Halogen Sector, Battleship Singularity
The room was a clammy, gnarled convergence of pipes that knotted together chaotically to the untrained eye. Shut off and control valves speckled the entangled mass, their colored paint so chipped, the metal below seemed splotched with festering wounds.
Leaked oil and coolant had gathered on the pipes in an ugly brackish sludge. Drips of condensation slid down the walls, pulled from the humid air. The laboring air scrubbers only pushed the odor of hot oil and metal around the room, unable to fully remove it.
It was dark down here. The main engine control room was long overdue for deep clean, leaving the old overhead lights unable to penetrate the pervading layers of grime. Still, the Admiral didn’t hesitate to pull off his black glove and run his bare hands along the piping.
A wrong move, and the heat of the metal could easily burn him, but he knew these engines better than that. They were the heart of his old ship. He knew their limits and their faults, able to identify their smallest strains. Dancing his hands across the valves, he began to tune the engines, working to correct a slight shake in the noise that filled the room.
Another might have hesitated. Down here in the darkness and dinginess, the convoluted piping could play games with an unfamiliar mind. This space could feel entrapping and hostile, the pipes likened to the writhing mass of a monster as raw power hummed in the humidity of the air.
To those who didn’t know it, didn’t recognize it, that untamed intensity was a reminder that this machine was thousands of times more powerful than any human. Against her, they were little more than insects: fragile and weak.
But those who knew that power, those that understood it, were never so threatened. After all, these engines, as they rumbled on, steadier than a heartbeat, generated the heat that kept the crew warm and provided the power that gave them lights to see and air to breathe in the void. These engines, the heart of the ship, kept her crew alive.
And maybe that was the problem.
The Singularity, like all battleships, was, at a basic level, an immensely powerful weapon. She had been designed to bring death, but also to protect the lives of her crew at any cost. The contradiction at best was illogical, and at worst was nothing more than a short path to insanity for the ghost.
As wrong and cruel as it felt, pushing the ghost and her affections away would make it easier for her. Every time, it killed another bit of the little human decency he had left, but it had never been about him. It was about the sanity of an immortal whose full power could irreversibly scar the galaxy.
It was an extremely complicated situation, but he understood, “I have a responsibility to do the right thing here.” It was exhausting. Morality was such a stupid game.
He sighed absently to the old ship, “I don’t know why you put up with me. You know how much I hate doing the right thing.” It itched like a bad rash. The last thing anyone would call him was moral. No wonder his relationship with the crew was so strained. The trust he’d once unconditionally commanded wasn’t there anymore. The crew genuinely feared that he might give another ruthless order like the one he’d given in the Aragonian Sector.
Were they wrong? Of course not. He would do absolutely anything to ensure his ship’s survival. In that regard, there was no line he would not cross.
Turning one last valve, the engines fell into perfect alignment. The low rumble that filled the room shifted into a purr. Much better. He loved that sound. “We’re going to get ourselves in trouble someday, you and I.” Not that they weren’t already in trouble. They were playing a very dangerous game.
“Sir, are you talking to the ship again?” someone said behind him. “Because I hope you know it makes you seem insane.” She paused, reconsidering the man’s history, “Well, more insane.”
Ensign Malweh. This was going to be a lovely conversation. She never made any attempt to veil her blatant dislike of him. Still, he kept his tone polite, “Good morning, Ensign.”
“Cut the shit. It’s 0300. Why the hell are you down here?” the engineer said. “I thought the Chief told you to stop coming down here in the middle of the night.”
“The Chief does not give orders on this ship. I do.” He had the right to do whatever he so pleased, including come down here to tune the engines in the middle of the night.
Malweh huffed and threw her arms across her chest. “I’m never going to understand why this ship seems to like you so much.” He was the only one who could make the engines purr like this, but he was also, at times, ruthless in the way he treated the old machine – the ruthlessness of someone who knew the exact limitations of what he could demand from the ship without causing irreparable damage, and wasn’t afraid to use that knowledge. “You’re like her half-feral stray cat that sometimes comes home for Sunday brunch.”
“I suppose you have called me worse, Ensign.” Malweh wasn’t one to hold back her true feelings. “Might you feel bad about sowing dissent among my crew in the Aragonian Sector?” He had received several notes regarding her behavior after the nuke. She’d been happy to see him almost die.
“I’m not here to apologize, you old bastard.” Obviously, she was here because she wanted something. “You need to deal with that bitch of a Marine Sergeant. She’s making life for us grease monkeys straight hell.”
“Sergeant Cortana did not request to leave.” No doubt, Cortana had remained on board because she had felt pressured not to be the only crewman that requested to leave before the ship separated from Command.
“Yeah, well, she should have.” The Sergeant hated it here.
“Has she done anything wrong, Ensign?”
There wasn’t an ounce of concern in his expression. The grungy yellow lights highlighted the blue of his neutral stare. He seemed uncaring, but Malweh knew damn well how to really get his attention. “Callie is terrified of her. I haven’t seen her this jumpy since Persephone Station.”
Ensign Smith had seemed fine after he dealt with the incident in the starboard bow. “What happened?”
The question was just as neutral as before, much to Malweh’s disgust. The bastard really was sick. He felt nothing at all, even for Callie, who treated even him kindly. The poor kid probably didn’t realize how much of a monster Admiral Gives really was. Her kindness was wasted on someone like him. “I don’t know. Ask her yourself if you decide to care.”
If I decide to care… “You must think very little of me, Ensign.” It should have been obvious that he did not tolerate people who threatened the crew aboard his ship.
“Oh, trust me, sir, I think you’re the absolute worst.” The man was emotionally dysfunctional, possessive, obsessive and downright dangerous. “I don’t know why you haven’t thrown me off the ship.”
“Your opinions of me are your own.” He didn’t especially care what Malweh thought of him as long as she followed orders. “You know where I draw the line.” She could say whatever she wanted about him, but the second she threatened or lied to anyone else, they had a problem. “You do not want to have a problem, Ensign.”
“I know, sir.” She had seen him kill people, and it was a very special variety of disturbing.
“Then I will,” he paused as he pulled the black glove carefully back onto his injured hand, “…discuss the situation with Sergeant Cortana.”
He left Malweh there and made his way into the ship’s quiet maze of corridors. The air was odorless, freshly filtered, but recycled a thousand times over. Not too bright, but enough to warm the devoid metal corridors, the lights above were a constant. Everything around him: the bulkheads, deck and ceiling, was a bland, dark gray, but there were enough scuffs around to make it almost interesting.
A few hours later, he found himself wandering deep in the ship’s bow, near the secretive compartment that housed the Singularity’s Black Box. He paused there, reminded of the ghost and unable, once again, to wipe her wounded expression from his memory.
“Is that why you didn’t sleep?” Was that the reason he’d spent the whole night pitching in on maintenance? Did that really bother him so much?
The ghost had appeared on the other side of the corridor. The Admiral looked at her, but made no response.
“Regrets will only get you killed. Isn’t that what you always say?” His lessons could be harsh, but the ghost understood that he was trying to protect her. That in itself was a misplaced kindness. “I am a weapon, Admiral,” an immortal being that had been created for a single purpose.
“I’m not a person,” not really, “I’m a tool.” It shouldn’t bother him when he upset her. He shouldn’t care. She had no freewill, no goals, no dreams. An immensely powerful machine, she had been brought into this universe to complete a single, impossible mission. “I can’t get attached to people because I am a something, not a someone.” That was the harsh, real truth.
“You’re someone to me.” She was a living, vital part of his crew, organic or not. “You can get emotionally attached to people,” she was sentient, “but you shouldn’t,” and that was what he’d tried to tell her yesterday. “People… People are terrible.” He especially, was the worst. “They’re not worth your trust and they’re not worth your grief. Getting attached to them is only going to hurt you.”
She found his eyes, recognizing the sadness of an old soldier, someone who’d won and lost too many battles and didn’t want this to be one of them. “You don’t want me to get hurt, do you?”
He did not answer, such a response forbidden by the Hydrian Bylaws, but that was answer enough. There was a reason she always knew to trust him, despite his cold stoicism. So why wasn’t he the exception? Why couldn’t she choose to maintain some emotional attachment to him?
Her expression had grown hard to read in that long moment of silence. By the focus in her gray eyes, it was a look of evaluation. “Go ahead, say it.” He knew what was coming. At this point, he took it as a complement. “I’m an idiot.”
A smile abruptly rose to her face, warming this section of the corridor. “Well, only an idiot would kidnap a set of civilians, commit high treason and then steal a fully functional battleship.” That was equivalent to declaring war on the worlds.
“Maybe I’m just crazy.” Malweh could be right about his sanity, but they would probably never know for sure.
“You were always crazy, Admiral.” That was a fact. “You hear an extra voice in your head on a daily basis.”
Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
“And whose fault is that?” He wasn’t the telepath in this relationship.
She chuckled, a musical sound that filled the air. Stiff as he was, teasing the Admiral was always fun. This playful banter lifted the demands of the worlds from their shoulders, freeing them just for a moment from who and what they were supposed to be. “Somebody’s got to keep you company. You’re a lonely old man.”
“I’m not lonely. I’ve got you.” Her presence was a welcome constant. “And I’m not that old.”
He expected a retort, but the ghost had frozen, her gaze now unfocused. “Problem?”
A thousand lightyears away, in that instant, the massive slug of Sagittarion’s orbital mass driver pierced the heart of the Gargantia and tore it right out. The blow sudden and crippling, it took only a fraction of a second. Uncaring of the vast distance between them, the shockwaves of the strike slammed violently into her, the onslaught akin to a physical attack.
The ghost screamed.
Gripping her head, she staggered blindly. Her pale, thin fingers dug into her skull like claws, trying to rip out the pain, struggling scrape it from the bone, but it wouldn’t stop. It never stopped. She collapsed, her agonized wails echoing down the down the corridor. The screeches were distorted, but mirrored in equal volume by the ship around them.
The Admiral was at her side in an instant. “Talk to me.” Was she being summoned or attacked? Had there been an act of sabotage?
She writhed, her screams galvanizing the air, the death so sudden and so severe. Without warning, without even sensing a threat, she felt like an arm had been torn off, skin tearing, tendons snapping and veins popping grossly open as it was ripped away with unparalleled force. A piece of her had been torn out, gutting her structure, her order, her mind.
Instinct took over for the Admiral. The same as he would any other patient going into shock, he tried to still her violent flails. But he couldn’t grab the shoulders of an illusion, and his hands went straight through, pinning nothing to the deck. “Talk to me.” Please let me help you.
She shrieked again and again, the sound stripping away her illusion of humanity. It was deafening, grating and so very far from organic in its origins, but it was a sound of genuine agony.
As her systems began to reboot and recover themselves, her screeches turned to slowly to ugly sobs. Her mechanical mind compartmentalized and separated her necessary processes. Damage control. It realigned itself, purging the shock and panic, the way it always did when dealt a severe blow.
When the chaos finally faded, thousands of processes, but mere seconds later, she found the Admiral above her, his mask of stoicism strangely fractured. “Are you alright?”
Status inquiry. She shuddered again. Response to commanding officer required, her machine reminded, incessant in its demands. Comply. Comply. “All systems online.”
Her hands were trembling as she brought them away from her head. “I didn’t ask if you were operational. I asked if you were okay.” This had been a severe reaction, even for the ghost.
Her mind began its slow recovery. Each memory was checked for error, then handed back to her, and recognition trickled slowly in. Present conditions: Ariean Solar Year 4249, void space, independent operation. Time: 0838 hours. Location: Halogen Sector.
The man above her was her commanding officer, yes, her telepathy had identified that instantly, but he had engine oil on his sleeve, a reminder that she knew this officer. He’d been with her a long time now. She knew those blue eyes. She remembered them.
Admiral Gives. Recognizing him was like a gift. It meant there was no need to hide her malfunctions, so slowly, she shook her head side to side. “Error.” Critical malfunction.
“I know.” He could tell that something, somewhere was wrong. She was hurt and scared, her silver eyes reflecting pools of that emotion. He kept his tone soft, “Give me a sitrep. What caused the error?”
Sitrep. She recognized that command, even in this decrepit state. “Gregory Fairlocke, Commander. KIA.”
Fairlocke? It made sense, he supposed. The ghost had always been particularly fond of that noble goody-two-shoes. And it figures that worthless traitor would run off and get himself killed. How typically inconsiderate.
Fairlocke would never know the damage his death did to the ghost, this a firm reminder of why she was better off not getting attached. Humans were stupid. Idiots like Fairlocke ran off and got themselves killed, the loss subsequently tearing her apart from the inside, out.
Still, as much as Admiral Gives resented Fairlocke, he had been one of their few potential allies. …And now he’s dead, the Admiral realized. Was it possible that Fairlocke was dead for that reason entirely? Was Command eliminating their potential allies by killing anyone with ties to the ship? In Command’s place, he would have considered it, so it was a definite possibility.
Some of the crew have families. Most, like him, had no real home or relational ties off the ship, another strange byproduct of the way he’d recruited his crew, but a few still had people they cared about elsewhere. A few still had families – families that were now potentially in grave danger.
He focused again on the ghost, her white hair sprawled across the deck beneath her head. “I need you to alter our course.” Her telepathy had extreme range when dealing with those she was close to. “Point us in whatever direction you last felt Fairlocke’s presence.” He could handle the rest once he had that heading. “Can you do that for me?”
“Affirmative.” Complying. Gently, she wrested helm control from the subsystems that relayed orders to the engines. The ship lent itself easily to her will, complying without complaint.
Admiral Gives listened to the subtle, momentary change in the engines’ noise, identifying the maneuver. “Turn to starboard?” Interesting. There was very little out in that direction of space. Both the Frontier and the central worlds were essentially on their port side – though the closest of them lay many lightyears away. If anything, this put them on a heading for the Isolation Gap – the region of habitable worlds that had been lost in the War – dead colonies that had been burned to ash.
It had been only a minute since her breakdown, but the ghost had already run a million processes, each fractionally healing her mind, bringing back cohesive thoughts and memories. “Affirmative,” she said. Course alteration complete. “Heading 191 mark negative 2.”
“You know that means nothing to me.” He had always been a terrible navigator. Reading off their exact course was not helpful unless she was going to tell him where it was going to take them.
A sly smile appeared on her thin, rosy lips. “Affirmative.”
“Don’t get snarky.” He did not need her sass, though it was a welcome indication that she had not been permanently harmed. “We need to investigate Fairlocke’s death. If Command is targeting people associated with this ship, we’ll have to act fast.” They’d have to track down and relocate as many of the crew’s families as possible.
She nodded, understanding the objective. It was the logical course of action.
The Admiral spared her another long look, trying assure himself that she was unharmed, but he knew he had to go. It wouldn’t take long for the crew to realize that the ship had just made a course change seemingly of her own accord.
The instant he started to leave, a horrible feeling of numbness and chaos rose up again, fear in its ugliest and rawest form. She cried out, “Error.” Don’t leave. She didn’t want him to leave. She didn’t want to be alone. Something was wrong, but her grip on language had faltered, that damage yet to be repaired.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Even if he wasn’t right beside her white-haired illusion, he was not leaving the ship and thus, her. Her telepathy would always be able to reach him. “You’re okay.”
She stared up at him, terrified. Error. Error. “Danger.”
She was acting strangely, seemingly on the brink of another episode. “You’re going to be fine,” he tried to assure her. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
She shook her head. “Danger.” It was everywhere. It surrounded them, suffocating and deadly, but it was worse where Fairlocke had died. It was so much worse. Whoever, whatever, had just instantly killed him was still there. Investigating that death meant that the Admiral could meet the same fate. She could suffer another loss, another catastrophic malfunction. “Danger,” she said again. You are in danger.
She was shaking, her eyes rife with terror. This wasn’t normal behavior. It wasn’t right. “Stay with me.” He’d take care of her the way he always did.
No. He wasn’t understanding. Why wasn’t he understanding? “Danger.” She needed him to understand.
She had once been fond of Fairlocke. Wholly kind people were so hard to find in these worlds, but Fairlocke had left her, turned his back and walked away. To him, she’d been nothing but a dangerous, malfunctioning tool – something evil. The way she had been built rendered her incapable of resenting him for it, but Fairlocke had rejected her in one of the most painful ways possible.
Admiral Gives would never hurt her like that, something she understood and trusted deeply. There was concern in his blue eyes, concern that was always there for her and the crew, even when it rarely showed. Investigating Fairlocke’s death placed him in grave danger, but he still had to stay. He had to stay with her because he was the only one that did.
Everyone else just left, and left. They abandoned her. They caught a glimpse of the monster beneath her power, the damaged weapon, and they ran. They ran to their carnal instincts, to their fears, leaving her with scars she could not acknowledge.
But not him. Never him. With the Admiral, she was safe. She had never found that safety anywhere else. No one else let her speak freely. No one else let her tease them, and feel that for once, she wasn’t some accidental abomination. No one else had just let her be, so she reached up and wrapped her arms around him.
“No,” the Admiral commanded, “stop that.” What the hell was this supposed to be? “Get off.” He didn’t do physical contact, even if it was with a weightless illusion.
Her only reply was to bury her face into his shoulder, needing that familiarity, trusting in this wildly cynical officer. For all his attempts to push her away, she knew deep down, that she was always going to be welcome and safe with him.
After so many years in the trenches with humanity’s worst, the Admiral’s first instinct was to evaluate this as a potential strangle hold. Usually when people wrapped themselves around him, it was in an attempt to kill him. However, that didn’t seem particularly applicable to the telepathic illusion of a sentient machine. She had at least a thousand more effective methods of killing him right here in this corridor, including, but not limited to, using her telepathy to squash his mind like a tiny red tomato.
Be careful, she wanted to tell him, but her ability to communicate had been fractured, that piece of her mind slow to recover. She didn’t want to lose this particular human. He was an idiot, but he had always treated her kindly.
A hug, he abruptly realized. The ghost was giving him a hug. Stars, how long had it been since anyone had hugged him? He froze, suddenly very uncertain of what to do in this situation. How exactly did normal people react to hugs? Dammit! He was a battle-hardened commander and one of the finest tacticians in the worlds. He should know how to react to a simple hug!
When the ghost released him, his cheeks were burning. It only made her smile. The man didn’t bat an eye at the Ravenish cult’s cannibalistic ways, but she had managed to completely stun him with a hug, of all things. So much for being a terrifying emotionless menace, you idiot.
“Ahem,” he cleared his throat, very well realizing he’d let this situation get awkward. He stood up and pulled the sleeves of his jacket carefully back into place, wiping any hint of embarrassment from his demeanor. “You know me, I’m always careful. Well…” That was a lie. “Careful-ish.”
You’re a good commanding officer. The ghost stared up at him, knowing that was a fact. He had spent years obscuring or destroying all of Command’s data on her, trying to shield her existence from those that wanted to abuse her power.
He had no way to know that he had been too late.
He had no way to know that her fate had been sealed the moment Manhattan had escaped the Liguanian Sector. For, try as he might, it was impossible for the Admiral to protect her from her intended use. A weapon built to destroy would always destroy.
It could never bring peace and it could never save anyone. Not even him.