Wilkerson Sector, CT Badger
Over 550 ships had taken flight from Sagittarion hoping to run the blockade, but even with the Gargantia’s help, only 216 had been successful. Roughly 27,000 refugees had attempted to flee the oppression on surface of the manufacturing world, and more than half had died in orbit.
The Gargantia herself was little more than mangled remains, twisted and crushed by the evils of subspace. Captain Dean Merlyn tried not to look at it. The wreckage resembled nothing like the ship that had been. Survivors were… unlikely. And even if, against the odds, some were found, no ship in the refugee fleet had the resources to rescue them. Anyone remaining alive would die a slow, slow death.
He never ordered a scan for life signatures. In this case, it was better to wonder. Merlyn wanted to believe that crew, their saviors, had died quickly in the instant their ship’s structure had collapsed in subspace.
The other civilian ships, damaged to various extents, hung visibly on the opposite side of the bridge windows, silhouetted against the bright swirling colors of the nebula. Merlyn only halfway listened to their irksome radio chatter as they squabbled among themselves.
The reality of the situation was that none of them knew what to do. Running that blockade made every ship in the fleet an enemy of the state. If they approached port without falsifying their citizenship and ship registration, which none of them had the means to do, they’d be killed. Worse, most ships had taken off with holds full of products or people. None of them had food, or if they did, they were unwilling to share. That left thousands people stranded who would be on the brink of starvation within ten days.
As a cargo hauler, the Badger was no better off than most. She’d taken a shrapnel hit on one of her engines. It had been shut down, leaving them to rely on the remaining two, which rendered the ship slow and sluggish. There had been enough food for the crew’s return trip – a few weeks’ supply. But with the children, the matron and the police officer, it would last only a few days, even with severe rationing.
“I’m sorry, Captain.” The orphanage matron said, looking at his gaunt face. “If we’d stayed on Sagittarion, maybe it would have been better.
The supporting arm of the display creaked when Merlyn pushed the supply manifest away from his face. “We won’t starve, Miss Delleora.” That would take time. “The UCSC fleet will find us long before then.”
He looked out to the blocky shapes of the nearby ships, “Considering the racket, I’d be surprised if they aren’t already closing in.” It would be easy for the battle fleet’s powerful equipment to intercept and trace these transmissions.
“Was there ever any hope of escape?” If it was impossible to escape the fleet in even the vastness of the void, had there ever been a chance to get away from Sagittarion’s violence?
“No.” He’d known that fleeing Sagittarion and surviving was likely impossible. “But often, it is worth it just to try.” He wasn’t the type of person to sit passively, to simply wait for death. “What you did was noble, Miss Delleora.” She had sought a better life for the twenty-seven orphans now aboard.
The matron swallowed, wishing she could believe that. Right now, all she could feel was that she’d led these children to die in the cold void of space, so very far from home.
“Captain,” the police officer called, his eyes widening at his displays, “there’s something out there.”
Merlyn flicked one of his screens over to the sensor outputs. There was a return, spotty and indistinctive. “Where?” he asked, racing to correlate the location data.
“The nebula.” Jones raised his eyes to the swirling gasses, “It’s inside the core of the nebula.”
“That’s impossible.” The heat of the stellar nursery would cook the crew and overheat the engines. “No trading ship could withstand the pressure.” It would be crushed.
“It’s not a trader.” The officer could feel his hands start to shake. “It’s way too big.” The gasses had concealed most of its approach. Jones looked out to the nebula, watching it endlessly churn as if he could distinguish the ship hidden inside.
The matron shivered, “The fleet? Already?” No, this was too soon. Too soon. She could barely wrap her thoughts around it as her hands began to tremble. “I’m sorry, Captain.” Her desperation to take her charges off-world would be his end.
Merlyn just reached out to tap commands into his displays. “No need to apologize.” He’d known this was a death run from the start. “With my history, I always expected it to end this way.” He was a born and bred Frontiersman, after all. He had known, venturing into space with that pedigree, that Command’s fleet would likely be his end, if a worse fate didn’t find him first.
“Do we run?” Jones asked. “We could make another jump.”
“No.” It was too late for that. “They’ll be on us before we can charge our drive.” He knew what destruction Command’s battleships could sow. They flew under the guise of police, but they were scythes, weapons of chaos and control. A single battleship could cut down revolutions as easily as nipping flower buds from the stem.
“Go to the children,” he instructed. “Keep them calm.” If they had to die, they shouldn’t be afraid. “I will do what I can.” If they were lucky, they’d find a commander corrupt enough to negotiate.
The hatch slid closed behind her with a hiss, and it was all Merlyn could do to bow his head and offer a prayer to the stars beyond. Have mercy. These children, the matron, this officer, even the Badger’s reclusive engineer, they didn’t deserve to die, not like this. Spare them.
Jones watched the Captain pray with passing interest. Belief in the arcane and gods was rare among the worlds, and even more so on Sagittarion. The planet had been enveloped in such misery and injustice that any divine power who allowed it had not deserved his people’s faith. “You didn’t strike me as religious, Captain.”
“Religious? No.” Merlyn said, opening his tired eyes, “Superstitious? Yes. Any real sailor is.” Inexplicable things happened out here in the void. Insanity, luck and mystery were as much a part of their surroundings as their ships. Even the greatest powers yielded to those agents of the void. “The stars guide us out here. They determine our fate. They determine our course, our livelihood and our fortune. Not even the strongest cannot bend the stars to their whims.” They were the absolute law, unchallenged by even Command’s mighty fleet. And only the stars could save them now.
“How much time do we have, Officer?” Merlyn asked, wondering what he could negotiate with to spare their lives. If a corrupt ship had found them first, then its commander would be willing to trade parts and products for their lives, so he scrolled through the Badger’s scarce manifest, knowing what they had would never be enough. He had dumped most of their cargo to take on passengers.
“No time, Captain.” The policeman answered, turning his eyes to the bridge windows once again. “She should be emerging from the nebula now. I’ve never seen a ship this big.” The scans had cleared up somewhat, revealing one solid mass. It wasn’t a squadron emerging, but rather one titanic ship.
Flicking back to the scan results on his own screen, Merlyn felt dread constricting around his heart. All the warning signs were there, he knew they were. That ship had found them quickly, against the odds. It had braved the nebula’s hazardous conditions at good speed. And that dreadful chill rippled through the night, as if the void was raising its hackles, one predator recognizing another. But the size… Dear stars, the size. “A ship that big can only be a flagship.”
Jones paled, “They sent the Olympia after us?” After starving refugees fleeing a ruined world?
Merlyn felt the airy laugh leave his dry lips, “Worse.”
Worse? “What the hell could be worse than that?”
The answer emerged from the nebula tipped in scarred black armor. Vapors arced off the craters in the hull, carried along in the imperfections as the angular bow pierced through the nebula’s final veils. The paralysis of fear began to creep into Jones’ veins. “…What the hell is that?”
“The Night Demon.” We meet again. But was that in irony or agony?
Jones felt as though the air was thinning. His chest heaved, but it never alleviated the burn in his lungs. “The Demon is a ship?” A known battleship at that? “The stories they told… I thought it was a monster.” They painted it as some ethereal nightmare come to slaughter Frontiersman by the thousands.
“It is a monster.” No part of those rumors was exaggerated. Fact was that the Demon often slaughtered its victims before they ever saw its true form.
Merlyn closed his eyes, exhausted. What was the point in fighting? Their fate was sealed, even as he knew the other ships were working themselves into a frenzy, desperate to escape. There came a point where the struggle was simply pointless. A part of him had always known this would be his end.
Ping!
The notification rang from his controls. Lazily, the Captain cracked open an eye, perplexed by the information that awaited him. “They’re transmitting,” he announced, tuning into the broadcast.
The audio was perfectly clear given the range and equipment. “All ships, this is the Battleship Singularity. This fleet is now under our control. Attempt to flee and you will be boarded. Comply and we will escort you to a safer sector. You have two minutes to send acknowledgement and standby for further instructions.”
Jones stared blankly at the screens for a long moment, then turned to the Captain’s slumped figure. “What do we do?”
Merlyn pursed his lips. “Send notice of compliance.” There was no choice. “If they wanted us dead, we would be dead.” He knew exactly what kind of devastation the Demon could bring.
The officer nodded, and set to tapping on his controls as notifications began to ring out like bells. “Half the fleet’s hailing the Singularity.”
“I’ll tune us in,” Merlyn said, no doubt, the other ships, braver than he, would chance demanding answers.
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The transmission was clear, as one expected at such close range, showing the cleanliness of a bridge that ran military operations. The crew sat behind big consoles angled away to prevent their readouts from being seen and two men stood in the center of the room, the focus of the feed.
But that was only half the screen, the other half was a collage of worried, dirtied faces. Some furious, others frighted and many, like Merlyn, were utterly exhausted. “That was one hell of a negotiation, Singularity. You are not in charge here.”
Merlyn drew in a breath, recognizing the speaker where he sat in a clean office behind a spotless desk. Hawkins. He’d become one of the most vocal members of the fleet, some corporate higher-up who’d escaped Sagittarion on a company ship. As entitled as the man was, if anyone was bold enough to force answers, it would be him.
Aboard the Singularity, it only took Admiral Gives a moment to observe the man’s perfectly pressed suit and perfectly trimmed hair. “Deal with this,” he ordered Zarrey, turning away.
Zarrey looked after him, partly surprised and partly annoyed. Dammit. Why did he have to get stuck with this part of the operation? “Well,” he said, turning back to the camera, “this isn’t a negotiable situation at all. You see, if you want to live, you’ll do as you’re told.”
Hawkins scoffed. “And you expect us to willingly entrust our lives to a member of the fleet that just tried to kill us?” Unbelievable.
“We split from Command. We’re in as much danger as you are,” Zarrey explained. Finding this fleet and guiding it to safer grounds had seemed like a good idea, but it hadn’t occurred to him until now that the fleet itself might resist.
“And yet you wear their uniform. The uniform of massacrers.” Hawkins’ voice rose to a bitter chuckle in disbelief. “You expect us to place our trust in your commander, when he quite literally just turned his back on us?” He narrowed his eyes, pleased by the surprised reactions he received. That’s right. He knew the man in charge wasn’t the one speaking with them.
The heads of his own crew turned to the Admiral where he stood, leafing through a report, a pen in hand. “I believe I made myself clear,” he said without looking up, “Comply, and we will escort you to a safer sector. Flee and you will be forced to comply. Your trust is optional.”
“How very diplomatic of you,” the businessman snarled.
“As you pointed out, Mister Hawkins, this is not the uniform of a diplomat.”
Hawkins’ recoil was instantaneous, stopped only by the back of his chair. “Why do you know my name?”
“You are the Western regional chief of operations for Knight Industries,” the most influential corporation in known space, “and I make a point to never forget a face.” Admiral Gives was well aware this man wasn’t a just a corporate idiot, he was a high-ranking one.
Hawkins gritted his teeth, catching the insinuation. “We’ve met,” he realized.
“Yes,” the Admiral said, “but I would not expect someone like you to remember someone like me.” Hawkins had observed the transfer of Knight Industries tech during one of the fleet’s many resupply operations. That day, he’d probably met a dozen commanders trying to ingratiate themselves with the corporation. To someone of his wealth, they’d all been ugly working dogs. Someone like the Admiral, who hadn’t bothered to worship the ground below Hawkins’ feet, would have been something worse: utterly forgettable, which was exactly how he preferred it.
But Hawkins would be horrified to realize that one of those men he’d brushed off as unimportant was now his only connection to survival.
“Now,” the Admiral straightened his posture, “prepare to receive instructions. You will deal with my XO, when I say you will deal with my XO.” He would not be personally coddling these civilians, regardless of how rude it seemed for him to turn away and handle other matters. These civilians were not his priority, the Singularity was. “That will be all.” He signaled for the transmission to be cut. A prolonged broadcast would only draw Command’s ships in faster.
Personally, he was not fond of this operation. It placed the ship at risk. Command’s forces would be closing in. Together, the fleet and Singularity were now a larger and more important target. Beyond that, the civilian fleet would become an unnecessary strain on the ship’s resources, one that had every chance of turning hostile. Given the Singularity’s history, and his own, likely this fleet wouldn’t tolerate them, even for its own survival.
And if this fleet turned on them, the results would be nothing less than horrifically scarring for the crew – something he did, regrettably, need to consider.
With the communications transmission gone, the bridge went strangely quiet – the pause before a storm. “You know,” Zarrey said carefully, “they’re not wrong. You could stand to be a little more diplomatic.” The businessman reeked of trouble and self-importance, but the man did have a point.
“I am not a diplomat,” the Admiral said simply.
“But you are the smartest man I’ve ever met.” If he’d wanted to put those people at ease and lull them into complacency, he certainly could have. When he chose to, the Steel Prince had a legendary silver tongue. Zarrey had to wonder. Was there a reason you didn’t want to comfort these people?
“Sir,” Galhino called, focused on the dissection of the sensor scans, “I have two possible life signatures aboard the Gargantia. Thermals are faint, but there may be survivors.”
“Dispatch a search and rescue team immediately.” He’d been right to order that scan. It didn’t look like the civilian ships had bothered. “Two ships. Send a Marine unit and an engineering team with the medic.”
The orders were quickly acknowledged, leaving Zarrey more confused than ever. “I thought Fairlocke was dead to you. Why are you sending a SAR team?”
Fairlocke was dead. With the ghost’s telepathy, there was no doubt of that. “What happened between Fairlocke and myself has no bearing on the rest of the Gargantia’s crew.” They were good sailors. If there were any survivors, he would not leave them to die here.
“If you say so.” Zarrey wouldn’t pretend to understand the Admiral’s guiding morals.
“Remain on high alert. Command’s ships will not be far behind.” They had to be ready for a fight. “Ensign Walters, begin distributing jump coordinates for the Argo Sector to the civilian fleet. Get them out of here.” Another jump and Command would have no chance of finding them. Tyler’s heading would be rendered useless, and space was too vast to search without a clue.
“Yes, sir.” The young officer wiped the nervous sweat from his forehead and went to work.
CIC buzzed with soft noises: the clicking of keys and controls, the hush of orders distributed through headsets, and the usual pings of the radar as it finished its sweeps. It was all very normal, the sound of a ship in good working order.
It was a shame it wouldn’t last. This fleet presented new problems, new threats and new questions. The Admiral opened back up his report, careful to look focused on it as he reached out to the ghost. ‘What can you tell me about Hawkins?’
‘Nothing you don’t already know.’ He was the regional head of Knight Industries, making him one of the richest, most influential people on this side of the central worlds.
‘What was he doing on Sagittarion?’ Someone like Hawkins would never set foot on a planet like Sagittarion without a very good reason. He should never have been caught up in this mess, so what on Sagittarion had necessitated his personal attention?
‘Unknown, and I have no way to uncover any new information without accessing the cortex.’ With Manhattan on the loose however, that was far too risky. The AI could corrupt the data with malware or misinformation, springing a trap.
‘Ensign Smith mentioned the planetary shipyards…’ Likely some project there had drawn Hawkins’ attention, and it was all too obvious which.
The ghost knew exactly what he was thinking, even without her telepathy. ‘It’s not possible. Doctor Sloan’s designs were blacklisted.’ The celebrated scientist’s technical designs had been purged from the cortex, illegal to research or build. Sloan himself had supported the purge, revoking Command’s right to use his designs. Now, so many years later, with that data gone, ‘They should have no way to complete the build.’
The Admiral wasn’t willing to stake his bets on Command giving up. He knew better than anyone what horrifying ends Command was willing to use. On this matter, he was only willing to trust the Singularity’s own data. Not the law. Not the rumors. Not even Command’s own files. ‘Has our sensor data on that region been processed?’
‘Not yet.’ The ship’s central computer had been running overtime, but it hadn’t completed the analysis on that region. A horrible dread had led her to prioritize it far lower than it should have been. There was something blissful about ignorance.
‘All the same, if there is anything noteworthy, let’s keep that between us.’ Given Zarrey’s reaction to the mere suggestion of a second Constancy-class, that sensor data could prove… explosive.
‘I will fudge the data, if necessary,’ she confirmed, all too wary of what he was trying to hide. That threat, of all of them – with Reeter, Command, the Hydra, Scarlet Flu and even Manhattan – might prove to be the most dangerous of all.
Because she knew the Admiral was right. He usually was. Knight Industries had been tapped to build one of Sloan’s designs thirty years ago. Now, Hawkins’ presence would have been required to restart construction, considering that it had been made illegal. The Constancy-class design, considered by many to be Sloan’s greatest work, had been blacklisted like the rest.
But that abandoned derelict on Sagittarion was destined for something entirely worse.
Such a project simply could not be completed without backing from a wealthy, consistent supplier. Hawkins’ company, already owning the facility where the derelict structure sat, and already possessing technical plans from before Sloan’s work had been blacklisted, was the obvious choice. Stars knew the corporations would never dispose of anything that might someday make them a profit.
But it was cruel, the ghost knew. It was so cruel.
Sloan had revoked Command’s right to build with his designs for a reason. That incomplete structure, if finished, would become the culmination of everything the celebrated engineer had sought to avoid. In the wrong hands… She shuddered to know the fate of the worlds.
‘Focus,’ the Admiral knew they couldn’t afford to lament over what Hawkins’ presence likely meant. ‘Keep watch on the fleet. Tell me if you sense panic.’
She obeyed, turning her attention outward. The swarm of thousands of terrified minds was difficult to comprehend when she was so acclimated to the company of roughly eight hundred others, the ship’s complement, and the mindless nothing of the void. ‘They’re already panicked,’ she informed him, ‘no thanks to your so-called diplomacy.’
If one more person so much as mentions my lack of diplomacy, I’m going to throw them in the brig. He was not a negotiator. ‘I meant, if you sense that any of them are trying to run, let me know.’ He’d come up with some excuse to send a boarding party. If a ship ran from them, then all its passengers were as good as dead. If they weren’t caught and sunk by Command, they’d starve.
“Sir,” Galhino called, “Contact.”
Contact? He snapped his head up querying, “Heading?” as the bridge fell silent in anticipation.
“Inside the nebula. Number and dimensions of mass and volume are unknown. Return is spotty, but it’s there.” Even the Singularity’s sensor equipment, ten times more powerful than any of the civilian ships’, couldn’t get a solid read in the core of the nebula. The scans could determine that something was there, but not what.
Zarrey and the Admiral shared a look. Contacts approaching from inside the nebula had to have heat shielding and high-pressure resistance. No doubt, Command’s forces were closing in. “Get those civvies out of here!” Zarrey shouted, “Battle stations!”
Hearing the alert klaxons begin to wail in the corridor, he turned again to the ship commander. “How the hell did they get here so fast?”
They didn’t. The Admiral pulled off his glasses, and handed off his report with unerring calm, “They were waiting.”
Waiting? The realization settled on Zarrey like a physical punch. Naddlethworfing shit. “This was a trap.”
“And we flew straight into it.” It was obvious in hindsight, but then, hindsight was always a bitch.
“Fuck that!” Cowardly bastards. Zarrey refused to let Command win by drawing them into a fight here. “We’re bugging out. Alba, prep for FTL. We go when the last of the civvies blink out.”
“Belay that. Our SAR team will not be back in time, and we will not leave them behind.” Command had purposefully waited to make their move until a rescue operation had been launched for the Gargantia’s survivors. The Admiral would not attribute tactics of such restraint to Reeter. Reeter would have tried to engage the moment the Singularity had shown herself.
No, this was Manhattan’s handiwork. It had to be. Giving him time to launch the SAR team ensured he had reason to stay, otherwise he would have jumped away, not endangering the ship with combat. But, as it stood, if they jumped away, the SAR team was lost, eight of his people surrendered to enemy hands – to probable torture and reconditioning, if not execution.
“Your orders, sir?” Alba prompted.
“Make ready for heavy combat. Seal the bulkheads, load the main battery. Helm, roll us over and get us above the galactic mid-plane.”
“Sir, that will expose our belly to Command’s ships,” not the Singularity’s gun deck, which Command’s ships a clear advantage.
“If they feel they are at an advantage, they will attempt to negotiate a surrender.” After all, Manhattan does want me alive. While just as armored, that side of the ship had significantly less weaponry. It was less of a threat.
“Oh, so you’ll negotiate with them.” Zarrey grunted.
“Technically speaking, it will be more of a distraction.” A bid to delay hostilities. The less time they were in combat, the better to minimize losses and damage. “However, if Command wants a fight, then I am in no mood to refuse.”