Polaris Sector, Battleship Singularity
The aftermath of combat was always unpleasant. The blood had to be scrubbed off the bulkheads, and dead had to be disposed of or moved to cold storage – depending on if they’d been friend or foe. The acrid scent of burnt wiring, coupled with the hearty smell of smoke choked the air on many decks. The air, while safe to breathe, was pungent.
Sergeant Alise Cortana wanted no part of any of it. The way she saw it, she’d engaged the boarders, defended the ship, and her responsibilities ended there. The other Marines, after finishing their grueling security sweep, had jumped headlong into helping with damage control.
Honestly, she didn’t know where they got the energy. She felt dead on her feet, and had zero interest in not only additional work, but additional maintenance work. No, she just wanted some well-deserved rack time, but instead found herself trudging toward the training room, as the Admiral had ordered.
She didn’t know what that was about, and she didn’t truly care as long as it was over with quickly. Careful to be punctual, she arrived and was surprised by the amount of people in the room. There seemed to be a few representatives from every department on the ship: a few Marines, a few yeomen, a few engineers and a speckling of officers among them. Still, the room wasn’t crowded. It was decently large, a few punching bags hung, and two of the corners were padded for martial arts sparring. The other walls and even parts of the ceiling were plastered in posters of celebrities, propaganda and entertainment from every era of the last half century.
It was an obvious fire hazard, but clearly, no one had bothered to crack down on such regulations. The Admiral himself was present, in conversation with the largest Marine in the room, who towered over him.
She made her way in that direction, suddenly cautious of the way the others parted before her. She’d hadn’t been nervous until she felt the weight of their gazes. Their interest made her uneasy. She could just feel that they were waiting for her, waiting to watch her like an exhibit on display.
When she was close enough, the Admiral turned to her. “Welcome, Sergeant. How are your comrades?”
She furrowed her brow, “I don’t know, sir.”
Behind him, Johnston shifted, trying desperately to cover his disgust as the Admiral maintained his perfect neutral. “You did not check on them after the battle, Sergeant?”
“No, sir.” They’d been strangers to her. She had no real attachment or concern for any of the soldiers here. As Marines, they should be able to handle themselves.
He’d been right to deal with this now, despite the post-battle issues that should have consumed his attention. Even Johnston’s patience was being tested by the Sergeant, and he was one of the most tolerant soldiers the Admiral had ever met. Beyond that, he could feel the air of emotion in the room. It was a rare day that his presence was not the cause of the room’s unease, but today, it seemed Cortana had that honor.
“Why was I ordered here, sir?” she asked, eager to get whatever this was over with.
“Do you have somewhere else to be, Sergeant?” he countered, “It was my understanding that you had no interest in pitching in on repairs.”
She tried not to grimace, well aware how the wrong answer would sound here. “It’s not my area of expertise, sir.” She was a Marine. She’d done her job and fought off the boarders. Maintenance and repairs were the responsibilities of the ship’s engineers.
The answer was fine enough he supposed, but the Admiral knew very well what she didn’t say. Repair work was below a soldier of her caliber. It was the engineers’ job to slave over the machine, to stain their hands with grease and earn sore feet and aching backs. A soldier like her, complete with fine decorum and the best training the worlds could offer, was better than that, better than them. As if.
But the Admiral knew how Cortana would reply to a lecture. She’d pretend to acknowledge it, then brush it off. He’d dealt with her kind before, so he tossed a practice sword over to her. “It has come to my attention that I need to observe your martial combat ability, Sergeant.” The engineers were terrified of her skills and the Marines thought her partially incompetent. Likely, both were reasonable reactions, depending on the situation. “You will be sparring today.”
Cortana swallowed her annoyance. Who had insulted her skills so much that it had reached through the ship’s entire senior staff all the way to the Admiral himself? That damn engineer? Somehow, that timid little woman, barely more than a child, seemed a very likely candidate. “Who will I be sparring, sir?” Glancing to the large Corporal, she could feel a semblance of dread. Against that behemoth, her odds weren’t great without a real weapon that would gave her the ability to wound and slowly weaken her opponent. She’d probably look like a fool.
Taking another practice sword off the rack, the Admiral answered, “Me.”
Cortana almost laughed. An officer against a Marine who trained for this on the daily? What chance did he really stand? But it very quickly occurred to her, as the crew around began to grin and murmur, that he wasn’t kidding. Oh, stars. What the hell was she supposed to do here? Let him win? She couldn’t very well hit her commanding officer, let alone attack him again unless she really wanted time in the brig. But, losing on purpose would only further sully her reputation.
“Rest assured that you have no need to go easy on me, Sergeant,” he said, reading her dilemma. “I graduated top of my class in martial combat at the Academy.”
Her eyes widened. What?
The large Marine against the wall let out a rumbling chuckle, then passed a paper to the yeoman beside him.
She took it, smiled, and made a note on her clipboard.
Bloody hell. Cortana recognized the exchange, “Are you betting on this fight?” What kind of ship was this? The spectators here were running a betting pool that probably went ship-wide.
“Ain’t nothin’ personal, Sarge,” the Marine drawled. “I just ain’t willin’ to bet against the Academy valedictorian.” He gave the Admiral a nod, “Odds seven to four in your favor, suh.”
Good. That would make the Sergeant all the more desperate to prove herself. He wanted her to burn every ounce of that anger and desperation. He wanted to trigger that temper that had nearly shot him in the Homebound Sector, if only to gauge its threat to the rest of the crew.
“You were an Academy valedictorian?” One of the hardest, most competitive schools in the worlds, the fleet’s academy for officers rarely ever crowned a valedictorian. Often, no candidates were deemed worthy. It was one of the rarest honors in the worlds, those who earned it coveted as the best officers in the fleet: brilliant, capable and noble. Corporations often sought to hire them out of the service.
He understood her surprise. His reputation was far from noble, and seeking to avoid attention, it wasn’t something he publicized. “Class of 4210.” Named the overall valedictorian, he’d graduated top of his class in martial combat, tactics, piloting and engineering. But with his lower-class background, even that had barely been enough to earn him a decent post.
“In terms of history, Charleston Reeter and I are more similar than you realize, Sergeant.” They had both been valedictorian, and they had both gained command of a ship at a very young age, later on to both command the respective flagships of their eras. He had his similarities to the man that Cortana and the rest of the fleet idolized. “However, in terms of intention, I suspect we could not be more different.” Reeter wanted to save these worlds at any cost. Admiral Gives couldn’t care any less about them.
Cortana followed him over to the laid-out sparring area, the width of one of the ship’s corridors measured and marked on the floor. “And what exactly is your intention, sir?”
“At the moment, to test the skill of one of my Marines,” he answered calmly, aware that she’d shifted the crew’s interest back to his rarely-defined intentions. He raised the white practice sword, identical to Cortana’s own. “Make ready.”
She moved into her own stance, giving the plastic sabre a test swing. It was standard enough, just like those she’d trained with in Eagle’s Talon. They were too blunt and fragile to do real damage to a person. At worst it would leave red welts or bruises, but that was, of course, the point. Her own sabre was still sheathed on her hip. She hadn’t bothered to put it away once the ship was secured, enjoying the feeling of purpose it gave her.
The Admiral himself was unarmed, save the practice sword. The dark blade he’d held at her throat earlier was nowhere in sight. He wore his uniform, but she knew it wouldn’t offer any protection against the practice swords, unlike her tactical vest. She focused on that. She didn’t have to beat him in the truest sense, she just had to outlast him.
Valedictorian or not, he’d graduated nearly forty years ago. The effects of relativity saved him a few years, but age was never a soldier’s friend in martial combat. She trained for this on the daily, but who knew how physically fit the Admiral was, so she was not without her advantages in this fight.
Johnston stepped up beside the sparring lane and crossed his arms across his massive chest. He gave them both a nod, “Begin.”
Usually, there was a pause at the start of a match, each combatant daring the other to strike first, waiting to see the other’s approach, but the Admiral didn’t even hesitate. He lunged forward, his blade a white blur.
Fuck! She leapt back in a panic, the retreat messy as she barely managed to deflect his attack. The man was fast, much faster than she’d expected. She heard a few chuckles fill the room at her expense, but despite her sloppy stance, a second attack didn’t come.
He could have easily broken her guard as she tried to reset herself, but he lingered back in a defensive stance. “Very good, Sergeant.” In his Academy days, that decisiveness had ended many matches early. No matter the harried state of her retreat, she had managed to block the attack.
She clenched her jaw, feeling a familiar twinge of annoyance. He’s playing with me. Like everything else, this was a game to him. He was just using her to prove a point to the onlookers. I refuse to be your pawn, you bastard.
She leapt forward to make her own attack, unwilling to lose this fight. Their swords clapped together, the noise distinct from the metallic clangs of real weapons, but his block was flawless. He shoved her blade away twisted his own to slap her wrist. The contact stung in the air, the mark already reddening. She bit back a curse as he eased off.
“First contact goes to the Admiral,” Johnston announced. “Hit was on the wide side of the blade, unlikely to lacerate or inhibit use of hand. Proceed as though uninjured, Sergeant.”
In these simulated battles, hits were evaluated, and if likely to cause injury in a real fight, would force one of the combatants to restrict use of a limb. If he’d hit her with the sharp edge of the sword, she likely would have been forced to switch to her off-hand.
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Hearing the murmurs of the onlookers start up again, she forced herself to ignore it. She had to put all her attention into this fight, or she would lose.
Careful to stay inside the measured area, they exchanged blows, slash for slash, jab for dodge, thrust for parry. The old man was light on his feet, Cortana had to give him that. The sabre he’d been carrying earlier wasn’t for show. He knew how to use it.
Still, she could only feel that he was testing her defenses. His stance and style were solid, the mark of an experienced swordsman. In this enclosed space, her own technique was less perfect. She’d left gaps and she knew it, but he hadn’t seized the opportunity. So, either he was definitely testing her, or he just hadn’t seen the opening.
But she wasn’t here to entertain the man, and she knew where her advantage lay. She narrowed her eyes, try and keep up. She was younger and did daily endurance training. He might be able to take her for now, but a faster, longer fight wouldn’t be to his advantage. Maybe he wanted to make a fool of her. Maybe he wanted her to feel totally outmatched, but, “A good soldier never gives up,” she muttered to herself. No matter how this fight started, she was determined to end it and demonstrate her skill to everyone watching.
The fight quickened, and the clap of the plastic blades evolved into a constant applause. For a minute, the Admiral entertained the pace change, matching her flurries of strikes with equal speed and strength, but then with a parry and a controlled fwip, he snagged the tip of his blade beneath her guard and flung it away, leaving her defenseless. The plastic blade hit the ground with a light clatter, the disarming technique flawless.
“No, Sergeant, a good soldier knows when to attack, when to defend, and when to surrender.” She’d been outmatched in this fight since the beginning. He could have disarmed her at any time, choosing now because he’d seen enough. “A good soldier would have defended her comrades when they were injured.”
“That’s what this is about?” Damn it all to hell. “I chased the bastard off! I saved their lives, sir!”
“You abandoned them, injured and unable to wield a weapon effectively to defend themselves.”
Unbelievable. “They were Marines. They could have defended themselves just fine!”
He quirked an eyebrow, “And how well can you defend yourself without a weapon?”
“What?”
Too late, she saw him move, and the wide edge of the practice sword slapped her across the arm. The room collectively gasped, unexpecting the attack as Cortana herself yelped in pain. Covering the rising welt with her hand, she heard the smack of another attack before she even felt it, her other arm left similarly stinging. A painful stab hit her thigh next, nearly taking her to the floor as she bit back a scream.
“You naddlethworfing psychopath!” she howled, drawing her real sabre. Blind with rage, she swung.
He blocked the attack, but his practice sword shattered on impact, pieces of plastic raining down to leave nothing but a useless hilt.
Tears of pain and humiliation blurring her vision, Cortana struck again, but he leapt back out of range. “You’re exactly what your brother said you were, Prince. You’re a monster that feeds on others’ pain.” She slashed again, then once more, but each time he managed to jump out of range. Blearily, she registered he was out of space, back against the wall. Killing you now would be a favor to these worlds, she thought, raising her blade.
She brought it down with all her strength, but her teary eyes had misjudged the distance. The Admiral ducked and rolled out of the way, and her blade hit the bulkheads with a deafening clang, all the force pushed back into her arms. Her ears ringing, hands numb from the impact, she could barely register the scar she’d cleaved through the posters on the wall.
The room was spinning, rage and pain and disorientation mashing together in a horrible cacophony. Through the haze, she saw the shock and horror of the observers as the yeoman from earlier dashed forward. “Admiral!” she called, tossing a long object his way.
He caught it easily and yanked the blade out, tossing the decorative scabbard to the ground. “Thank you, Ensign,” he said without taking his eyes off Cortana. “That is the second time you have tried to kill me, Sergeant. If I were keeping track, I might be offended.”
Cortana growled as she tried to recover. She felt dizzy, dizzier than she should have, her fingertips so perfectly numb. The gazes of the onlookers felt like laser weapons, putrid beams that scalded and burned, targeting her fit of rage. They stamped embarrassment so harshly into her mind that it felt like a hot cattle brand. It only fueled her anger. He had done this to her. Purposefully driven her to these actions, to be watched and judged by his crew. Fucking psychopath.
May was right, the Sergeant had quite a temper. He’d been more than successful in poking the bear, as it were. But even publicly embarrassed, her anger was still almost entirely fixated on him. She was selfish, but the only one she truly hated on this ship was him. And she did hate him. He could see that in her eyes. She mourned his brother’s death – it being a sign of her failure – and presented with him, the opposite of his brother in many ways, it frustrated her.
He raised the dark blade between them, “This fight is over, Sergeant.”
She curled her lip. “Like hell it is.” She refused to be made into his example, refused to be made a fool. “Unlike these oblivious lemmings of yours, I know what you are, Admiral.” The crew didn’t see it, but she did. “You’re a killer in a uniform, and you believe yourself to be a god aboard these decks. You believe it is your right to play with anything aboard at whim.” There were hundreds of other self-important psychopaths like him. He wasn’t special. “We fight to first blood, because you are not untouchable, and I will show that to everyone here.”
He sighed. Best not to drag this out. He had other places to be. He swung without even a nod of confirmation, the tip of his blade just barely scratching the skin of her forearm. The small cut reddened immediately, droplets forming on its surface.
“You fucker.” She snarled, raising her sword.
He knocked it easily to the side, thrusting just far enough to make her leap into the bulkhead behind her. With her pinned to the wall, he placed his blade very carefully against her throat, a fractional movement away from the throbbing pulse of her life-giving artery.
Then, slowly, he reached forward and peeled a patch off the front of her vest, the fabric adhesive tearing audibly in an otherwise silent room. He held it up to her, ensuring she saw the red and yellow of the Singularity’s flaming sun. “Wearing this insignia means something, Sergeant.” It had weight. “With this on your uniform, you are a member of this crew, this family. You are meant to represent this ship in the best ways.” The actions of her crew represented a ship’s honor. “You defend her and you defend each other.”
Resisting the urge to twist away from the cold blade her neck, she spat, “I did my duty.” She had reacted to fend off the boarders.
“You abandoned wounded comrades to fend for themselves.” The Admiral was revolted. “You left our own behind.” With hostile boarders targeting the wounded, Corporal May and her sister had essentially been left to die.
This was insane. He was insane. “I went to chase that enemy before he hurt anyone else!” She had been trying to negate the threat.
“That hostile would have been engaged by others. You violated the trust of your comrades by leaving them behind.” He considered it a betrayal. “You sought revenge for your own ends. You sought glory, as if taking down that Marine would have earned you respect aboard this ship.”
Cortana wanted to argue, but he was right and they both knew it. Taking down that massive adversary had been her way of earning a place here. It wasn’t her fault the Admiral had beaten her to it.
“But you misjudged. Killing will not earn you a place here.” He was the killer aboard these decks, and the crew generally feared and resented him for it. “You have violated everything this ship stands for by leaving your comrades behind. That was a grave act of disrespect to her, to your comrades and to me. You do not deserve to wear her colors.” He closed the ship patch in his own hand, not intending to return it.
“This ship was built to save humanity. She stands for those who cannot stand on their own. She defends those who cannot defend themselves, and while you wear her colors, as should you.” He didn’t care what Command had drilled into her head about the greater good and glory. “Aboard these decks, you protect your people. You stand by the wounded and the weak. You will leave no one behind.” He met the Marine’s eyes. “Am I understood?”
“Yes, sir.” Cortana answered automatically.
“Then I will not throw you off my ship, but violate that directive again, and you will find me far less forgiving.” He’d cut more than her arm. He’d probably go for the neck, considering the toxic anger that boiled in her eyes.
He paused for another long moment, his sword biting her skin, but then removed and sheathed it. “We are done here,” he told the spectators.
Absently rubbing her neck, Cortana watched him start to leave, disgusted by how unlike his brother he really was. The man was dangerous, unstable. He obsessively fixated on defending the honor of a machine. “As if a warship doused in the blood of millions could have honor.” She spat. The thought was laughable.
The crew around her froze, as if she’d just shattered a pane of glass. The Admiral himself paused at the door, a hand on his weapon.
There was blood on his mind. The ghost knew that. ‘Admiral,’ she reached out to calm him, ‘let it go.’
He tightened his grip on his sabre, if only for a moment. Then, he forced himself to relax. “This ship deserves more respect than you will ever earn, Sergeant.” She had saved his life, along with that of every other who had found a home aboard her decks. “I will defend her until the day I die, even against someone like you,” someone who did unknowing damage simply by existing.
With that, he left and the crew around her let out a collective breath. “Damn, Sarge,” the biggest one drawled, “you’re one hell of a fearless bitch.”
“That’s no way to talk to your superior, Corporal,” she glared, working to compose herself once again. She didn’t know what it was about him, but the Admiral just stomped on her nerves in the worst ways. She wasn’t proud of the way she had acted, but she didn’t regret it either.
“Oh, no,” the yeoman agreed, “you’re a bitch. And considering what just happened, I’m pretty sure you don’t outrank anyone here anymore.” Sergeant or not, after that show, most of the crew would probably disregard her authority. Once that incident was recounted to the rest of the ship, the crew would know she’d been put in her place. They might even welcome her a bit more, if only out of pity at first.
Of course, knowing the Admiral, that was part of the plan. “He’s not usually like that, you know.”
Cortana curled her hands in to fists, registering for the first time that she’d dropped her sword. It only angered her more. “Like what?” she asked the yeoman. “A damn psychopath?” From what she’d seen, that seemed to be a fairly obvious character trait.
“He’s not a psychopath.” Sociopath? Sure. But Ensign Feather knew him better than most. It was rare to see the Admiral take such actions as he had against Cortana. Usually, Colonel Zarrey handled affairs between the crew. “You just made a mistake he thought serious enough to correct personally, Sergeant. That’s all.”
“So he stabs me?” Practice sword or not, it had still hurt. He’d still embarrassed her in front of her everyone here, and she held no illusions. That story would be all over the ship before the third shift ended.
“He knows he angers you.” The Admiral had an easy time reading people, knowing and manipulating their emotions. It made him terrifying when he set to torture them, but it also meant that he knew how to calm and console people, if so motivated. “But, he’d prefer you to hate him, if it means you aren’t angry with us.” That was his way of protecting the crew.
Cortana snorted. “That’s stupid.”
“Is it?”
Hearing her soft tone, Cortana turned to her, this time not met with the forgettable face of some random yeoman, but with tan cheeks and a sharp nose. A woman whose red lipstick matched the red streak in her hair. “I know you.”
“Yes,” Feather nodded. “I was one of General Hommer’s assistants before I transferred here. I knew the Secretary of Defense pretty well,” even been acquainted with his security detail, Cortana included. “You might have recognized me sooner if you weren’t so determined to see us all as strangers.”
The truth was that Cortana had wanted to forget their faces and names. She had wanted to see them as just Marines and yeomen, not as friends, so that she could hold on to the anger her isolation brought her. But now, now she was forced to realize that these weren’t all strangers. They were real people who could be hurt by her anger and neglect. That bastard, she thought.
“You hate him because he was right.” And that only fed the Admiral’s point. The more Cortana focused her anger on him, the more she’d accept the crew. “I knew Secretary Gives, Sergeant. Outwardly, he was a very kind and charismatic person. Despite his heritage, he was very popular among the upper-class politicians.” Ordinarily, a person from such a poor background would have been scorned.
“However, I also know how much he hated the Admiral.” The Secretary had his reasons, but Feather knew the other side of the story now. “They were more similar than you might think, Sergeant. Don’t let the Secretary’s judgements become your own.”
Cortana rolled her eyes. There wasn’t any doubt in her mind that the Admiral was a monster. She didn’t need this yeoman preaching advice to see him otherwise. “Whatever.”
Feather grabbed her arm and pulled her back. “He didn’t do it.” No matter his other crimes, other problems, on that point, Admiral Gives was innocent. “He did not kill Christine.”
“Yeah, right.” Nice that his crew was loyal enough to defend him.
“I know what the Secretary told you.” Feather said, keeping her voice low. “That it was a fit of jealousy. That years of isolation and loneliness drove him to do it, but it’s not true. He did not kill the Secretary’s wife.”
“And who the hell else could, would have ordered the Singularity to fire on a civilian convoy?” No one, that’s who.
Feather was silent for a moment, unwilling to give that answer. “He’s not what you think he is, Sergeant.” The Admiral was a lot of things, but a vindictive psychopath who had purposefully killed his sister-in-law was not one of them. “You want the truth? Give him a chance to tell it.”