Polaris Sector, Battleship Singularity
The Gargantia’s second survivor slept. His eyes had not fluttered since he was brought aboard. He looked almost pensive. Drawn up over his chest, the thin bed sheets concealed the bandages that covered the entirety of his torso. In the last few days, patchy stubble had grown along his chin, but still, he did not stir.
Lieutenant Foster was slumped in the chair at his bedside. While she didn’t know the engineer, she stayed with him. If he woke, he should not wake up alone. Even if they hadn’t known each other before, they had been comrades aboard the Gargantia and that bond meant something to her.
Everything aboard the Singularity was different. The people. The technology. The mood. Nothing was familiar to her, but that strengthened her kinship to the other survivor, because he too would wake to find himself a stranger in a strange place.
Over the last few days, Foster had many random crew check on her. They welcomed her aboard ship and asked about the engineer, assuming that they’d been friends, given her constant presence at his bedside. She didn’t know how to tell them that she and this engineer were strangers. Only the memory of the Gargantia would bind them. Still, the crew’s concern was a kind gesture, and truly, she was grateful, but fact remained, they weren’t her crew. This wasn’t her ship. It was the concern of strangers.
Some part of Foster was still awed to be here, awed to be alive at all, let alone treated this way. She was shocked that the Singularity had bothered to rescue her. She knew now that the operation in the Wilkerson Sector had endangered the entire crew to rescue only two lives: hers and this unfamiliar engineer’s. It was a difficult thing to wrap her head around. What had made it worth it? She was left to wonder.
Save the Admiral’s brief visit, there had been no inquiries and no guards. The crew treated her like one of their own, not as a stranger or a potential threat, though they had no evidence of her honesty. It seemed her word was good enough.
When she finally worked up the nerve to ask one of the crew, he’d had simply told her that no orders had been given to shadow or restrict her movements. Similarly, no orders had been given to bar her knowledge about the ship’s condition. It seemed that unless the Admiral said otherwise, the crew was to welcome her into their fold, and they embraced that wholeheartedly.
From what she’d gathered from her visitors, despite taking a severe beating, most of the Singularity’s battle damage would be entirely repairable. The only point of concern was the damaged engine. Removing the wreckage among its machinations was a delicate process, and inspections had to be thorough, so there was still no word on if it could be repaired.
Similarly, the records gathered from the Gargantia had been partially corrupted. Powerful electrical surges had damaged the data banks as some sort of virus had been trying to purge the data. So, while the obtained records had revealed Lieutenant Foster’s identity, they had not done the same for the other survivor. His medical summary, hung on the end of the bed was marked as ‘Ensign Unknown,’ his rank identified by the uniform he’d been wearing.
The ship’s doctor, Macintosh, seemed particularly uncertain about the engineer’s condition. The piece of metal that had impaled him had missed his spine, heart and lungs. Donations had replenished his blood, but he was still unresponsive, as if still in shock. The doctor claimed he’d done all he could, and that they could only hope this patient would get up and walk out at some point.
However, at the moment, judging by the stampede of feet Foster could barely see under the curtain, the doctor had his hands full. He was in no position to deal with the survivor’s sudden revival – though from the grumbling Foster had heard earlier, he may have preferred it.
There was a reason Macintosh had taken his medical license and joined the military rather than a private pediatrics practice, and it definitely hadn’t been for the pay. This sea of squirming, murmuring children was only reminding him. “This them?” he asked Robinson, who led the group in.
“Yes, Doctor.” Most of the other refugees in the fleet had been adults, with a child here or there. Generally, a civilian ship’s medical stores could handle any issues that came up with that. However, with mostly children on board, the Badger was different. It was unlikely her resources would prove sufficient without assistance. Kids were more susceptible to injuries and illnesses out here in the void, be them mental or physical. Without sunshine and a varied diet, it was easy for children to be short on vitamins and minerals necessary for their growth. And naturally, being orphans from an impoverished world like Sagittarion, this group was probably not in the best condition already. Knowing that, the Admiral had summoned them aboard for medical examinations.
Still, the reason behind these examinations didn’t make Macintosh any more excited to conduct them, even if the children were decently calm. They acted respectably right up until the point where he tried to collect a blood sample. Then, generally, the younger ones started screaming, and it took two nurses and the matron to hold them still enough to draw a sample without hurting them.
So, by the time they were almost finished, the matron looked exhausted. Her dark hair stuck to the sheen of sweat on her forehead. “I don’t understand,” she said, “Why do you need their blood samples?”
“Do you know how common blood-borne diseases are on degrading industrial worlds?” the doctor retorted, stowing the latest vial for analysis. “Seriously, it’s like raw chicken and salmonella, it ain’t at all fuc-”
“Doctor,” Robinson cut him off, nodding to the young child on the bed.
“Uh, freaking, freaking surprising.” The medical officer shrugged, barely missing a beat, “There’s hepatitis, tetanus, and stars forbid any of those lovely hemorrhagic fever viruses. All sorts of things that make the rounds in those factories.” He huffed, seeing the matron’s wide, terrified eyes. “These blood samples will tell me if any of you managed to contract anything, what vaccines you may have had, and reveal any nutrient imbalances we need to correct.” He certainly wasn’t taking these samples because it was fun.
Besides, the way he saw it, these were fresh samples for his Scarlet Flu research. The computer virus that had plagued the ship in the Homebound Sector had wiped all his files from the lab computers before it vanished. By result, he was starting from scratch with very little of the original sample remaining. These children should have no exposure to the Scarlet Flu. If the virus had ever been present in Sagittarion’s crowded surface, it would have been impossible to contain. So, if these kids proved to have it in their bloodstream, as the doctor himself did, it meant that their exposure had to have come from the Singularity. And thus, given that none of the kids were sick, it meant their subsequent immunity had also come from the ship, just as the mysterious ghost had suggested.
“Why are you still here?” Macintosh crossed his arms, looking to the kid on the bed.
“I asked her to stay for another moment.” Helena said. “This is Veronica.”
“The one who got lost?” the doctor asked, unsure if that was relevant.
“Yes,” the matron nodded. “How did you know that?” They’d been here several hours by this point, but they hadn’t discussed it.
Macintosh shrugged, “The only thing that travels faster than a battleship is the gossip on said battleship.” Rumors seemed to travel at lightspeed. Often, it was a more effective mode of transmission than the intercom. “Now, I just examined Veronica. Near as I can tell, she is in good health, and I know how the Admiral appears, but I can assure you he would never have done anything to harm her.” Macintosh didn’t like defending the man, but that much was true.
“Yes, of course.” Helena had not meant to accuse anything about Veronica’s treatment while she’d been away from the group. “But you must understand, she gets sick very easily. Even when it is just a cold for everyone else, Veronica can be bed-ridden for days.”
Macintosh frowned. That was almost exactly the same description Ron had given about Anabelle. “You took her to the doctors on Sagittarion, didn’t you? What did they say?”
“I don’t know.” She wasn’t a nurse. She didn’t understand the medical jargon. “They said she needed treatment, some medicine that the orphanage couldn’t afford. Without the money, they refused to treat her and I lost the files when we fled Sagittarion.” Even with the oath those doctors had taken to aid all those who needed it, they had still refused.
“With those symptoms, I would be inclined to guess that Veronica has an immune system deficiency. Running the blood tests will confirm that.” It was odd that both her and Anabelle might have it, but it wasn’t the rarest of conditions. Given the level of pollution on Sagittarion, it likely wasn’t that uncommon, but he’d have to check the medical database to confirm it.
“Immune system deficiency,” Helena tried the words. They were alien to her, but they sounded serious. “It can be treated?”
“Yes, but the medication is expensive. I imagine that’s why the hospitals on Sagittarion refused to treat her.”
“Oh,” Helena’s shoulders fell, assuming they would be similarly refused here. “Well, I imagine she’s less likely to get sick isolated out here.” She wouldn’t have exposure from the cramped assembly lines in the factories.
“Not necessarily,” the doctor hung his stethoscope around his neck again, then shoved his hands into his pockets. “If anyone in the fleet gets sick then that virus will probably be uncontrollable.” The population density was too high, quarters too cramped. “It would spread through the entire population, especially if it is not dangerous enough to justify a hard quarantine, like a common cold. Unfortunately, you civvies don’t have the benefit of the Singularity’s high-efficiency bio filters.”
Something as small and difficult control as a virus would not be caught by their air scrubbers, which were primarily meant to lessen particulates and the odor that came with them. The civilian ships’ air filters were designed to protect the air recycling equipment by catching anything in the flow that might damage it, but the Singularity’s were specifically designed to help decontaminate the air from foreign substances be them bacteria, dust particulates or viruses. The systems could even capture and neutralize dangerous radiation.
Of course, all that equipment took space and power that the civilian ships didn’t possess. They were never meant to come into contact with dangerous and foreign contaminants, so it would never matter. And truly, on a smaller ship, decontamination systems did little good. Viruses could hop between crew and passengers before they were filtered from the air, so even on military ships, outbreaks were possible, though they were generally mitigated by the decontamination systems.
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“However,” Macintosh said, remembering Helena’s worried expression, “you don’t need to worry. We’ll run the tests. If it turns out to be an immune system deficiency, we can treat her. The Singularity carries that medication.” Of course, if both Veronica and Anabelle needed it, their stores would be depleted twice as fast. Without it, both girls would survive, but would be returned to high-risk, liable to be killed by normally insignificant illnesses.
The matron hesitated, “You would do that?”
“Miss Delleora, outside the fact that I am sworn to do no harm, even by inaction as a doctor, every member of this crew has taken an oath to defend and serve these worlds. Our job is to help you in any way we can.”
“Your fleet tried to kill us,” Helena said softly, trying not to let the child on the bed hear. “So, I wish I could believe you,” but that shock was still forefront in her mind.
“Then believe this. We don’t answer to Command. We don’t answer to the worlds. We answer to Admiral Gives, and his orders were to provide whatever support we could to the Badger and its passengers.”
The matron only shook her head. “Captain Merlyn seemed to believe that he meant us nothing but harm.” Tiredly, she slipped her cheap, plastic heels back onto her aching feet and reached out to lead Veronica away. “Guess we’ll see who’s right.”
Macintosh grabbed her before she could step away. “Captain Merlyn said what, exactly?”
The façade of a crass old doctor was gone in an instant, in its place something like concern. Not anger, but a deep concern. The change took Helena entirely aback. “He never said anything specific, just that he didn’t trust the Admiral’s intentions.”
Most people don’t, Macintosh knew. The Admiral’s general lack of outward emotion often rubbed people the wrong way. Usually, the doctor wouldn’t have been concerned to hear something like that. But usually, the Admiral wasn’t missing. Usually, someone knew where he was, or had at least heard from him, but he’d gone missing after the meeting with the civilian fleet’s leadership with no warning and sent no word on his whereabouts. “Where is Captain Merlyn now?” The doctor didn’t want to assume foul play, but at this point, given a motive in Merlyn, he couldn’t ignore it.
Furrowing her brow, Helena answered, “He headed back to the ship.” Merlyn had joined them in the medical bay for a while after the meeting, but it had taken the doctor hours to give the kids a thorough checkup and collect their blood samples. Eventually, Captain Merlyn had grown tired and headed back. Helena could hardly blame him.
Macintosh cursed under his breath and took a few purposeful strides over to the nearest handset, dialing CIC. “Have you found him yet?”
“No, Doc, we haven’t. And I bet the man thinks this is real funny, wherever he is.” Zarrey grumbled, his voice stressed beyond its usual laid-back tones. It had been nearly seven hours, but there had been no contact from the Admiral. His assistant, Ensign Feather had repeatedly checked his quarters, but he wasn’t there, and the engineers had reported he wasn’t working with them either. “So help me, if he turns this into a fucking lesson on communication and command, I’m going to kill him myself.” Zarrey was in no mood for it. He had a dozen ships nipping at his ears, trying to make demands, and the crew was getting anxious to know their next move. This was not the time for the Admiral to up and vanish, then pass it off as a training exercise.
Macintosh leaned up against the bulkheads, just as exhausted as Zarrey sounded. “I may have something. The orphanage matron just told me that Captain Merlyn was no fan of the Admiral, even before he came aboard. They must have had a previous encounter, and I don’t think it was a good one.” It was entirely possible Merlyn had sought revenge for some wrong that he blamed the Admiral for. In that regard, Merlyn would not be the first.
“Aye.” Zarrey didn’t need the details to know this was worth investigation. The Admiral had made a lot of enemies. “We’ll secure the Badger and bring him in.” Until this was cleared up, Merlyn wasn’t going anywhere.
Obliviously on the decks above, Merlyn was making his way back toward the hangar deck. He’d been given very rudimentary directions on how to return to his own ship, but had been left without a guide or escort, an oversight, it seemed.
Of course, Merlyn had no desire other than to get off this ship as quickly as possible, vague directions be damned. Aboard this ship, he felt watched, he felt judged. He felt guilty for seeing this farce for what it was. The crew he’d met in the medical bay had not been anything other than kind. True to their word, they seemed determined to help, but he couldn’t truly believe it. It all felt fake, knowing what he did of this ship and its commander.
That was why, when he finally crossed into the landing bay and found his ship crawling with the Singularity’s engineers in their orange coveralls, he nearly lost it. “What the hell is going on here?” he demanded.
A few of the engineers paused where they were clambering on the hull, but soon went back to work, apparently not identifying him as someone they needed to answer to. “Dammit,” he cursed, “Get the hell off my ship!” He had not given anyone here permission to touch, let alone work on his ship.
“Ah,” a big man said, lumbering down the ramp from inside the Badger’s cargo bay. “I imagine you’d be Captain Merlyn.”
“Damn straight! What the hell is going on here? Where’s my crewman?”
“Lucious is in the aft. Wanted to do the engine adjustments himself.”
“Great, so tell your people to back off.” He and his engineer could handle this. They’d been handling it for years.
“Captain, we’re just following orders.” Ordinarily, that wasn’t something he defended himself with, but he had been given very specific instructions.
“Well, they sure as hell weren’t my orders!” He would never have told any of these people to start working on his ship. He didn’t trust a single one of them.
“No, sir,” the crewman’s large shoulders rolled like boulders as he sighed, “they weren’t.” Technically, civilian captains were considered equivalent to officers among the military ranks. Merlyn could have ordered them to stop, had their orders not come from higher up.
“And whose orders were they?” Who the hell had the disrespect to override his authority over the Badger, his own ship?
“They were the Admiral’s, sir. I’m afraid he never cares much for who he pisses off.”
“Clearly,” Merlyn snarked. Bastard. “Figures he’d do something like this after I defended him at the meeting.” Why had he even bothered? He should have known a betrayal like this was coming. “Whatever he told you to do, he had no right,” Merlyn warned. “My ship is private property. Privately owned and run.” She had no government contracts. It was not the Admiral’s domain.
“Legally speaking, Captain, you temporarily forfeited your ship’s autonomy when you landed on the Singularity. This ship and all others docked with or landed aboard her, are the Admiral’s domain.” The law was quite clear about that. Battleship commanders had an incredible amount of authority. “We were ordered to perform all necessary repairs and upgrade several systems while we refueled and restocked the Badger.”
“Upgrades?” They weren’t only inspecting the ship, they were altering it?
“Yes, sir. I can provide you with an itemized list of everything we touched, even the part numbers and service procedures we followed.”
Captain Merlyn eyed the clipboard of papers that was offered to him. The notes looked incredibly detailed. Even the repair docks he paid to occasionally service the Badger didn’t do that. Merlyn forced himself to calm and reevaluated the engineer in front of him. “What’s your name, son?”
“Ensign Havermeyer, sir, but I’m afraid I can’t take the credit. We were ordered to document everything for you. The Admiral knows what it’s like to have things altered without permission.”
Merlyn huffed, “And yet, he didn’t offer me the choice.” That was no display of sympathy. That was a mere cop-out to avoid conflict.
“He did not believe in taking the chance that you might say no, Captain.”
Merlyn eyed the big, bald engineer, “Because I might not want people I don’t know and don’t trust fucking with the equipment solely responsible for keeping me and my passengers alive?” How odd, he lamented, then lowered his tone until it dripped with sarcasm, “I can’t imagine that being the case.”
Havermeyer rubbed the back of his pale head. “My apologies, sir, but he thought those upgrades more important than your pride.”
“And what upgrades would those be?” As far as he cared, the Badger had gotten them this far, and would carry them further still.
“Captain, you are aware that supporting thirty people is a serious strain on the Badger’s life support systems? The parts were never designed for that. At best, working them that hard would halve their life span.” And if the life support systems wore out in deep space, they would all die.
As much as Merlyn wanted to argue, he had known that risk. He’d merely expected to be hunted down and sunk before it mattered, so caving, he forced himself to let go of his frustrations. Upgrading life support could only help them, as long as it was done right. It would be his responsibility to ensure that, to mull over every miniscule change these crewmen had made and guarantee the safety of his passengers. “You upgraded life support?” he prompted.
“Yes, sir. Military grade hardware. Half the power-draw and twice the lifespan.” Havermeyer scratched the back of his bald head, “Of course, we couldn’t install the full decontamination system, so you’re really just getting an efficiency boost…”
Merlyn held up a hand to stop the engineer’s tangent. “Where did you get the parts?” That kind of equipment with or without the decontamination systems, cost millions.
“They’re spares, sir. The Singularity’s spares. We generally refurbish them, but we were ordered to give you only new parts. They’re straight off the factory line.”
As much as it revolted him to take even spare parts from the Demon, the fact they were new meant they’d never been installed on this mechanical monster. He wouldn’t have to live knowing a part of the Prince’s cursed ship now served on his own. It was a level of disgust he could live with.
“You’ve been stocked with spare filters and emergency repair parts as well, Captain.” The teams were being thorough in the conversion. This had been planned well before the Badger had rendezvoused with them. “Supply also brought down a couple crates for you.”
Merlyn followed his gesture to a stack of cargo boxes yet to be loaded up. They were marked and sealed, as good as new, so to speak. The symbol on the side was easy enough to recognize. “Food.”
“Aye,” the engineer before him concurred. “The Admiral wanted to make sure you all had enough to get by. Guess he figured rationing wasn’t going to go over too well with the kids.”
That was probably true, though Merlyn hadn’t considered it. With those crates, however, they’d be able to eat comfortably for the next few weeks, if they were careful about it. “I can’t help but feel that we’re getting special attention.” Merlyn didn’t like that. “The rest of the fleet won’t take that well.” They’d been squabbling over resources for days, already.
“The rest of the fleet doesn’t have hold of orphans, Captain.” Many ships had refugees, but not to the Badger’s extent. The others had just an extra handful of people on board, those that could pay their way aboard either by working or with standard credits. They were workers and factory overseers, not children. “Besides, the rest of the fleet doesn’t have to know.”
“Here,” Havermeyer began to lead him up the ramp, “show me where you want those supplies stowed and I’ll have the guys move it for you.”
Grudgingly, Merlyn let his frustrations dissipate. His problem wasn’t with these engineers. As a Captain, he knew that. They were crew, they only took orders. Merlyn could hold nothing against them, only the one that had given the orders to alter his ship without his consent.
But, soon enough he’d be free from the Demon and no longer under the Admiral’s direct control. In that interest alone, he followed Havermeyer up the ramp.
He didn’t get far.
“Oi!” Came the shout, “Stop right there!”
Turning, Merlyn found a squad of Marines rushing across the landing bay. He’d seen a few around the ship, standing at their posts or on their way from training, but this group was different. They were decked out in full tactical gear: vests, helmets, kneepads, even gloves. The heels of their boots clinked against the landing surface. “Captain Merlyn, stop where you are!”
Havermeyer had paused as well, he tightened the arms of the coveralls knotted around his waist. “Something the matter, LC?” he asked the lead Marine, only to be ignored.
“Captain Merlyn, I’m going to need you to step slowly off that ship with your hands above your head.”
“Like hell I will.” They had no call to drag him off the Badger.
“Step off the ship.” The Marine had lowered his tone, those behind him noticeably raising their weapons. “Captain Merlyn, I’m afraid we need to bring you in for questioning, willing or unwilling.”
“Questioning?” Merlyn echoed, realizing the magnitude of that insinuation. “You’re arresting me?”
“I’d distinctly prefer to not have to, Captain, but I will if necessary.” They could not ignore a potential threat while the Admiral was missing.
Double-crossing son of a bitch, Merlyn cursed silently. What was it with Gives? He acted so uninvested, then went out of his way to aid the Badger, and now was having him arrested. It made no sense.