Argo Sector, Battleship Singularity
It took every crewman they had available, but they completed the security sweep. Bow to stern, port to starboard, the entire ship had been searched for enemy personnel and devices. It fell to Robinson to make the final announcement. “Ship is secure, sir.”
As far as the Admiral was concerned, a quick confirmation from the ghost made that a fact. Once again, the ship was theirs, with no attackers lurking and no transponders prepared to give up their location. “Begin jump prep,” he commanded. “We will rendezvous with the fleet and continue repairs.”
The battle had done a number on the ship, particularly the hull. It would take days to repair the breaches and refit the armor. Additionally, the damaged engine remained too hot to inspect. Its condition was unknown, and weighed heavily on the Admiral’s mind.
Engine repairs were generally tricky, often too complex to do without the support of a shipyard, but it went without saying that they were on their own. They could either fix that engine on their own or they wouldn’t be able to fix it at all. If unable, then for the most part, it would be business as usual. With only three engines, the ship could still maneuver, but would be a slower target, which gave Command an advantage the Singularity couldn’t afford to lose.
He regretted the damage. He always did. It pained him to put the machine through such abuse, but he understood that refusing to fight on such a basis would be a severe disrespect to the ship. Taking damage and fighting for others was her purpose for existence. To ignore that would be to ignore the identity that made the ship so special. Attempting to rescue the Gargantia’s survivors justified the battle and the damage, but to actually save one of those lives, that would make it worth it.
“Sir, Doctor Macintosh just sent word that one of the Gargantia’s crewmen has woken.”
Right on time, considering his thoughts had gone in that direction. “Understood,” he told Robinson.
When the Admiral turned to him, Zarrey simply shrugged, “Go. We can handle the jump.” That was a relatively basic operation. “Just hurry back. I’m starting to think those civvies are never going to like me.”
“I find that hard to believe, Colonel. How could anyone dislike a personality as boisterous as yours?”
“Haha, yeah,” the XO chuckled. Wait… “Was that sarcasm?” The question went unanswered. The Admiral was already gone, and the crew on the bridge was laughing at Zarrey’s expense. “Son of a bitch.”
Elsewhere in the ship’s maze of corridors, Lieutenant Elizabeth Foster opened her eyes to strange surroundings. The smell of sterile equipment and blood assaulted her nostrils, easily recognizable as the odor of a medical bay. Opening her eyes though, it was immediately obvious that wherever she was, it wasn’t the Gargantia.
Suddenly alert, she bolted up and nearly blacked out again, the movement far too fast. But panic kept her up, meeting the two sets of large, frightened eyes that stared up from the foot of the bed, their owners only children.
Children. One of the civilian ships must have pulled her from the Gargantia’s central computer room. No, the civvies didn’t have the resources to do that, and the curtains around her bed were the same standard-issue, slate gray that the Gargantia’s had been. This was a military ship.
The pair of children stared up at her curiously, cowering by her feet. The little girl seemed ready to bolt, trembling with fear. Unsure what to do or say, Foster simply stared back until she saw the curtain ripple.
A tall, bulky man stepped through, an unlit cigarette clenched between his teeth and a white lab coat hanging off his massive frame. His disgruntled, scowling appearance made him easily recognizable as the ship’s medical officer. All the fleet doctors she’d met had shared such foul disposition.
“Harrison, Anabelle,” the doctor said, glaring at the two children, “what did I say about disturbing the patients?”
“Don’t?” the young boy suggested.
“Aye,” Macintosh growled. “So, get out.”
The young boy hung his head low, but proceeded to lead his companion out of the curtained area. The doctor just huffed and grabbed the clipboard hung on the bedframe hastily skimming through it before he turned to the Lieutenant. “Did those two numbskulls wake you up?”
Foster hesitated to answer, unsure if she was on enemy turf. “No,” she said, eyeing the doctor warily. His uniform was obvious enough, that of a fleet officer, but his white coat covered the identifiable markings of ship and rank.
“How do you feel?” he asked, allowing his shoulders to slump.
“Tired,” she answered. Her whole body ached; her muscles exhausted. She’d shivered for hours, her body desperately trying to keep warm. Now, at last, she wasn’t cold anymore, but she was still exhausted and unsure what fate awaited her. “Where am I?”
Macintosh took the half-gnawed cigarette from his mouth, grunting, “You want the short answer or the long answer?”
“Both?” she said cautiously. The more information she had, the better.
“Alright, you’re safe.” He flicked the cigarette into the trash, and shoved his hands into his pockets, returning to a slouch. “Nobody here is going to hurt you. You’re aboard the Singularity. Last I checked, somewhere in the Argo Sector.”
Void space. She didn’t know the sector, meaning it was likely empty and unimportant, and as far as she cared, that was a good thing. “The Singularity?” She looked around, noting the dark color of the bulkheads. They didn’t match with the newer fleet standard she knew from the Gargantia. There was no reason to disbelieve him. “The renegade ship. Why?” Why would the traitor to the republic save her?
“It was either rescue you, or leave you to die.” As far as the doctor cared, it was simple enough. Years ago, he’d taken a half-forgotten oath to do no harm even by inaction.
“But how did you even find us?” Why had the Singularity been anywhere near the Gargantia? It made no sense. She’d seen the reports. After narrowly escaping the Olympia in the Homebound Sector, the Singularity hadn’t been seen. But how long ago had that been? How long had she sat alone in the dark?
The doctor simply shrugged. The way he saw it, answering such questions was not his domain. “Rest for a moment. You’ll get your questions answered soon enough.”
“But-”
The scowl on the doctor’s face deepened. “Rest.”
Sensing no ill intent, Foster forced herself to relax into the freshly fluffed pillows. Apparently satisfied, the doctor huffed and stalked out, followed by his perpetual cloud of disapproval.
Left alone with her aching body and thoughts, questions bombarded her mind. Where was the Gargantia? Had anyone else survived? What happened to the civvies they’d fought so desperately to defend?
She shoved those inquiries aside to try and get a sense of her new environment. It may not seem hostile now, but these things could change quickly. Training dictated she had to remain aware of her surroundings. Murmurs of conversation wafted under the curtain, but it was unintelligible as she calmed herself with deep breaths, only to identify a familiar scent. Smoke. The same smell she’d grown so familiar with during the Gargantia’s final moments, it was the odor of battle.
Sitting up, she pinpointed the hum of the engines in the background. Their hum was less aggressive than the Gargantia’s, but still audible. The noise, though soft, was off. It sounded unbalanced. Something was wrong with the propulsion systems.
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Oh, stars. Had she found her way off one condemned ship and onto another?
The curtain rippled again before her thoughts could runaway into helplessness. She’d expected the doctor again, but this man was substantially shorter, and he wasn’t wearing a lab coat. His uniform had the silver rank band of a flag officer. Her eyes widened, and she scrambled to sit up, snapping her trembling hand up into a salute.
“Relax, Lieutenant,” he waived her back down. “No need to salute.” She was injured, and technically speaking, after his separation from Command, he wasn’t her superior.
“But, sir-” she protested, no doubt in her mind that ‘sir’ was the correct form of address.
“From that reaction, I suspect you know who I am.”
“Yes, sir.” She’d never met him before, but, “Commander Fairlocke held you in high regard.” Fond of Fairlocke, the rest of the Gargantia’s crew had come to respect Admiral Gives as well, told the stories Fairlocke shared from his years aboard the Singularity. Of course, the man had also just made himself famous for running off with the fleet’s largest warship, her entire complement of sailors and some of the government’s most confidential secrets. Needless to say, there was a low chance anyone in the fleet would be forgetting him anytime soon.
“You understand, then, that Commander Fairlocke and I did not part on good terms.” They hadn’t fought, and remained respectable allies, but they had possessed an irresolvable difference of opinion.
Foster nodded. Rumor of that had also permeated the Gargantia, though Fairlocke himself had never addressed it. “He still spoke highly of your ability, sir.”
Interesting. But then, Fairlocke’s opinion of him had never been the problem. “All the same, welcome aboard. We salvaged some of the Gargantia’s computer records. According to them, you are Lieutenant Elizabeth Foster, is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.” She answered quickly. “But you should know that the Gargantia’s central computer suffered a cyber attack in the Centaur System.” She, a computer specialist, had never seen anything quite like it. “A virus disrupted our control over some of the critical systems. Accessing that data may have exposed the Singularity.”
“You concern is appreciated, Lieutenant, but the Gargantia’s data was heavily corrupted. Most likely, the virus did not survive, and if it did, then the Singularity’s manual controls will not allow it to endanger the ship.” Slowly, after wrapping her head around it, she nodded in understanding, so he folded his hands behind his back. “I imagine you have questions.”
Yes. She certainly did. “How did you find us?”
“We were conducting an investigation of our own in the Centaur System when we encountered the remains of your battle. From there, both we and Command gave chase to find you and the civilian ships.”
“And you found us first?” Tempted as she was to not believe that, given Command’s numbers advantage, her presence here was enough to make it a truth.
“Not quite. We located you, but once we began rescue operations, Command sprung a trap. The Singularity engaged in a delaying action until we could recover our SAR team.”
The answer seemed honest enough. “Then the smoke, the battle damage,” she corrected herself, “is from the delaying action?” From a battle fought essentially on her and the other survivors’ behalf?
The acrid smell of the battle was mostly gone by now, but there were still faint hints of it. “Yes. Taking on nine battleships has its consequences.” If that engine proved irreparable, the price would be high. The Singularity’s already dangerous situation would turn more precarious.
Nine battleships? Had she heard that right? Even in disbelief, she knew she had. The Gargantia had taken on five battleships and been entirely wiped out. Nine was suicide. The odds had been near impossible against the Singularity, but Admiral Gives had taken on those odds, not without consequences, to save her life. The lingering stench of charred wiring and metal told her it had been costly. “How bad was it?”
Excluding the engine, “Repairable.”
Foster waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. As unfamiliar with the ship as she was, it wouldn’t have made sense anyway. She could only feel guilty. “Was I the only one?” She hated how small her voice sounded, but she was terrified. Remembering the Gargantia’s condition, she’d been lucky to survive subspace and owed everything else to the Singularity’s timely arrival.
“No,” he answered. “We have one of the Gargantia’s engineers as well. Unfortunately, his wounds were far more serious than your own. He remains in critical condition.” He would never show it, but the Admiral felt sorry for her. She was on an unfamiliar ship surrounded by strangers. If the engineer didn’t make it, she would become the only survivor of a crew that had once been over eight hundred strong.
She could feel her throat begin to tighten. They were all dead. Everyone she’d known. Fairlocke too. Now, if she was lucky, it would be her and some engineer she probably didn’t even know. Loss suddenly weighed like a hundred pounds directly on her shoulders. “How is that possible? How can they all be gone?” It was too sick to even be a joke. “Why wasn’t there time to evacuate?” The end had come so, so suddenly in the Centaur System.
“I believe the Gargantia was hit directly by an orbital mass driver. Such an impact would have ruined the superstructure, leading to complete collapse during the FTL jump.” Likely, that sudden impact had been what killed Fairlocke so abruptly.
“An orbital mass driver?” Foster echoed, grounding herself in the scratchy texture of the sheets beneath her fingertips. That was old technology, banned after use in the First Frontier Rebellion.
“Yes,” he confirmed, “more specifically, the Heaven’s Ladder.” Sagittarion’s orbital mass driver was a legendary weapon, leftover from the Hydrian War. It alone had protected Sagittarion from numerous attacks by the Hydrian Armada, leaving Sagittarion one of the oldest surviving colonies this close to the Neutral Zone.
“Wasn’t the Heaven’s Ladder disassembled?” she asked without thinking, but instantly regretted it. “I mean, of course it was… perhaps they rebuilt another in its place?”
It was clear enough she knew her history. “The Heaven’s Ladder was disassembled.” There was no question of that. Implying otherwise could be seen as a personal insult, if he ever let such things get personal. The weapon was familiar to him because the Singularity had forced Sagittarion’s surrender in the old Frontier Rebellion and overseen the weapon’s disassembly. While it hadn’t been destroyed, the parts had been scattered across Sagittarion’s surface, never to be reassembled by any means found on the planet itself.
“Fact is, that it has been reassembled to its original specifications.” Reeter had likely lent Command’s resources to accomplish the task. “Mass size and velocity are in line with what the Heaven’s Ladder was known to produce.” It had not been replaced with a lesser weapon. He had confirmed the sensor data was in line with the information kept in the Singularity’s archives.
“How can you be sure?” They couldn’t possibly have gotten a scan on the mass that demolished the Gargantia.
“They fired at the Singularity during our stint in the Centaur System as well.” He calmly observed the look of terror on her face. “They missed.” Her relief was evident and taken without question. She did not know how deadly accurate that shot should have been. Without the ghost’s intervention, the ship would have been crippled, the crew captured or worse.
“But how, why was it reassembled?” Foster said, fighting off the stinging of tears in her eyes.
“For the same reason you were ordered to sink all ships that tried to flee the planet. Someone is protecting their assets on the surface.” With Knight Industries presumably involved, that narrowed it down to someone with very deep pockets and an intricate connection to Command. Given the level of precision taken to aim an orbital mass driver to a crippling, not killing blow, Manhattan had likely been involved, indicating Reeter’s New Era Movement was the culprit.
It made sense, but it also didn’t. “Sagittarion is a poor world. What is there to protect?”
Workers, factories, shipyards and the abandoned builds within them, take your pick, he thought bitterly. “I presume you were not told.”
“No.” Nothing about it made any sense. “We were ordered not to scan or contact the surface.” If anyone had truly known what was going on, it would have been Rear Admiral Tyler, commanding the blockade.
A silence fell between them. Foster could feel tears welling up behind her eyes, but held them back. She didn’t have the energy to cry for everyone she had lost.
He waited a moment to see if she had any more questions, but the Lieutenant seemed lost in her thoughts, so he began to leave.
“Admiral, wait,” she called after him. “This ship, your Singularity, she’s a good one?” The fear was obvious in the trembles of her voice, but she didn’t want to be a lonely survivor. She didn’t want to see any more loss around her. She wanted to feel safe.
“The best.”
“Powerful?” she asked. Fairlocke had always spoken of the Admiral, and never of his ship. She knew nothing about it, save the rumors of dilapidation and uselessness she didn’t believe, spread by the rest of the fleet.
“Old and reliable.” He trusted this ship to never fail him. There was a reason he defended her so loyally. They’d flown into and out of more tough scrapes than he cared to recall.
“Commander Fairlocke never saw her the way I do.” Fairlocke had seen a ship haunted by the horrible crimes of his predecessors, a ship hated by the worlds. He had never cared to look past any of that. In a sense, he’d never considered the ship herself, merely the opinions others would have of him for commanding such a machine. “You’ll have to make your own choice, Lieutenant. Trust her or hate her, just know that if you turn on her, you answer to me.”
Foster swallowed, noting the dangerous ice in his eyes. No way in hell would she ever consider crossing the Steel Prince. “I owe my life to you, your ship and your crew, Admiral. I don’t want to hurt them.”
There was honesty in her expression. “I thought as much.” Fairlocke had drawn kind, genuine people toward him and into his crew. At the moment, that worked in the Admiral’s favor. “Rest and recover. Once we have word on the other survivor, we can discuss your situation more in depth.” Like them, she was now wanted from Command. Her options were now …limited to say the least.
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” she acknowledged, careful to mind the formalities. He very easily could have delegated a subordinate to meet with her and answer questions. Doing it himself was something that Fairlocke would have done.
Perhaps this ship wouldn’t be so different than the home she’d just lost.