out… I think.” The last bit of his memory was a little fuzzy. “That’s where the LC found me.”
Admiral Gives looked to the leader of the ship’s Marines. “There is an inspector on board?”
Pflum did his best not to wince. “Yes, sir. We’ve been trying to track him down for the last two hours.” Unfortunately, stumbling across an unconscious Ensign Alba had been their first lead.
“And the Code Blue?” A security alert was not the subtlest way to catch one of Command’s personnel.
“I called it on account of the Sarge.” Alba said, “She hasn’t taken a liking to this ship. She’s armed and to get what she wants, she’ll knock heads.” Literally.
“So, basically, another Command brat,” Pflum huffed, and ran a hand across the short, buzzed hair on his scalp. They’d been through this before. “She doesn’t want to be ‘ere, and the fastest way out of this assignment is to help Command’s little spy decommission the ship.” It wouldn’t have been a problem normally, but normally there wasn’t a recently reconstructed structural support in the starboard bow.
Admiral Gives noted the bruising on Alba’s neck. This went beyond that blow to the head. The Sergeant had brought willing harm to one of the crew, and that was the worst mistake she could have made aboard these decks.
A moment of silence fell in the conference room. Pflum crossed his arms over his chest. This was not a usual pause. “Something wrong, sir?”
“I do not recall giving any of Command’s personnel permission to board, let alone permission to inspect my ship.”
Pflum cautiously took note of the cold seeping into the room. “That’s because he didn’t ask, sir.”
“That is unacceptable.” Without his permission, nobody touched anything on this ship, including the ship herself.
“Yes, sir, we know.” Lieutenant Colonel Pflum lowered his gaze. “We’ve had over fifty supply runners dock or land. He could ‘ave come in on any one of them, and similarly, can flee on any one of them. The only way to certainly catch ‘im would be to put the entire ship into security lockdown and completely suspend the resupply.”
“No,” the Admiral said, “the resupply has priority.” If the resupply was paused, there was no guarantee that Command would allow it to restart. At least until the replacement power core was on board, the resupply had to continue. It was critical. “Call off the search for the inspector.”
Pflum recoiled. “Sir, with all due respect, what?” What sense did that make? “We need to find that inspector and the new Sergeant. Stars, look at what they did to Alba.” The young engineer had passed out again on the chipped old conference table, a slight dribble of drool pooling below his mouth.
“Post guards to protect the FTL drives, power cores, and main engine control room. Additionally, double the guard on CIC.” Admiral Gives would not deny the existence of a threat. That said, “Continuing a search now will only prompt the inspector to flee.” If they allowed him to keep working for the moment, they would be able to catch him once the resupply was over. “Let any Marines not assigned to guard duty rest. Once the resupply ends, I want a full security sweep, bow to stern.”
“Sir, that will take several hours,” Pflum warned. A full sweep included the long-term storage compartments and the engineering spaces. They wouldn’t just search for personnel either. They’d search for foreign equipment and other means of espionage or sabotage.
“I am aware,” the Admiral said calmly, “but I will not allow any member of Command’s forces to wander the decks of this ship without taking the proper precautions.” This ship was his domain. “That will be all.”
The Marines knew better than to argue. They gathered up their equipment and left, dragging Alba with them. Admiral Gives knew his orders would be followed flawlessly, but this was far from over. Where he stood, looking down at the old conference room table, he could feel things slipping out of hand, bit by bit.
Whose orders was that inspector following? Was it the New Era’s, or was Clarke continuing to play games? Was he here to sabotage, to get the ship decommissioned, or for some other reason entirely? There were too many questions and not enough answers for the Admiral’s liking. This is why I hate politics.
It was a stupid game. Nothing that happened in the courtrooms or legislatures truly ever mattered. A good tactician could upend any political decree in the span of seconds on the battlefield. Maybe it was a cynical view, but the only people in these worlds with real power were those who commanded the weapons of the worlds. They were responsible for settling the self-interested debates of those politicians in battles where the winner took all.
Admiral Gives had been ordered into those political disputes more times than he could count. They were as pointless the hundredth time as they were on the first. Nothing ever changed. He had been sick of that game for thirty years, but he was still forced to play.
He tapped the wood of the conference table, remembering all the briefings he’d given here. The Singularity’s plain conference room was both far smaller and sparser than its comparable spaces on Base Oceana or the Olympia. The table was splintering, the leather on the chairs was cracking, and the only decoration in the room was the fake potted plant in the corner. Still, this room had held a hundred debates more important than any ever held on Base Oceana.
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In this room, the fate of two sentient species had been decided. In this room, the Frontier Rebellion had officially ended in an unconditional surrender. And in this room, Admiral Gives had first been offered the chance to command a ship.
He had stood then, the youngest officer ever to take command of a battleship. He stood now, one of the most hated members of the human race. “Things have changed,” he said absently.
There was no response, a glaring error to the Admiral’s usual existence. It seemed the ghost held no desire to interact with him anymore. He couldn’t blame her. After everything they had been though, him willingly leaving for any reason, even to protect her, it felt like a betrayal.
No, it was a betrayal. It made him a traitor to them both.
“Dammit!” He grabbed the small rank pin box from his pocket and threw it against the nearest bulkhead. It clattered to the floor, leaving the room to be filled again with silence. The Admiral closed his eyes and curled his fists, ignoring the tearing pain that came from his injured hand. This must be how it feels to lose.
It was disgusting.
There was nothing he felt now except utter disgust with himself and a repulsion to that little white satin box on the floor. How had it gotten so far? How could he have let it?
The worlds were dragging him back into their sadistic games. The war hadn’t yet begun, and he had already lost. He had already made himself a traitor to the only entity in the worlds that treated him well.
He had not wanted to be involved with Clarke, with the New Era, with any of this, but the worlds had not given him a choice. The only choice he had been able to make was to leave and ensure that his ship didn’t get caught up in this mess. But the presence of an inspector invalidated even that vain action.
The ship would be decommissioned. He couldn’t risk interfering in the inspection. If he tried, the New Era would have him court martialed. He had to let his ship be decommissioned, but, as a General, he could reinstate the ship and send her off as planned.
However, by sending that inspector aboard, Reeter’s supporters were now forcing him into the Generalship, meaning that was part of their plan, and Admiral Gives knew better than anyone that the moment he started playing into the enemy’s hands was the moment he lost.
But the New Erans had missed just one thing about Admiral Gives: he didn’t care. He couldn’t care less who won this civil war once it began. His only objective was to give his ship and crew the best chance of survival, and that meant trying for peace and then, worse coming to worse, remaining General just long enough to reinstate the Singularity and send her on an extended mission to unknown space.
After that, the worlds’ self-destructive ways were not his concern. Reeter would probably kill him, but Admiral Gives didn’t care. He had been looking for the right place to die for years, but his job had always come first.
It still came first. He could not stop the inspector, but he could track down the new Sergeant and ensure she didn’t turn violent against any other members of the crew.
Calmly, Admiral Gives went to pick up the decorative box from the floor and checked the bulkhead to make sure he hadn’t left a scuff. The resupply should finish in the next two hours, which gave him just enough time to do the rounds and then track the Sergeant down himself.
The rounds, as usual for a ship undergoing a resupply, had a certain level of chaos. There were a few complaints of misplaced supplies: bags of powdered flame retardant swapped for bags of fertilizer, or sterile rags confused with oil towels. It was nothing new.
It did the crew well to see their commanding officer up and about, solidifying the reality of his apparent revival. The engineers were especially glad to see him – something about Colonel Zarrey’s ineptitude with machines.
Admiral Gives spent longer on the rounds than normal, pausing every place he stopped long enough to measure the morale damage done by their recent losses. After an hour, he arrived in the brig, marking the halfway point of his route.
The brig was just as well-worn as the rest of the ship. The bars that formed and divided the cells were made of the same dull metal that made up the bulkheads. With all the cells empty, the brig was quiet, just the usual hum of the ship’s engines lingering in the background.
One Marine sat behind the guard desk that faced the cells, and another stood at the door. The Marine behind the desk stood respectfully when his superior entered the room, but as per standing orders, did not go to attention.
“Good evening, Corporal Johnston,” the Admiral greeted, all too used to the Marine’s intimidating mountain of muscle.
“Evenin’, suh,” Johnston replied, his accent heavily lilting his words. “Good to see ya on your feet.” With one colossal hand, the Marine easily lifted up a large duffel. It was packed full, but Johnston didn’t seem to notice its weight as he dropped it onto the countertop. “I reckon you’re here for this.” One of the yeomen had brought it in from where it had been abandoned.
The Admiral examined the nametag attached to the duffel. “Quite right, Corporal.” Sergeant Cortana’s belongings had been brought here to await her arrival. Admiral Gives opened up the bag with no reservations. Any respect he’d held for Cortana’s privacy or personal property had disappeared the moment she’d struck out against one of the crew. He dug through the bag until he found a hat that looked decently worn. “This should do. Thank you, Corporal.”
Johnston had turned most of his attention back to cleaning the tri-barreled fortification turret he used as his primary weapon. “Anytime, suh.” After serving aboard this ship for years, Johnston knew exactly how this Code Blue would play out. “Try’n end this quickly. Frenchie already wants to strap mines to her feet and let her walk.”
“I imagine that is the Cadet’s preferred method of handing any personnel situation.”
The Admiral’s reply was deadbeat, but Johnston still laughed, the sound a low rumble that filled the room. That only evolved into a knowing chuckle as the Admiral left.
From the rounds, Admiral Gives knew the last set of supply runners were getting ready to disembark. The act of properly stowing supplies would still take another hour, but it was time to start tracking down the Sergeant. By the time he actually found her and the inspector, there would be no more supply runners to aid a potential escape.
The Admiral needed just one more thing to put his plan in motion, so he headed down two decks and aft, Cortana’s hat in hand. He spun the hatch open and stepped into a room completely contrary to the ship’s devoid metal corridors. Here, greenery crawled over everything: the ground, the visible support structures, and the walls. The smell of truly fresh air lingered, along with the scent of freshly clipped plants.
The lights here were warm, basking the plants in the false sunlight they needed to thrive. Irrigation nets were invisibly woven into the nutrient-rich layer of soil substitute, but the feel of it all was real enough for the Admiral’s taste. This was as close to being planet-side as he ever wanted to come again.
It didn’t take long for the room’s two current occupants to notice his arrival. The first came barreling toward him at full speed, pink tongue lolling out of his long furry snout, and predictably, the second came running after him. “Rocket! Get back here!”
By the time the Marine handler caught up, his dog was already leaning against the Admiral’s legs, enjoying an idle scratch behind one of his ears. “Sorry, sir. He really likes you.”
At the rate the dog’s tail was wagging, that much was obvious. “No problem, Corporal.” It wasn’t proper action for a trained military dog, but the Admiral didn’t mind.
“I always took you for a cat person, sir.” Corporal Eric figured the Admiral had quite a bit in common with cats: loner attitude, mysterious intentions, quick reflexes…
“No,” Admiral Gives said, “dogs are loyal.” Cats were not to be trusted. They were shifty bastards through and through.
Noted, Eric thought, tossing the gnawed-on stick he’d been using to play fetch away. “What brings you down to hydroponics, sir?”
“I need Rocket to track someone down for me.” He held up Cortana’s hat.
“Ah.” Corporal Eric said. “I trust you know where the person was last seen?”
“Of course,” they would not need to search the entire ship just to catch the Sergeant’s trail. “Follow me.” He led them out of hydroponics, towards the corridor where Alba had been knocked unconscious.
Corporal Eric didn’t ask questions. Admiral Gives well knew the limitations of tracking someone aboard ship, even with a trained search and rescue dog. The person had to be new to the ship, otherwise their scent would already be all over the corridors, and the trail had to be fresh.
Navigating the ship’s corridors was a near-mindless exercise for the Admiral. He was free to let his thoughts wander back to the thriving plants. It was important to note that hydroponics remained in good condition. Had the radiation of the nuke killed those plants, the ship’s ability to sustain life aboard her decks would have been jeopardized.
The Singularity, like all battleships, was designed to be almost entirely independent of stations and planetary resources. She was designed to be a self-contained, self-sustaining city built for the single purpose of waging war. She had repair, recycling and remanufacturing facilities for everything from water to support craft. Short of the exceptionally complicated chemical processes it took to make medicines and coolant, anything the ship might need to continue operations could be fabricated on board.
Built to operate with a fleet that had been eviscerated by the Hydrian Armada, the Singularity was even capable of refining her own fuel from ore. She was able to operate independently in hostile space for months, and if necessary, years. Food for the crew was one of the few things that the ship truly required. While some was grown in hydroponics, it alone was not enough to sustain the full crew complement.
No, hydroponics’ primary purpose was to render the Singularity’s air recycling systems one hundred percent effective. With their purely mechanical components, the ship’s Life Support systems recycled air with high efficiency. She could easily sustain a crew for months, but eventually, their imperfect cycle would render the air unbreathable. The plants in hydroponics negated the mechanical systems’ imperfection, allowing the air to be recycled infinitely. As long as there was a volume of air to recycle, power for the ship’s systems, and the plants in hydroponics lived, then Life Support was a perfect cycle, something that had to be taken into account.
“Here,” the Admiral said, pausing them in a seemingly empty corridor, one of many others like it. He held the black hat out, but Rocket only stepped forward to nudge his gloved hand and whimper. No doubt, the SAR dog could smell the antibacterial burn ointment that saturated the bandages. “Track,” the Admiral commanded, jostling the hat.
Obediently, the dog buried his snout in the hat, drawing in the scent and set to work scouring the nearby deck for a trail. He barked once when he had it, and then started following it, nose to the floor. The Admiral followed him, Corporal Eric on his heels.
It was a twisting, constantly turning path – one that would be taken by someone trying to follow a map without knowing exactly where they were. They came to a ‘T’ junction deep in the ship’s bow. The SAR dog sniffed in a circle, then promptly sat in the intersection.
“Trail diverges, sir.” Eric said, popping his earpiece back into his ear. He was certain they had to be close as he checked his rifle.
Admiral Gives contemplated their location. The juncture to the left headed toward the only compartment on the ship that Command had full control over. The inspector would have headed there to obtain the ship’s secure records for Command. The corridor to the right headed towards the starboard bow.
The inspector had already headed for the bow’s damaged support, no doubt thanks to the Sergeant’s help. Admiral Gives held back a curse. Too slow. He headed right and grabbed the first handset he saw off its wall-mounted rack, dialing CIC.
“CIC, this is Robinson.”
“Lieutenant, this is the Admiral. All engineering systems are to go to Condition Two status immediately.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied.
Admiral Gives replaced the handset on its rack, only to have the deck shudder beneath his feet. The lights flickered, the power glitch a symptom of something he recognized. “With me,” he told the Marine, setting off at a faster pace.
Corporal Eric followed, suddenly uneasy. That power glitch was abnormal, and so was the jarring of the deck that accompanied it. What was he heading into?
Leading him, Admiral Gives was livid, not that anyone would ever know. At this rate, he’d be stabbing his third victim today very soon.
Perhaps it would have been more effective to grab his sword…