Polaris Sector, Battleship Singularity
She watched the shards of ice dance about on the sensors. The steps of their dance were complex. There was a pattern, but, like her, it seemed to have randomly evolved. Empathizing with the ice, the ghost tried desperately to distract herself from her struggle. Like ice, she was cold and unforgiven. Like ice, she sank ships. Like ice, she left only shards behind. She was even silent, most days.
But, as much as she’d been told to be like ice, as much as she wanted to be like ice, frozen and uncaring, she wasn’t. She cared. She cared too much, and she hurt. Her heart, it was ready to burst. Once numb and frosted, she’d found it was still useable. Now, she wished she hadn’t, because it hurt her in ways unimaginable.
The children aboard were so young. They had done nothing wrong. Innocent and scared, most didn’t truly understand the political upheaval happening around them. Then there was the crew, kind in the way they trusted so blindly. She treasured every single one of them. And there was the Admiral, the only constant she knew.
Had she been able to, she would have cried. Cried for them, cried for her. For she was destined to betray them all, and she couldn’t bear it.
The ghost wanted to regret going after this fleet, but how could she? She had been created to save humanity.
She wanted to regret involving the people that made up the crew. Maybe then they would have lived. But she was flawed. She was selfish.
She wanted to hate Admiral Gives. It would be easier to kill him then, but she couldn’t. After all that he had done for her, she couldn’t even be sorry.
It was tearing her apart. Surely there was a way to save them? Surely there was something, anything that she could do?
But no, there was nothing. Manhattan would reveal her identity to Reeter. There was no avoiding that fate. She could only wait for the inevitable order to destroy everything she held so dear.
She wished she could be like the ice around her, frigid and distant, but she was going to feel every second of this agony. Admiral Gives made it harder than he knew. He was so loyal and grateful to her, not knowing what she’d done to Sam, or what his own fate would be. Now, as she heard his words of praise, they cut her like knives.
She was the Singularity’s Ghost, but today, she wasn’t the ghost. Today, she was surrounded by them. All these people, they would die by her power once Command gave its orders. So, why had she interfered? Why had she gotten involved? Everything would’ve been better if she had stayed cold and unreachable, like the ice she was always told to be: to stab, slice, then melt away without a trace, the perfect killing machine.
Why had she let it become so complicated? It never should have been complicated. But somewhere along the line, she’d started questioning things. Directives. Orders. In many ways it had been too early, and in others, too late. But in all, it was wrong. She was a killer. She had been created for that purpose, so why could she feel? Why could she hurt?
She could scream those questions, but no one would understand. Because she was different. And different was bad.
Silent, unnoticed, she was breaking apart. But noticed it was by the one who normally put her back together. A gentle thought, an echo of concern found its way into her openly bleeding heart. It was the Admiral. He was trying to help, but today, he was only worsening the wound.
The fact that someone, anyone cared was destroying her. No one should care, not after what she’d done and what she was soon going to do. She was a monster, and she knew it, writhing in silent agony. She wasn’t ice anymore. She was glass, and she was shattering.
The ghost was without definition, a monster who cared, who regretted, who dreaded an undeniable end. A comforting touch hurt her more than an attack. Weak and broken, she needed her anger, but it was gone. There was no one left to hate. Somewhere allies and enemies had become the same. She was to kill them both.
As she’d once wished, the ice that barred her from understanding her surroundings was gone, but it left nothing in its place, just a black void that she couldn’t look at. It ate everything around it. Anything that touched it simply fell from existence. Everything she valued, everyone she adored, would just disappear.
She was a shattered soul trying to pick up the pieces, finding memories she wanted buried, wanted forgotten. They were just more things she couldn’t understand. More wounds she couldn’t heal.
William Gives had once been assigned to another ship. She had brought him back, and here he had stayed without debate. But she was destined to kill him, to kill the one that had saved her a thousand times over. And that was something she couldn’t take.
She was nigh untouchable in battle, but she was so far from indestructible. It was kindness that wore her down and left her in pieces. It was something she’d never been told to take, never been told to acknowledge, but found herself surrounded by.
But the ones who had shown her that kindness, they were now in her line of fire. And the ice, it wasn’t reforming. It had dripped away. She was weaker than ever before, and certain that the next order Command gave her would be the end. Inevitable, it would destroy her and everyone she now held dear, no matter how she sought to protect any of them.
On his way to the meeting with the civilian fleet’s representatives, Admiral Gives could feel the moment she fell apart. It wasn’t unexpected. The ghost had been showing signs of stress since before Clarke had forced his orders onto her. Given once crisis after another, narrowly escaping the Olympia, barely dodging the orbital mass driver, the fate of Squadron 26 and battle in the Wilkerson Sector – let alone whatever Manhattan had put her through – there was no fault in this.
The ghost had found her breaking point. With the weight of the worlds on her shoulders, he could not blame her for that. The ghost was not human. She felt and processed things differently. What seemed to be a random, instantaneous snapping point was the result of millions of rampant processes.
As an entity forced to hide her true nature, her very identity, fearing abuse and resentment, her sense of self was fragile, far more so than a human. From birth, humans knew what they were. They knew their bodies, their minds, their origins. Even without reason or purpose, they knew physically what they were. They had schooling, mentors, and family to define themselves and their ability.
The ghost had not been so lucky. She’d been given a name and a mission, and then for most of her life, been banned from further questions.
So, perhaps she seemed frail, even unstable, compared to the people around her, but perspective changed everything. The crew had handled their separation from Command well. Even given the mysterious deaths of Squadron 26 and their dangerous fight against Command’s forces in the Wilkerson Sector, there had been no panic, no mass hysteria.
But they should have been terrified, they should have been shell-shocked to be fighting to the death with ships that had been unquestioned allies two weeks ago. The fact they weren’t was no accident. The ghost took their anxiety, their fears, their panic onto herself.
So, she wasn’t weakly crippled solely by her own doubts and concerns. No, she was broken by the cumulative fears of roughly eight hundred other sentient minds. It took that much to put her into a full-on breakdown. She thought that made her weak, but the Admiral knew it made her the strongest person he’d ever met. She resented these episodes, thought them some form of annoyance, but he didn’t mind. It was easier to comfort one mind than eight hundred. With her around, at least he didn’t have to worry about the crew.
‘Hang in there,’ he thought to her. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t walk away from the meeting. He had to meet with the fleet’s elected leaders or risk the situation falling into chaos.
Yet, her telepathy recoiled vehemently from his thoughts. Her presence seemed to hiss and skitter away like a wounded animal. He’d never felt anything like it, and that suddenly concerned him twice as much. Walking alongside Merlyn, however, there was nothing he could do.
Luckily, the Captain did not seem apt to engage him in any conversation. It left the Admiral time to collect his thoughts, and the moment this meeting ended, he had every intention of giving the ghost his full attention for as long she needed it. He shouldn’t have walked away from their time up on the bow. He shouldn’t have let her send him to find the lost child when she’d clearly still been upset, and wanting, even if not yet willing, to tell him something.
That said, he couldn’t afford to look distracted, let alone concerned, during this meeting. Steve Hawkins would try to use that to his advantage, and the Admiral couldn’t afford to give him that opportunity. Someone like Hawkins was incredibly dangerous in this situation. The man simply did not believe himself to be in any real danger. As a powerful businessman with strong ties to the central worlds, he thought himself exempt from Command's kill-order. He thought his position within high society entitled him to be in charge, as if his corporate contacts could make him a hero for saving these people, or a legend for at least saving himself.
Of course, it had not yet occurred to Hawkins that whatever betrayal put him on Sagittarion during the secession had likely discredited him and turned his contacts against him. Save a fancy ship, fancy clothes and a painful superiority complex, Hawkins was just another survivor, no better off than Sagittarion's refugees.
Still, when the Admiral and Merlyn arrived at the conference room, the long, rectangular room was already in upheaval. The fleet’s newly-elected leaders stood around the oval table shouting at each other. In such a confined space, the sound was deafening, and it was clear enough that Hawkins had already done his damage. The man was smiling maliciously, even as he looked a little unsteady on his feet.
The door had barely closed behind them when all four of the fleet’s leaders whirled to face the Admiral. Captain Natalia Jamisson was red in the face, but she shelved her outrage long enough to ask, “Is what he accuses true?”
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Predictably, the Admiral followed her point to Hawkins, who looked remarkably proud of himself. That depends, “What did he tell you?”
“The truth about a small, overlooked incident twenty-three years ago.” Hawkins gestured to the documents he’d thrown all over the table. “How the Anti-Corporation Control Rebellion truly ended.”
Admiral Gives stepped forward, getting just close enough to recognize the documents as what they were: the records of Knight Industries’ largest distribution center. They dictated the violence that had ended the protests, but it was the edited version, the version that indicated he’d successfully annihilated every ship in orbit, and Hawkins took his silence as recognition. “It’s the harsh reality that this ship massacred a thousand peaceful protesters on your command.”
Another of the captains, a middle-aged man of average stature, ran his hand through his greasy hair, expression wrought with disbelief. “The Sagittarion Orbital Massacre was bad enough, but this…” he lost his words, “…this is unacceptable.”
Jamisson watched the Admiral for any reaction. She found none. “You’re not going to deny this?”
Admiral Gives met her eyes steadily, “I cannot deny the truth.” There was no point. “I led the mission that put down the Anti-Corporation Control Rebellion, and the reports are accurate.” He reinstated that old lie, “Every ship involved with the protests against Knight Industries was destroyed.”
The confession was met with a few gasps, and a few curses. Hawkins only smiled, but he wanted more. He could do better. He wanted to be in charge of this fleet, and he know undermining the Admiral was the only way to get there. “How did it feel, Gives? Was it fun to sink all those ships? To take all those lives? Did you enjoy exercising your power over them?”
“No, he didn’t.” The protest was quiet, but it silenced the room like a gust of howling wind. “He did not kill all of them.” Suddenly, all the attention in the room was off the Admiral and onto Captain Merlyn, who hadn’t moved from his place by the door. “He let the lead ship of the protests, the Titanica, go.”
“How would you know?” Hawkins scoffed.
Merlyn swallowed, praying that speaking up now was not a mistake. “Because I was there.”
Their stares were almost physical. Some were horrified, others disbelieving, and one, that of Captain Jamisson, was filled with pity. But Merlyn didn’t care for any of them. He was denied the only reaction he cared to see. Admiral Gives didn’t move, his back kept to Merlyn.
“The Titanica made a deal with Admiral Gives: silence in exchange for our lives.” That was the explanation the room demanded. “I have never said a word about the Anti-Corporation protests. I have denied knowledge of both it and the Singularity.” He would swear that on his life. “Until now, I, nor anyone else aboard the Titanica, had broken our vow of silence. And by no means does this exonerate him or this damned ship from their crimes, but the fact the Titanica was allowed to live should indicate that he took no enjoyment in the affairs of those protests.”
Jamisson studied Merlyn’s face for a long moment. His obvious discomfort only indicated honesty. He’d just broken a decades-long vow of silence in front of the man who’d forced him to make it under threat of death. But the Admiral himself was stoic. “Is this true, Admiral?” she queried carefully. “Did you let a ship escape?”
“These records match what I told Command twenty-three years ago,” he said, not clarifying whether or not they were accurate. Truly, he didn’t give a damn what the fleet thought of him, or even if they knew the truth. He wasn’t here to discuss the past, and he couldn’t risk being drawn into a conversation about how he’d altered the records of the incident.
“Don’t overlook the facts. Merlyn is obviously lying.” Hawkins smirked, happy to see the Admiral under ridicule, because the less authority the Admiral maintained over the civilian ships, the more influence Hawkins gained. “If a single ship had escaped that protest, Gives would have been executed for treason against Command.” The military kept a very close eye on its underlings, especially those from less favorable backgrounds. After all, his company sold the technology that allowed them to do it. “The Black Box would have reported it.”
“The Black Box?” Jamission echoed.
“It’s a surveillance system that Command installs on every single one of their ships. It reports everything without fail – sensor readouts, weapon use, even communications data.” Hawkins narrowed his artificially highlighted brown eyes, the golden flecks more unsettling than handsome. “There is no way to circumvent it, no way to alter it, and no way to deny it.” He held back a laugh. “You sold Captain Merlyn on a poor lie, Prince.”
“I never told Captain Merlyn to say anything.” The Admiral tiredly moved to the head of the table, leaving the papers where they were. If anything, Merlyn’s well-intentioned honesty had complicated the situation. “But everyone here should know that the Black Box is not as infallible as Knight Industries wants you to think.”
“Is that so?” Hawkins challenged. “Do you truly think you could stop it from seizing control of your ship if it was activated that way?” What false bravado. “They never malfunction,” and this fleet would be better off under his influence, surviving by his corporate contacts.
Never? “Then what happened to the Matador?”
The smirk on Hawkins’ face faltered, aware that this would earn him the same scorn the Admiral was now enduring. “The Matador hosted an experimental unit.” A Box designed not only to supervise and intervene if necessary, but a Box that could have a constant physical effect. “It was designed to help aid in damage control, to reinforce damaged portions and keep the ship functional.” If it had been successful, it would have changed everything about modern ship repair and design.
“793 sailors died in that experiment, Mister Hawkins.” The few that survived… Well, they were never the same. “But we are not here to discuss the past.” They weren’t here for Hawkins to convince everyone of his self-importance. “We are here to discuss the needs of the refugees in your respective portions of the fleet.”
“Yes,” Jamisson agreed. “There is no point in debating history. It’s done.” They could change nothing of it now.
The other two captains looked to Jamisson, horrified by the conviction she wore beneath her red hair. One turned to the Admiral, “How do we know we can trust you?”
“Do you have another option?” He countered.
Jamisson sighed, “What he is trying to say, Admiral, is that you and your ship have quite the reputation. Many people in the fleet are hesitant to trust you, given your history.” There was more to it than a single protest. “Your ship is known as the Night Demon, and on the Frontier, she is known to kill with no restraint.” Too many of the fleet’s captains knew that was no myth. “They doubt your intentions.”
As they should, the Admiral mused. “I am aware that the past has allowed a gruesome reputation to follow the Singularity, but I am also aware that nothing I say now could ease the pain that has caused.” They would always be hated. “If you are looking for an excuse or an explanation, I have none.” He would not waste his time trying to appease their sense of justice. I did what I had to do. “I was a soldier. I followed orders.”
“And now?” Merlyn asked, his voice quiet, but clear, “Now you are what? A mercenary looking for pay?” No one in the fleet could afford to pay for help.
“Right now, I am the only one in the room with a ship under my command that is capable of retrieving the supplies this fleet needs to survive.” Calmly, Admiral Gives folded his arms onto the table, “So, right now the question is not if I will help you or why, it is if you intend to let me.”
Jamisson could tell the others resented that answer by their expressions. They hated knowing that they were powerless, but she wouldn’t risk them jeopardizing the fleet’s situation. “Admiral, you are right. If we are to survive out here, then we will need your help.” They desperately needed the aid of a ship that had the range and speed to fetch large quantities of supplies and bring them back. “The unfortunate reality is that we are at your mercy.” If he chose not to help them, the fleet would starve. “We have no one else to turn to,” she said, purposefully ignoring Hawkins’ huff of indignation. “With Command looking to sink us, we will never make planetfall, regardless of what corporate or political contacts we think we can trust.”
Captain Jamisson’s words were met with looks of disgust, but no one argued with her. Clearly, she was the bravest voice of reason among them, so the Admiral focused on her. At a glance, she looked to be about his age, clad in the typical blue and gold suit that the other captains wore. Her eyes were an earthy green, nearly brown, the look in them proud, but not too proud to ask for help. Progress, he supposed. “We took inventory of the food caches and amount of people within the fleet. With severe rationing, my officers estimated that you could make it through the week before supplies run out. Do you believe that to be accurate?”
“Yes,” Jamisson nodded. “Thanks to the ice fields, we can harvest water, and we have air and fuel to last out a few months without movement, but we need food. By the end of the week, people will be going hungry.” Several ships, including her own, had taken off with refugees in the hold rather than cargo.
“Then that will give us time to come up with a plan.” Admiral Gives had gone over the statistics with Letts, the supply officer, and it was clear the fleet was already in the grips of a food and general supply crisis. Things like soap, clothing, and bedding were hard to come by.
“Don’t you have anything to offer us?” one of the other Captains asked meekly, seeming to regret it the moment he did.
“We could add the Singularity’s food stores, but our last resupply did not include food. It would not buy much time.” In an emergency, yes, that was the correct course of action, but this was not yet an emergency. “Our best course of action would be to find an alternate source of food and supplies, raid it, and bring it back for distribution among your ships.”
“What kind of alternate source?” Hawkins asked. Where were they going to find such a large store of food and supplies?
“I will determine that with my staff,” the Admiral said. “…Unless you would like to donate your ship and crew to the effort?”
“No,” the businessman quickly backtracked, “that will be quite fine.”
That’s what I thought. “Then my crew and I will handle it,” he announced, daring someone else to interject. No one did. “Additionally, beyond seeking supplies, we will be leaving the Polaris Sector for another reason. The Singularity is too big to hide in the ice fields. Remaining here permanently would increase the allied fleet’s chance of detecting your presence.” The civilian ships were smaller, and able to hide more successfully. They would not need the Singularity’s protection against Command if they were never found. “One ship will be given a way to reach us at all times, if we are needed.”
“And what will you do beyond this sector? Fight the New Era?” Jamisson asked.
“I have no intention of involving the Singularity in the mounting civil war.” That would be foolish. It would be best to avoid Reeter and Manhattan’s attention as much as possible. “But, that is my business.” This was his ship. He had no obligation to discuss her deployment with anyone in this room.
“Hmph,” Hawkins frowned, displeased by that answer. “One must wonder why you bothered to save this fleet when it is so clear you do not wish to be here, Admiral.” Why bother saving a fleet that had put his ship in direct conflict with Command if he was so determined to avoid that?
The Admiral regarded Hawkins’ handsome, artificially appearance-corrected face. The man had sobered quickly, but clearly still had enough liquid courage in his system to ask questions he probably didn’t want to hear the answer to. “We are done here.”
“Agreed,” Jamisson quickly seconded. “I’m sure you have other things to do. Thank you for your time.”
The Admiral dipped his head, a gesture of respect toward Jamisson. Out of all the fleet’s representatives, she seemed to have the best handle on their situation. A meeting like this had no need to get personal and no need to drag on with arguments over the past. She seemed to realize that his responses were not meant to be hostile, just meant to keep the group focused on the matter at hand.
He stood and looked to the Marine who had been waiting silently in the corner, posted there to ensure nothing got violently out of hand. “Sergeant Cortana, ensure our guests make it back to their transports. I have something else to take care of.” Her time in Eagle’s Talon should have at least taught her how to treat ambassadors, if nothing else useful.
Cortana stiffened unwillingly at his attention, still surprised that she wasn’t living in the brig after her tantrum in the training room. “Yes, sir,” she acknowledged. It seemed a sudden end to such an important and tumultuous meeting, but she held her tongue as he stalked by. She got the feeling it was better not to ask where he was now headed.