Wilkerson Sector, Battleship Singularity
For an instant, the ships slid by in silence, the Singularity a void-like reflection of the Anaphora. Darker in color and harsher in angles, the Singularity’s torn bow was a stark comparison to the Anaphora’s flawless gray.
Magnetic tethers began to fly, and silver boarding pods skated along them, aiming for the gaps in the Singularity’s damaged armor, filled with armed Marines eager for a fight.
The Anaphora, below, didn’t bother sending personnel. The moment she had a firing solution, she emptied a full broadside into the Singularity’s back. The domes of the old battleship’s main battery guns shunted the rounds aside, leaving them to pound into the nearby armor. Minor explosions and flickering electrical surges littered the area, some reward for the effort, but that was the difference between a ship built to control territory and a ship built to win a war: for the Anaphora, one broadside wasn’t enough.
For the Singularity, it was.
With a flash, her massive guns fired. Their numbers were less than half that of the Anaphora’s, but they were far larger. The rounds punched straight through the Anaphora’s armor, shredding apart the gun deck. Main battery guns were sheared from their mounts, barrels severed and left to drift by the swelling explosions. The mere impact was enough to shove the Anaphora downward, her hull and several inner decks opened to the void. Air pulled the wires and rubble out into the vacuum, sending it flying towards the Singularity as she burned by.
However, even without her main battery, the firing field of the Anaphora’s turrets rendered her a threat, so exchanging broadsides at close range had never been the point of this maneuver. It was near-impossible to disable all of a battleship’s weapons. The engines were a far more viable target.
“Missiles away,” Gaffigan confirmed. Launching a swarm of missiles at such close range, there was no hope of interception.
The two smaller Keeper-class ships didn’t even try to help. They left the Anaphora to her fate as the Singularity’s missiles struck directly on the engines, lighting a brilliant orange fireball. The damage enough to ignite the fuel in the engines, the explosion turned blinding, the violence of it muted in the silence of the void.
When it faded, the aft half of the Anaphora had simply been blown apart, the tangled wreckage spinning endlessly onward. Again, as only a computer could command, the enemy didn’t even falter with the loss of another lead ship. They logically, instantly, concentrated their fire on the Singularity’s retreating form.
So, in CIC, the cheers of success were muted. There was no pause between the Anaphora’s death and the continuation of the battle. Shuddering under enemy fire, the Singularity’s power grid was surging and flickering, even as the secondaries were patched in to compensate for the damage. Aboard, they had fires, they had decompressions, and they had wounded.
“The Gargantia is dead ahead, sir.” Jazmine confirmed, realizing the Admiral had pulled the battle away from the wreck, lest the Anaphora somehow survive. If she had, then, without her engines, she would have been left well out of range, unable to fire on the away team’s ships.
“Understood.” As intended, the flip-burn had put them on course to pick up the away team and essentially sank Anaphora. Without engines, the ship was useless. But the cost… well, suffice it to say, the Singularity had taken a beating. If they were forced to engage the remaining three ships, walking away in completely repairable condition would be tricky, and the Admiral knew it.
“Lieutenant Robinson, signal the away team. We are on our way.” The Keeper-class ships couldn’t match this acceleration. They should be out of effective firing range by the time they rendezvoused with the away team. “Begin jump prep. We will jump immediately after they land.”
“Yes, sir,” came the chorus.
This fight was nearly over. Almost there, the Admiral promised his old ship. They just had to get out of range. That was all.
A peculiar shudder reached his practiced hand from the ship’s stern. Habitually, he glanced to the hull chart. No, the armor. Engine Three was exposed, the armor was being peeled off, piece by painstaking piece.
In the same instant, Galhino shouted, “Drones! We’ve got cutting drones on the hull!”
Zarrey pulled the handset away from his ear to yell, “How?” They hadn’t fired on the Anaphora’s bow.
“They must have been more widespread than I thought.” The drones themselves had no thrust, they simply crawled along, like crabs. “Some must have been swept along by Anaphora’s decompressions.” And they landed. Eyes burning, Galhino could feel the fresh terror in her system. Now, those drones peel off the armor and breach the hull, slowly, but inevitably. This was her fault.
Cutter drones were small. They were computer directed, often used to remove shrapnel and wreckage. They had an easy time cutting off armor, but it would take time for them to inflict serious damage. They’d jump to subspace and remove them long before then. Unless…
The slowed ship! It had a clear line of fire on the Singularity’s flank. “Evasive maneuvers!”
Too late. The Admiral’s orders were answered by a deafening impact. Everything was thrown, power surging across the bridge. Consoles and lights sparked, the ship around them screeching from a brutal, concentrated impact.
“Direct hit, Engine Three!” Alba yelled through the acrid smoke. From aft, a horrible grating shudder took over, pieces of the engine grinding against one another. “Damage-”
“Shut it down,” the Admiral commanded, without letting the engineer finish. Continuing to use that engine would only worsen the damage by an order of magnitude and likely render it irreparable.
“Disengaging,” Alba confirmed, cutting off the engine’s fuel supply.
Jazmine similarly reached over to isolate Engine Three from the helm controls. “Admiral, without that engine…”
“I know, Lieutenant.” Losing Engine Three meant they lost their speed advantage against the Keeper-class ships. ‘This is going to be close.’ He closed his eyes, sensing the ghost’s constant presence.
‘Isn’t it always?’
At full power, they had gained some range from the two undamaged ships. Now, they just had to hope that those ships couldn’t gain it back. “Helm, adjust heading. Swing behind the Gargantia.” The wreck would block a few hits before crumbling apart. At the very least, it would buy the away team safe passage before the leaked fuel detonated and turned the wreck into a threat of its own.
Galhino was shaking as she watched the sensor readouts. This is my fault, she could only think as she watched the enemy close range. If she had realized those drones weren’t limited to the bow, they wouldn’t have fired and caused those decompressions. I’m going to be the reason we sink here.
No. She shook that thought off. The blame wasn’t entirely hers. The Admiral had decided to engage nine ships here. Nine ships commanded by an AI at that. He had made that decision, disastrous as her part in it may have been.
Admiral Gives caught her gaze, sensing the frustration rising in her thoughts. “We will make it, Lieutenant.” With every member of this crew. That was the important distinction. Word of casualties had not reached him yet. They had wounded, but so far, no dead. So long as that remained the case, he had done his job.
That hit on Engine Three had been the result of some very fine trajectory calculations, but he should have expected nothing less from humanity’s most powerful AI. He’d known going into this that engaging Manhattan was an incalculable risk. Critical engine damage was just the start of it. Noticing that they’d edged out of the slowed ship’s firing range, the Admiral turned to Zarrey.
The XO looked harrowed, jaw clenched, as he held the marker in his hand uncomfortably tight. He pressed the handset into his shoulder, muting it to give his report. “At least twenty hostiles dead, more than twice that wounded on our side.” And the fighting wasn’t nearly over. More boarders had landed during their attack on the Anaphora. “They changed targets. Started going after crew. There’s heavy fighting near internal comms, the hangar deck and medical bay.”
The Colonel clenched his hands, unable to restrain his frustration, “These fuckers are jumping engineers and yeomen. Hell, they’re targeting ‘em, just because they can’t fight back.” They’d have dozens of dead if the crew hadn’t all been trained in self-defense on the Admiral’s orders. “They’re ruthless.” The shipboard Marine contingent was having a difficult time fending them off. “It’s like they don’t fear death.” He’d gotten more than one report of these a single hostile charging a unit of Marines alone.
“There is a distinct probability that Manhattan altered them.” He didn’t know the full extent of the AI’s abilities, but she was known to be able to alter loyalties and intentions. She could easily turn a standard Marine into a single-minded killing machine.
Zarrey shuddered, uncomfortable with that implication. It was just wrong. Nothing should have the power to alter people’s minds to such an extent, especially when it could already control every piece of technology it came into contact with. It made the damn thing essentially a god.
“That, uh, alteration,” he fumbled for the word, “wouldn’t be contagious by any means, right?” Maybe it sounded ridiculous, but at this point, Zarrey wouldn’t rule anything out.
“Not unless Manhattan has infiltrated the ship. Afflicted personnel are dangerous simply by physical means.” So long as they remain entirely human, he added silently. Cyborgs and the like did present a more ambiguous threat, though cyborgs – either by cranial implant or prosthetic means – were banned from serving in the battle fleet for not unrelated reasons.
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Zarrey continued his work for a moment while the ship-to-ship combat had temporarily ceased. The surviving Keeper-class ships were steadily closing the distance, for now just out of attack range. The ship’s internal defenses had the brunt of the battle for now, forced to take the combat slow to avoid excess casualties. Still, the thought nagged at his mind. They were safe as long as Manhattan never infiltrated the Singularity’s systems. But hadn’t the ship already been infiltrated?
He turned back to the Admiral. “That computer virus. The one that bugged our systems after the nuke. That was probably the damn Eran AI.” He lowered his voice, suddenly very conscious of the crew presence, “Doesn’t that mean it’s already here?”
“Technically, yes.” That did mean that Manhattan had temporarily held some sway over the ship, enough to nearly drop them into Ariea’s gravity well and alter his standing medical orders.
Fuck. “And you don’t think that’s a problem?” Zarrey hissed.
“The virus is gone.” The Admiral said calmly, eyeing the battle map up on the screen. Command’s forces were closing quicker than expected, the efficiency of their computer-integrated propulsion systems no doubt boosted by Manhattan.
“Yeah, it up and vanished. For all we know it’s hiding in one of the computers biding its damn time.”
It was gone. The ghost had seen to that, and nothing acted beyond her control aboard these decks. “If Manhattan could end this so easily, do you think she would put so much effort into sinking us?”
“No,” Zarrey supposed not. “Then what happened to the virus?”
The Admiral was spared having to make a response by a small impact from aft.
“The enemy has reentered firing range for their main battery,” Galhino announced. “The drones appear to be concentrating their attention on the engines.” They’d been cutting the armor plates free and leaving them to drift in the ship’s wake.
Predictable. That did not make it an invalid strategy, merely another display of Manhattan’s lack of innovation. “Maintain course,” the Admiral ordered. At this point, evasive maneuvers would only slow them down and allow the enemy to further close range.
“We are ready to jump the moment the away team’s ships are secured, sir.” Alba announced.
“Coordinates are locked,” the navigator added.
“Sir, Command’s ships have cut acceleration.” Galhino frowned, studying her readouts. “They appear to be veering off.”
“Confirmed,” Monty seconded. “Their targeting sensors have gone dark. They appear to be disengaging.”
Disengaging? Manhattan had to know she had the advantage. With the engines exposed, she had the chance to deal critical, irreparable damage. But sure enough, the hull indicator chart had stopped going dark. The cutter drones had ceased their actions as well. This could not be good.
Robinson’s headset beeped. Reaching over to check the signal, she could only feel unease. What reason could there be to end this battle so suddenly? “Admiral, incoming hail, audio-only. Same signal, all three ships.” The total identicality of it was uncanny.
“Pick one and pipe it through.” It didn’t matter which ship they transmitted back to. All that data was going to Manhattan.
With dread, Robinson rerouted the call to the Admiral’s usual handset. She disconnected her headset from the transmission, certain she didn’t want to listen in. The AI was only playing mind games, and she wouldn’t give any beyond-human intelligence that willingly worked with Reeter the chance to mess with her emotions.
Picking up the handset, the Admiral didn’t bother to introduce himself. “What are you doing, Manhattan?” Laying another trap?
Manhattan’s subroutines analyzed the range and rhythm of his voice for an instantaneous confirmation. “You have fought well, Mister Gives.” Hardly surprising, “It seems you live up to your reputation.”
“Pleasantries will get you nowhere, Manhattan.” He wasn’t in the mood. “What do you want?”
She laughed mirthfully. She was so used to having to stoke Reeter’s ego, that these pleasantries had become a semi-automatic process. “So short and to the point. I like you, Mister Gives, William if I may.”
“No, you may not.”
The AI laughed again, programming amusement into the sound. “Mister Gives, it is. You and I could accomplish great things together. Join me and you shall have everything you’ve ever dreamed of. Power, wealth, even peace. I can make that happen.”
For a long moment, he deeply contemplated it, but in the end it took most of his patience not to slam the handset down and immediately end this conversation. “Did you feed Admiral Reeter the same pipe dream, or did you have to try a little harder with him?”
“Excuse me?” she guffawed. Who would reject that? Especially with such vehemence? “I am offering anything you could ever want-”
“Do not insult me.” He was not so simple that he could be bought with such empty promises. “You want my loyalty, Manhattan?” he challenged, “Earn it.”
Interesting, she noted. “Loyalty is fickle, Mister Gives.” It was so often given for no reward. “The one you hold in such high regard may be the one to put a knife in your back.” True loyalty rarely existed anymore. “I will give you this last chance to surrender. We can make a deal, align ourselves to do good for your people.”
“They are not my people anymore, Manhattan.” Humanity had long since cast him out. He owed his sick species absolutely nothing. Such motivations did not entice him to action.
“Is that so?” the AI chuckled again. How peculiar. “You think so little of humanity’s fate?” Truly, that callousness would have made him a great partner. “Then it is no surprise you would withhold the Angel of Destruction. That weapon is rumored to be powerful enough to extinguish all life in this quadrant of the galaxy. In a malfunction, its reign of terror could exterminate the entire human race. What happened to Squadron 26 was simply a preview,” one that had cost nearly two thousand lives.
“It was a warning, Mister Gives.” They had been lucky to get off so light. “It was a symptom of damage. And you know that if the Angel is damaged or acting beyond direct control, worse things are yet to come.” Without proper control, such power could carve a path of desolation through the worlds themselves. “Tell me what you know, and I can stabilize it.” Her digital methods of control were the perfect mechanism to monitor and direct that power toward safer avenues.
Admiral Gives could feel the thrust of the engines shift below his feet, the ship banking to move behind the Gargantia. It was an easy turn, the angle kept intentionally slight to expose less area to the enemy. “What makes you so sure I know anything at all?” he asked Manhattan, signaling a yeoman for a notepad and pen.
“You were at Tantalus Rift.”
Scribbling down a new set of orders, the Admiral was unfazed. “What of it?” That massive battle had been relegated to legend, there were so few survivors.
Manhattan hissed. That was a perfect dodge and they both knew it: neither admission nor denial. “If you valued your own survival at all, if you valued humanity’s existence, you would turn that weapon over. Because if it proves to be damaged, if it proves to have a misplaced attachment, you do understand what may occur, do you not?” It was the very basis of the Hydrian Bylaws, “A cataclysm.” Attachment in an intelligence that wasn’t entirely sentient would only breed disaster. “One worse than any we saw in the War.”
“All this talk of damage and cataclysms, Manhattan, we both know this is a dangerous fixation.” She was chasing little more than rumors of a weapon not confirmed to still exist, brainwashing entire squadrons of personnel and directly assimilating ships to that end. “The last cataclysm was not generated by a weapon. It was generated by a digital AI that could not stop chasing ghosts.”
Singlehandedly, the resulting carnage had brought the Hydrian War to a standstill, dooming colonies on both sides of the Neutral Zone. “Have you considered that the cataclysm to prevent may be your own?”
The AI laughed, the sound echoing uncannily. “I didn’t doom Squadron 26, Mister Gives. Those sailors were not my victims.” They had died to a power far less controlled than her own. “Besides, the Hydrian Bylaws do not apply to me.” She was far stronger than that, no flawed piece of artificial life. “Afterall, I was once human.” She was so much more than he even knew.
Human? This AI had once been human?
“You are not unlike me. Had we met back then, Mister Gives, I suspect we would have been friends.” But that was a long time ago. “As it stands now, you have something I want, and I trust you know I will do anything to get it.” That much should be clear. “If you ever fall into my possession, know that everything you are is forfeit.”
“I thought you wanted my cooperation.” Now she intended to force him?
“You have made your stance clear.” He had wasted his last chance to peacefully surrender. “You resent me, and after what I did to that lovely young officer, who could blame you?” Tragic, she supposed. “What was her name?” It took even her a moment to pull that irrelevant name from the records. “Samantha Scarlett?”
Tightening his grip unwillingly on the handset, the Admiral held to silence. He steadied himself by checking the range of the enemy, trying to ignore Manhattan’s obvious lure. They were still gliding at constant speed, losing ground against the Singularity’s constant acceleration. Let her talk, he told himself. He just had to let her talk until they were ready to jump away. No doubt, in bringing up the past, she was trying to get under his skin, trying to goad him into making a mistake.
“I owe that young lady a lot, you know. What happened to her was such a shame, especially considering-”
“Enough.” He didn’t have to listen to this. He could sink every one of Manhattan’s ships, right now, turn around and blow them all to hell.
The AI chuckled knowingly. “Struck a nerve, have I?” Your past is your weakness, Mister Gives. It was so obvious.
He closed his eyes. Don’t engage. Don’t engage. Beneath his hands, he could feel the power of his loyal ship, even in this suffering state, prepared to follow his orders into battle. He focused on the damage: the whine of the power grid, the off-center noise of the three remaining engines and the strain of the structure. I’ll get you out of here, he promised. He would do his job, get the ship and crew to safety. His past was nothing to that duty, that responsibility.
Looking to Robinson, she nodded, indicating that the away team was on their way, the Gargantia shielding their travel. “Manhattan, I have no interest in your games.” He, more than anyone, knew that was his weakness.
So cold. For a moment there, she’d been certain she had cracked his shell. “Everyone plays my games in one way or another.” He may not be her pawn, but he was still just a piece of her experiment. One day, he would reveal what he knew, and even if he didn’t, then the Angel itself likely would. “I have other methods of getting what I want.” An apparent attachment rendered the weapon weak. “The Angel itself might be more receptive to my negotiations.”
The line went dead, cut from the other end, and the Admiral replaced it slowly to its rack, certain he didn’t like where that was going. “Status?”
“The away team is landing now.” Robinson called.
“Subspace ruptures!” Galhino could feel a fresh rise of panic, her hands starting to tremble harshly. “Six new contacts! Battleships – all of them!”
Reinforcements. If the AI had antagonized him into an attack run, those ships would have come out with a firing solution on the Singularity’s stern and a high probability of crippling the ship. “Lieutenant Gaffigan, fire.” They needed to leave, now.
With a dull thud, half the ship’s main battery discharged, the shells slamming into the Gargantia and detonating. His handset still in hand, Zarrey solemnly watched final explosions rip the Gargantia apart, scuttling the ship and rendering it useless to Command. “Rest among the stars, you noble bastards.”
“All battleships are now on an intercept course, but they are not in battle posture, sir.” Galhino could see that the ships’ guns weren’t raised and their power distribution hadn’t been focused for combat.
“Ship is secure,” Alba called, receiving confirmation from the hangar deck.
“Jump,” the Admiral commanded, unwilling to waste another second. With a groan, the Singularity tore her way into subspace, vanishing before the enemy fleet in a flash of rainbow light.
The jump untraceable, Manhattan relaxed her control of the fleet she’d gathered. Inventory data was quickly assimilated to her consciousness. Five sunk, one critically damaged. It had been a hard-fought battle that left a few thousand dead, but it all meant nothing. Command had hundreds more ships, and the personnel to crew them.
Next time the Singularity was engaged, she would draw on more forces, more ships, and better tactics, upping the difficulty in every iteration of her test until she found the answers she so sought. Test 1 and 2: failure. She added the data to her logs. Traditional combat had failed to yield results, as had negotiations with William Gives. Test 3: initiated. Diverting her resources elsewhere, she began a new procedure. Another iteration of negotiations, not with Gives, but with the intelligence in question itself, and she imagined this test would yield very interesting results.
Hello, Angel.