Homebound Sector, Haven System, Battleship Singularity
As it had before, the screen at the front of the room powered on, to display the visual data of Command’s hail. Base Oceana’s dark crystalline conference table was still occupied by the same four men it had been a few hours ago. General Hommer’s pudgy face was redder than usual, “Gives!” his grating cry sounded, “What is the meaning of this?”
Admiral Gives looked him in the eyes, his cold gaze enough to make Hommer flinch. “The meaning of what?” he asked, daring the General to specify further.
Neither General Hommer nor General Quentin replied, their unease clear. Reeter curled his lip, disdained by their cowardice, but it was Vince Ramseyer in his pinstriped suit who responded. “Mister Gives, you were to have the Singularity docked at Base Oceana ten minutes ago. What is the delay?”
“There is none,” the Admiral said simply. “The Singularity will not be docking at Base Oceana again.” Certainly not for her own destruction.
Ramseyer folded his hands calmly atop the table, curiosity in his gaze. “Are you defying a direct order, Mister Gives?”
There was no denying it. “Yes, I am,” he said without even a moment of hesitation. “Under the seventh clause of the original United Countries Space Command charter, I, Admiral William Gives move to separate from Command with the support of the Battleship Singularity’s crew.”
Reeter’s eyes went as wide as saucers. “You can’t do that.”
“Quite to the contrary, I just did.” Admiral Gives was well aware of the implications, as was the table of his stunned adversaries. “Command is corrupt. I will not serve an organization that will threaten the people it was created to protect, and I not will serve an organization that killed thirty-two of my crewmen and then threatened the existence of my ship.”
Reeter curled his manicured nails into his palms, “You are no longer serving anyone. You were relieved of your duties when you were brought up on charges. You have no authority on which to use Article Seven.” The young man held his poise only barely, digging his nails into his own skin, struggling to remember that this was a public broadcast. An outburst would hurt his public image.
Admiral Gives could very easily read his frustration. The young man ought to know better than to let his enemies know they’d struck a nerve. It was only evidence that Reeter hadn’t predicted this move. “When you court martialed me, you made one mistake, Admiral.” Reeter’s cruel intentions would be his downfall. “Do you know what it was?”
Reeter stared at his adversary through the communications link, grating his perfect teeth into dust. The Steel Prince’s perfect calm had never been so infuriating.
“You left me with my ship,” not that Command or the New Era had ever been given a choice about that. “And that means I still hold every authority aboard these decks.” Without missing a beat, Admiral Gives picked up the handset on the console beside him, enjoying the rising looks of horror on the faces of the tribunal board.
Reeter narrowed his eyes, realizing exactly what Gives intended to do. “You cannot do that.”
Watch me. “Breaker, breaker,” he said into the handset.
The response from the ship’s core came in the form of three mid-range tones: long, short, short. She was listening, as was the crew, watching him eagerly.
“General Override Zero Strike. Admiral, Gives, William, S.” As he fed the necessary information in for the command override, the jaws of the two generals seemed ready to hit the floor. “Battleship Singularity. Zero. Strike. Omega. Nu. Nu. Delta. Psi. Override Confirm.” He read out the string of security numbers, easily making eye contact with the men who had pushed him to do this. He finished, “Breaker. One. Four. Accept or deny.”
There was a pause, but then the robotic voice of the ship’s automated security protocols began to read the command override and security string slowly back to him.
“Prince, you cannot do that.” Reeter could barely contain his rage, tendons obviously straining in his neck. “It won’t work.” Zero Strike severed a ship’s ties to Command while the seventh clause of the charter severed the crew’s. “Your ship is a flagship.” They were designed to be the most loyal ships in the fleet, and as such, were exempt from the Zero Strike override.
“Yes,” Admiral Gives agreed. “Unfortunately for you, she is my flagship.”
The repeated override neared its end. “Breaker. One. Four.” Pause. “Error. Singularity reads and denies order.”
Yes, I know. For once, Reeter was right, but Reeter didn’t need to know that. “Thank you,” he said before hanging up the handset and quirking an eyebrow to Reeter, “Accepted.”
The vein on top of Reeter’s forehead began to throb. “Impossible.”
“Apparently not.” This bit of the show was critically important. As long as Command thought he’d successfully activated that override, then they would not attempt to use their own overrides. It was a bit of a bluff, but mostly accurate, since the Singularity’s old control systems did not allow Command to remotely take over anyway. As far as both the crew and Command needed to know, the Singularity was now officially bound only to his commands.
The only thing Reeter could picture in that moment was throwing the Steel Prince up against a wall and strangling the life out of his throat. His fury deafened out his other thoughts. How dare he invalidate the security measures that controlled Command’s almighty fleet!
Ramseyer gave an invisible sigh. It was shameful to see the self-proclaimed savior of the human race in such a fit. “Mister Gives, you have just condemned your entire crew to be marked as traitors. By choosing to follow you, they have chosen to die.”
“To be fair,” Zarrey said, crossing his arms where he stood beside the Admiral, “you fuckers tried to kill us before we were traitors, so nothing’s really changed.”
“This crew was marked for slaughter years ago. They fled you and your ways because you saw them as flawed, because you saw them as weak, and because they could not agree with your intentions. They gathered here with me, and that is why you plotted to destroy this ship then and every day since, but we will no longer bear that threat without returning fire.” Fair was fair, as far as Admiral Gives cared. “I take with me the ship you cursed and the crew you tried to kill, but believe me, this is not the start of a war.”
“You think we can just let this rebellion go? You think we can just turn our backs to a renegade battleship, Mister Gives?” Ramseyer laughed, the sound harsh. “You will be hunted to the ends of the universe and killed, no matter where you run, no matter where you hide.” They were not a wanted part of these worlds. They were not even a valid player in this game of empires.
Admiral Gives did not need to look around to know that the bridge crew was looking to him for reassurance. If Command set itself to hunting them down, did they really stand a chance? One ship against thousands?
The Admiral kept his cold gaze on those four power-hungry, self-important men, feeling the power of the ship under his command through the hand he kept on the radar console. “If you want war,” he dropped his tone, “I will show you war.” The level of frost in his words had become dangerous. These men had no idea what monster they’d had at their table, living off their scraps for years. “If you have ever loved anyone, then you will not challenge me, or I will drown you in their lifeblood. If you have ever valued anything, then you will not challenge me, or I will gut you with its remains. If you have ever possessed a desire, then then you will not challenge me, or I will crush it to pieces in front of you, then feed your broken heart to the Night Demon herself.” Admiral Gives never wavered in his demeanor, the words less of a threat and more of a promise. “Am I understood?”
Ramseyer’s hands had begun to shake, a fresh light of panic in his eyes. “Yes.”
The Admiral nodded once. Good. “Admiral Reeter,” he looked to the younger man, “you do not want make an enemy out of me, out of us.” He gestured slightly to his crew, where they sat or stood around the bridge, monitoring their stations.
Reeter looked them each over: a curly-haired Lieutenant, a former smuggler for a pilot, and a boyish engineer among others. He wanted to kill them all. His gaze lingered a little longer on the pretty, tan face of Lieutenant Robinson, who had once been his communications officer. Pathetic. She’d had such potential, but it had been wasted.
He moved along, his gaze eventually settling upon the only officer on the Singularity’s bridge that was not wearing a uniform jacket. His pale skin was splotched with bruises, but he was still grinning underneath his untrimmed orange beard. “You.”
Zarrey chuckled heartily, loving obvious indignation in Reeter’s handsome face, “Allow me to introduce our chief armory officer, Lieutenant Montgomery Gaffigan. I believe you’ve met.”
Gaffigan just kept smiling. He could see the redness of anger rising in Reeter’s face. It was familiar to him now. “Hey, bud. Fuck you. You broke my nose.” It still ached and remained noticeably swollen.
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“How?” Reeter demanded. That officer should still be in the Olympia’s brig. How did he escape?
Monty shrugged, continuing to smile. “A good magician never reveals his tricks.”
“And a good tactician never plays his ace in the open.” Admiral Gives easily drew Reeter’s attention away from the crew. “Please give the Manhattan AI my regards.” He signaled for Robinson to cut the transmission, and it promptly disappeared.
A silence took over the bridge. The crew exchanged glances, satisfied with the obvious chaos they’d just thrown the New Era’s way.
“Well,” Zarrey said after a long pause, “I think that went well.” For the first time in fleet history, a ship had seceded from Command. “It’s always funny to Reeter try to contain himself. It’s so not a good look for him.” It turned a decently handsome man pretty damn ugly in Zarrey’s opinion.
Gaffigan turned from his colorful array of weapons controls, “Sir, the Olympia’s targeting sensors just went active-”
“Battle stations.” The Admiral ordered, not bothering to listen to the last part of that statement. “Set Condition One.” Predictably, his split from Command had ruffled more than figurative feathers.
“Aye, sir,” came the chorus.
Out in the corridor, the alert klaxons began to sound. Zarrey cursed, “Spoke too soon.” Nothing was ever easy around here. “Condition One is confirmed.” They had prepared for potential combat before Command had even called.
“Ping the Olympia back,” the Admiral instructed Gaffigan. We’re ready for a fight, “but we do not fire first, Lieutenant.” If the Olympia went to war with them here, Admiral Gives refused to be held accountable for the carnage.
The rain of battle debris would generate thousands of collateral casualties in this crowded orbit, let alone the potential millions at risk on the surface of Ariea if any wreckage survived the atmosphere. Admiral Gives would not be held accountable for the loss of another habitable world. New Terra had been enough.
“Sir, the Olympia’s weapons aren’t raised. She is pinging us, but near as I can tell, her main armaments are not active.” Galhino put the ship’s active sensors to work, raking in data. “That said, I am reading some strange power fluctuations.”
“Get visual on her,” Zarrey ordered, “I’m sure this’ll be good.” If they were lucky, the pretty little flagship was blowing herself up.
The viewscreen’s default data input was switched from one of the bow cameras to one mounted on the starboard flank, and the Olympia’s curvaceous form appeared. An unearthly white glow was forming a halo around her bow. Pieces of armor had folded outward, revealing a delicate ring of focused mechanics, a deadly flower coming to bloom.
“What the hell is that?” Colonel Zarrey demanded, trying to make sense of the sight. “That sure as fuck doesn’t look like a power fluctuation, Galhino!” Holy hell, it looked like the Olympia was charging something.
Thunderbolt. It had to be. “Helm,” Admiral Gives ordered, “All ahead full.”
“All ahead full, aye,” Jazmine confirmed, throttling up the main engines.
The Singularity’s quartet of engines loosed the full force of their thrust, rocketing the ship forward with what would have been enough thrust to turn the crew into red smears, had it not been for the inertial dampeners. Even with the dampeners, the acceleration force was noticeable momentarily, but the systems quickly compensated. “Get us behind Luna Major, Lieutenant.” They had to buy time. “Prepare for emergency jump.”
“We’re not going to fight?” After the Admiral had leveled all those gruesome threats? Whatever the Olympia was up to, it sure as hell looked like an attack to Zarrey. Shouldn’t they return in kind?
“We cannot fight that,” the Admiral said. They had no choice but to retreat. They were up against Reeter’s second ace. It seemed the young man had no interest in holding his cards in secret. Reeter wanted this to end quickly.
The glow on the Olympia’s hull was brightening. “Sir, the Olympia’s entire available power output appears to be getting channeled into that equipment. She appears to be charging some sort of beam weapon. I’ve never seen anything on this scale.” The level of electrical flux was rising incredibly, and it was beginning to confuse the sensors.
They were about to witness the most powerful weapon in the Olympia’s arsenal, Thunderbolt. “She is readying her flagship weapon.” Reeter was not playing around. This time, he intended to sink them.
“Her flagship weapon?” Damn naddlethworfing shit. Zarrey would normally be honored that their existence required such drastic measures to be taken, but at the moment he was about to be smitten from the universe and he wasn’t feeling too good about it. “That thing’s supposed to be an anti-fleet weapon!” It was never intended to be targeted against a single ship. If the rumors were accurate, a glancing blow would likely end this fight. He looked to the Admiral. “What’s the play? Fire and hope we stop that thing before it fires?”
Loosing a broadside might end the Olympia’s charge attempt, but it would also fry every electrical system within the immediate area, including civilian ships’ and Base Oceana’s. Without power, their orbits would begin to decay, and eventually, many would burn up in the atmosphere. The Singularity would survive, but the cost would be high. “We buy time.”
“That’s a shitty plan, sir.” Zarrey would really rather not die today.
“It is the only plan we have.” Admiral Gives would not endanger every ship in orbit just to escape this system. That was exactly the New Era’s intention. “Prepare sidekick to port.” At this range, they’d have roughly two seconds to dodge after the Olympia fired.
“Sidekick?” Under this acceleration?! The very attempt to throw the ship laterally sideways might tear her apart. Simply, the structure hadn’t been designed to take thrust forces from that direction, and the structure was already under stress from the engines’ hard acceleration. The premise of a sidekick – firing all maneuvering thrusters on one side of the ship, combined with venting over pressurized airlocks for additional thrust – was a lot to ask of any ship. Under these conditions, performing that maneuver, one that the Admiral had created and used before, reeked of suicide. “You’re actually insane,” Zarrey protested, met with the Admiral’s cold, calculating blue gaze. “Sidekick to port, aye.”
Zarrey moved off to make those preparations, and the Admiral looked again to the enemy ship. That halo of energy had grown bright enough to turn the Olympia to a distorted shadow. “Lieutenant Galhino, can you estimate the full capacitance of the weapon’s charge?”
“No, sir.” Galhino answered. “Its energy emissions are saturating our active sensors. Passive indicate only that the charge is continuing to build.” Whatever it was, the weapon had a plainly massive energy demand. All of the Olympia’s power had been diverted to charging it, including power to raise and aim her normal weapons.
“Forty seconds until we’re in the moon’s shadow, sir.” Jazz said, simultaneously prepping the controls for the aforementioned sidekick.
‘Thirty-five until Thunderbolt is ready to fire.’ The ghost put in silently. ‘We’re not to make it.’
‘We’ll make it,’ the Admiral assured her, knowing she’d made the same guess he had. He’d assumed Thunderbolt had an energy demand roughly three three-quarters of the Ariea’s flagship weapon, taken the Olympia’s maximum power output, and estimated the charge time. ‘You didn’t account for Luna Major’s magnetic field.’
As it so happened, the Olympia’s greatest strength was her greatest weakness. Thunderbolt could only be aimed and fired by a supercomputer, as the Olympia’s computer systems were. But that supercomputer required a greater power draw of its own the harder it worked to run aiming calculations. Luna Major’s iron core provided a strong magnetic field, and to aim an energy weapon of any sort through that, let alone one so powerful, the electromagnetic effects had to be taken into account. Running those calculations would consume power and lengthen the charge time.
Redoing her own calculation, the ghost surmised, ‘It’ll be close.’ And if that estimation of theirs was even slightly off in the wrong direction…
“Now is a really great time for another plan,” Zarrey called, nervous sweat showing on his brow. “Like if you’re sitting on a flagship weapon of our own, now’s a great time to pull it out.”
“XO, you are working on our backup plan.” Even if the Singularity had a weapon of her own, they didn’t have time to activate it. The Olympia would have begun firing preparations long before gathering the weapon’s electrical charge.
Zarrey paled, “So our backup plan is to dodge.” A certain type of horror settled in. “Dear stars, please save us.” Considering what the previous flagship’s specialty weapon had allegedly been capable of, Zarrey was certain he didn’t want to be anywhere near Thunderbolt when it fired.
“Twenty seconds, sir.” Jazmine called, looking unusually tense.
“FTL Drive One will be ready in thirty seconds,” Alba added. “Ship is secured for jump.”
“Coordinates locked,” Walters said his part, a tremble in voice.
The Olympia’s glare had grown blinding. In the Admiral’s opinion, it was a pathetic display. The Singularity did not need a superweapon to be the best ship in the fleet. It seemed the Olympia was unwilling to take them on toe-to-toe. Scared? The Admiral mused, feeling out the pulse of his old ship. You should be.
Statistically, Thunderbolt and rumors of the Singularity’s dilapidation discarded, the two surviving flagships were an even match. That said, when it came to capital ship combat, the Bloody Singularity was queen. In a duel with another capital ship, she’d never lost, and if Admiral Gives had anything to say about it, she never would.
“Five seconds,” the helmsman said.
“Sidekick ready!” Zarrey announced.
The Olympia had become an artificial star, crackling with pure white energy. Yet, rising on the other part of the screen was the gray sphere of Luna Major, colorless, but welcome.
“Two seconds!” Jazz was leaning forward, egging their ship onward. Come on! “Clear!”
“Ha-ha! Target this!” Zarrey laughed triumphantly, “Oh, wait, you can’t!” Beam weapons might travel at the speed of light, but they couldn’t hit a target they didn’t have a direct line of fire on. They had to have a straight shot.
“Let’s just hope they don’t shoot through the moon,” Gaffigan muttered. If Thunderbolt was as powerful as the rumors claimed, they were still at risk if the Olympia fired now.
“Wait,” Jazmine looked over, tensing up on the controls again, “they can do that?”
“With a beam weapon, probably not through the core of a moon,” but at the moment they were only being shielded by the moon’s edge, and they were dealing with a weapon several orders of magnitude more powerful than anything he’d ever seen. “That said, I’ve seen it done with projectile weapons on a somewhat smaller moon.”
What? Jazmine was both intrigued and somewhat terrified by the prospect of anyone shooting through a moon. It seemed especially relevant right about now.
“Ready for FTL,” Alba called.
“Engage,” came the Admiral’s instant order.
The jump was not an easy one. The longer the distance, the greater physical toll it took on ships and passengers. Additionally, acceleration and momentum carried through the jump, paused and restarted instantly by the machinations of subspace travel. The more momentum a ship carried into a jump, the harsher the effects of subspace.
Lieutenant Jazmine felt like his head was being squeezed through a juicer. Compared to how smooth FTL maneuvers tended to be on the Singularity, it was unusually harsh. The moment the pressure vanished, he turned to his red headed friend, “Wait, you’ve seen someone shoot through a moon?”
The weapons officer raised his hands in surrender. “We had orders to fire.” It was not his fault. “Certain people,” he nodded over his shoulder, predictably, to the Admiral, “disregard the great processes that make up the natural formation of planets when it suits their needs.”
Jazmine just stared at him. “You shot through a moon?” How had he not heard this story?
Admiral Gives elected to ignore the two officer’s chatter. It was their way of working off the adrenaline. As to the topic of their discussion, destroying that moon had never been his intention. Simply, it had been in the way. He turned to his XO, “Stand down from Condition One. Set a course that keeps us away from traditional patrol routes.”
“Aye, sir.” Zarrey easily took over, not bothering to ask where the Admiral was off to as he left the bridge.