Polaris Sector, Battleship Singularity

And then, as sudden as it had come, it vanished. As if she were opening her eyes to a new reality, Cortana came to with Havermeyer shaking her shoulders. “Sergeant!” he said, a dreadfully serious concern in his expression. “Can you hear me?”

Cortana shook off his grip by instinct, but she could feel that the spot where his hand had been on her shoulder was warm. He’d been trying to rouse her for some time. “I’m fine,” she replied, but hated how weak her voice sounded.

Havermeyer shadowed her as she stepped back, seemingly unsure if she’d fall. “What happened, Sergeant?” he said. “I heard you shout, so I came to check on you, but when I found you…” It may well have been the strangest thing he’d ever seen.

“When you found me?” she prompted with a glare, the adrenaline steadily fading from her system.

Havermeyer stiffened his posture to something more proper. Cortana was, after all, his superior. “You were just standing there, ma’am. You never reacted to anything I said or did. And then, all of a sudden, you started choking.” Convulsing, more like. Her glazed eyes had rolled into the back of her head and she’d started thrashing as much as continuing to stand allowed. “What happened?”

“Oh,” a rueful, joyless chuckle escaped her. “I think I made it mad.” It was ridiculous, but at least Havermeyer wouldn’t brush it off as insanity.

“It?” he queried, concern darkening his expression. Still, Cortana failed to answer, and he could see her eyes glazing over again. A new, distant look overtook them, not with the unseeing focus they’d had before, but something else. Fear? “Sergeant, what did you see?”

Her answer came from the distance of shellshock, quiet and emotionless. “The ghost.”

Dread welled up in Havermeyer’s chest. He feared nothing about this ship. He was loyal and his faith told him that gave him nothing to fear. No, that dread wasn’t meant for him. He knew the stories as well as any other crewman: the ghost was an omen of death. Only the doomed saw her, and Cortana had now seen her not once, but twice. “Sergeant?” Surely the mere sight of the rumor had not shaken her so badly? He waved his hand, trying to draw the Sergeant’s attention back to him. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“It spoke.”

“It …spoke?” he echoed. “I’ve never heard of that.” In all the tales passed from the dead and dying, none ever claimed to hear the spirit speak.

“It spoke with no sound, but its voice… I could still hear it.” It was a wicked reminder of the madness, of the insanity that had overtaken her conscious mind. “I could still hear it… Why could I still hear it?” Her voice rose, “Why?” Upset, she reached out to grab Havermeyer and demand an answer, but her hand stopped short of his tunic. If you touch another member of this crew… She had been warned.

Terrified, Cortana dropped her hand. “I didn’t touch you.” She stepped back. “I didn’t touch you!” she cried.

There was a wild look in her eyes. Terror, he recognized it. Absolute terror. But that was anomalous enough. He'd heard how scared crewman became when they saw the ghost. But, they feared her as a beacon of death. They had feared because they had seen her, not because she herself was frightening. “Sergeant,” Havermeyer reached out, taking her arm gently. “What did she say to you?” What had exactly happened here?

The careful touch gave her something more than fear to feel. It was calming, but her hands still shook. “…It knew,” she realized.

“Knew what, Sergeant?” Havermeyer asked, watching Cortana swallow shaking breaths. “What did it know?”

She focused on him again through the haze of fear. “Everything,” she breathed. “It knew everything.”

“You’re not making sense,” Havermeyer told her. “Take a breath. Relax. You’re going to be okay,” he promised.

“You tried to warn me.” Why had she not listened? “You tried to tell me that I was in danger, that I had made a mistake, but I didn’t want to listen. I didn’t believe you.” But those doubts felt distant now. “It knew I wasn’t going to listen to you. It knew before I even spoke or acted to that.” It had known as much as she herself had.

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“I know!” She cried, tears pricking at her eyes. “Even you must think I’m crazy.”

“No, Sergeant,” Havermeyer said gently, “I didn’t say that. I just think there’s something going on here that no one understands.” That was what his faith determined. “Aboard a Saint, nothing is impossible.”

Trembling, Cortana stared at him and his unshakable faith. “It knew you,” she realized. Was that not strange? “It mentioned you by name. And it knew me.” It had known her fears, her shame about Secretary Gives’ death and the thoughts with which she regarded this ship: a decayed old tool that would be the grave of all aboard it. “It knew things it could not have possibly known.” Things she’d never spoken aloud. “But…” her voice shook, “it knew.”

Havermeyer nodded, trying to digest that. One of the more arcane faiths would have shouted of a curse. They would have claimed the ghost some result of witchcraft, but Technologists believed everything had a reason. There was a scientific cause and result for everything, even if they did not yet know what it was. But this… this might be his greatest challenge yet. A ghost that was not a ghost. An entity that spoke without sound. An existence that knew things it couldn’t have. And, all that aboard an aging dreadnaught that had been regularly and thoroughly inspected from bow to stern throughout its lifetime.

Cortana reached up to her head. It ached with a reminder of what she’d endured. “It did something to me, Havermeyer.” It had frightened her, but it hadn’t done that easily. “It did something to my head.”

“To your head?” he repeated. How was that possible? Cortana had been out of his sight for barely a minute, and she had no visible injuries.

“It made me remember things.” She ran her hands along her scalp, some part of her hoping for an injury or incision. Could all this be explained away by some foreign implant? “It made me remember things I shouldn’t have.” She felt at her throat, gently now. “It made me endure what I’d done to Alba.”

“Alba?” How did he factor into this?

“His memory, Havermeyer.” Alise Cortana could still remember it as if it had been her against that wall. But, in duplicity, she also had the memory of throwing him against the rigid bulkheads. “It made me relive his memory. And not just his.” Her knees began to quiver, as the memory of choking and itching from death came forward. Her nose curled from the stench, but it wasn’t as potent as before. No, this memory had been dulled, and in time it would fade and be forgotten. Keeping it would have driven her mad, so this one act of mercy had been allotted to her.

“Sergeant,” he said, seeing her attention fail again. “What do you mean it wasn’t just Alba’s memories? Who else’s were they?”

“Mine,” she said shakily, “…And its.”

“You saw the ghost’s memory?”

“More than that. I lived it.” In that moment, the trauma in those memories may as well have been her own.

“And what does it recall? How does it perceive?” Did it recall data? Was it using electrical sensors or biologics? Any or all of those answers could help him understand it.

It was too many questions. Too many unknowns. Her head spun. To perceive those memories as her own, death had afflicted her body, her skin. It had adapted to her sensations. The senses in that memory felt human because that was the only way her mind could comprehend it. “They were only pieces of memory.” Those pieces had offered sensations, but no context, no reason.

“But, what was it like?”

“Maddening.” She shivered. “I could barely survive those memories in full force, and yet, it does. It carries those memories. It cannot forget them the way it has allowed me to.” She had not learned much about the entity, but she understood it now. “It’s sick, Havermeyer. Dreadfully sick.”

Sick? “The ghost is ill?”

“Not physically.” There was something else wrong with it. “It’s unstable. Diseased by its experiences.”

“It’s traumatized?”

“No.” Trauma was a human reaction. The body and mind eventually numbed trauma. This was something worse: a cancer. “It’s damaged. Dangerous.” Nothing about the creature was healthy. “It’s insane, Havermeyer.”

She found his eyes, disturbed by the compassion she saw in them. “Something happened to it. Something horrible.” Attempting to seek it out, attempting to help it would do nothing. “It cannot comprehend hate, and yet it hates what it itself has become. Madness is its affliction, Havermeyer, and there is no cure.”

Havermeyer stared at her, wide eyed. Cortana seemed to be speaking something beyond her own understanding. She was speaking, at least temporarily, like part of it, and he didn’t like what he was hearing.

“I knew it, Havermeyer. Just for that instant, I truly knew it. I experienced part of an existence that would kill anyone except those who cannot die.” Now, she felt foreign, and yet privileged to exist in this fragile human form. “It’s a sick mind, but though its madness, it still seeks something.” It still had just one goal. A bitter, painful goal.

“What did it want, Sergeant?” Could this entity be haunting the ship by more than happenstance?

“I don’t know.” She blinked as the feel of its memory faded again. “But I know it was warning me, just like you tried to. Those memories were a threat. Sensations it would force me to relive if I misbehaved.”

Memories. Sensations. He’d heard of this before. The ability to alter them without some sort of implant was exceptionally rare, but his people had documented the possibilities. Telepathy. “The ghost is telepathic,” he realized. But how was that possible? Natural telepathy was incredibly rare. In all of the Technologists’ tomes, it had only ever been identified in biological lifeforms. Did that mean the ghost had a biological form somewhere?

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No, he shook those questions from his mind. That wasn’t the most critical piece of information. Telepathy, true telepathy, could share memories like empaths could share emotion. It could cast illusions to a limited degree, but the most real sensations would come from a memory, whether that was taken from another or itself, and that meant everything Cortana had seen and felt was real. Or it had been reality, at one point or another. More importantly, however, telepathy went both ways, particularly in cases where one was aware of manipulation – cases like the Sergeant’s. Imparting a memory allowed the recipient some knowledge of its sender, especially if the transfer was unwilling. And that meant everything Cortana had seen and felt about the ghost was accurate. The entity was diseased.

Havermeyer’s stomach plummeted. As a monk, he’d been curious of the ghost and its apparent relation to his Saint, but he had never hoped to learn about it like this. He had never wanted his first realization to be that the ghost was not only an apparently intelligent entity, but that it was sick, and its presence may be nothing more than a result of some maddening illness. It was worse to learn all of that in the context of a threat against Sergeant Cortana.

“I need to call the Admiral.” This was worth reporting.

“And what’s he going to do?” Cortana snarled, wiping the wetness from her eyes. “Order it off the ship?” The last thing she wanted was him involved.

“He is the longest-serving crewman on this ship. If anyone knows about the Singularity’s Ghost, it’s going to be him.”

“Okay, you do that,” she sniffled. “I’d rather not run into the thing again, so I’m going to go try not to piss it off by taking a nap.” Cortana really wanted nothing else to do with this craziness. Once those memories faded, that she’d feel more like her usual self, and that was all she wanted.

Havermeyer watched Cortana leave. He’d give her one thing: she was brave. She would shake off what the ghost had done to her and wander off on her own once again. He made no move to stop her. Since he hadn’t even been able to divine its presence, he could do nothing against the ghost, and thus, would be of no use to Cortana.

Instead, Havermeyer headed back toward his workplace. Carefully, laid down his mat near the handset and uncorked his ceramic vessel, following his traditions of returning to work. The fresh scent of essential oils wafted back into the air before he even dropped the aromatic sticks back in. Then, he took the handset and dialed CIC, taking it with him as he kneeled back down.

In the core of the ship, CIC was busy. The usual staff had taken to their stations, including Monty and Jazmine, who were now dressed back in their regular uniforms. The mission was soon to start, and the Admiral had just gotten off a tedious call with the leaders of the civilian fleet. The businessman, Steve Hawkins, was determined to make everything difficult, and Captain Merlyn had been quiet to the point of being unhelpful. Still, that was over and the Singularity was soon to depart.

“Sir, you know the risks jumping without completing the hull repairs,” Alba dutifully reminded.

“I am aware, Ensign.” It would worsen the damage. Subspace’s cruel environment inflicted wounds on any ship that jumped with exposed compartments and damaged shielding. “However, we have a time schedule to keep.” They had less than a week to track down those supplies, move them, and distribute them upon return. To do that, they had to depart now. There was too much distance to cover to afford a delay. “We will make full repairs the moment we have the opportunity.” Departing in this condition had, after all, been the ghost’s executive decision. He didn’t agree with it, but there was no altering it now.

“Seems uncharacteristic of you to alter the repair orders, sir,” Zarrey noted, eyeing the Admiral over his mug of coffee. “If anyone but you had given that order, I’d have thought it was mutiny.” Part of him, after hearing about it, had thought it was mutiny anyway. “What did you need off the computer anyway?”

“I was searching for historical records on Midwest Station and the surrounding region.”

Liar, Galhino thought, making brief eye contact with Zarrey. They both knew that wasn’t accurate. Back in the mission meeting, Admiral Gives had seemed plenty familiar with Midwest Station. And not only that, but she’d done her own search on the Mississippi Sector’s dark planets this morning, and that, nor any of the information about the station had been accessed except during the meeting. Zarrey was right. The Admiral was keeping secrets, to a point that he would alter the repair priorities and complicate the mission without a truthful word of explanation.

“Admiral,” Keifer Robinson called from the upper tier of consoles in CIC, “I have Ensign Havermeyer on the line. He wants to talk to you, says it’s about the Sergeant.”

The Sergeant? What could have gone wrong now? He put down the papers in his hands and grabbed the nearest handset. “Put him through.”

The line connected with little delay. Havermeyer heard the noise. “Thank you, sir, I know you’re busy, but we have a problem.”

“Ensign, Sergeant Cortana has been nothing but a problem since she came aboard. I hope you did not call me to reiterate something I already know.” At the moment, his time was precious.

“This is a new issue, sir. I could not complete her training, and it was no fault of her own.”

That did get the Admiral’s attention. He put his spare hand on the console in front of him, focusing, “What do you mean, Ensign?”

“I’ll keep the details brief, sir.” Havermeyer well knew the man was busy, especially this close to departure. “You know how long I have worked aboard this ship. I’ve trained more than a few newcomers on various ship systems, but I have never seen the ship react to it. Well, this time she did more than react to it. She straight-out rejected it.”

“Explain,” the Admiral commanded.

“I just don’t see a way that it was an accident, sir. I had the local grid disconnected, and I handled the wires just fine. It’s like she knew, and she electrocuted Sergeant Cortana, which definitely hurt more than her pride.”

Yes, I’m familiar. The memory of getting zapped while sabotaging the helm console wasn’t lost to him. “What, exactly, are you trying to tell me, Ensign?”

“Sir, that is not normal operation for this ship, and you know it.” He and Havermeyer shared a understanding that the Singularity had an apparent opinion on people, and that sometimes, it complicated matters, but this was beyond that. Usually, those complications resulted in a laugh, and this was no laughing matter. “It gets worse, sir. I tried to warn Cortana. It was clear that she’d become unwelcome, but apparently, she didn’t listen.”

“That is hardly surprising, Ensign,” Admiral Gives replied, too aware that this conversation had drawn Zarrey’s interest. The XO was keeping a strict eye on him and his reactions, though he wasn’t privy to what Havermeyer’s words.

Havermeyer took a breath, ignoring the Admiral’s unfaltering calm. It made the man sound disinterested, but Havermeyer knew better than anyone that this conversation would have ended if the Admiral had no interest. “She said she saw the ghost, sir.”

“So,” he surmised, calmly, “I should send her in for a psych evaluation, then?”

“Sir,” Havermeyer said sharply, “I know you’re aware of the rumors. We both know there is a potential that could mean something very important.”

Potential, sure, the Admiral sighed inwardly. ‘Is there something you want to tell me?’ he asked the one in question.

‘Not particularly,’ came the reply.

“Admiral,” Havermeyer said, trying to convey urgency, “Cortana didn’t just see the ghost. The entity spoke to her, and did something to her.”

Havermeyer sounded both unnerved and curious. Admiral Gives could only imagine how he would react to the truth. But, of course, he would probably never know the truth. “I was not aware you believed in ghost stories, Ensign Havermeyer.”

“Sir, now’s not the time for jokes.” Havermeyer believed this matter was incredibly serious. “What I’m trying to tell you is that this entity, whatever it is, it isn’t just a rumor. It is very real. It is telepathic, and it is capable of some deeply disturbing things.”

“I shall have to take your word for it, Ensign.”

Havermeyer let his head fall against the wall, exasperated. “Admiral, you know more about this ship than anyone else. You cannot expect me to believe that you know nothing about this.” The man was calm, and thus revealed nothing, but that simply didn’t make sense. “The ghost has been sighted aboard this ship since it was first commissioned. That’s not random, that’s causality. Whatever the ghost is, it’s tied to this ship, so it is my duty to seek it out and understand it.” That was the service he was sworn to do.

“Good luck, Ensign.” I fail to understand her most days.

“Sir, I am asking for your help.” No one was closer to the ship than he was. If there was anything, anything at all tying the ghost to the ship, he would be able to find it. “This entity is diseased, Admiral. Do we not owe it some semblance of kindness? And do you not owe your ship the respect of freeing her from that curse?”

Diseased? His emotions darkened at the thought. He found himself balling his hand into a fist on the console. His burns, those wounds left from the nuke, strained painfully, still yet to fully heal. The ghost was not diseased, and her presence on this ship was not a curse. “We will have to discuss this another time, Ensign,” he said stoically. He would no longer entertain this conversation.

“Yes, sir,” Havermeyer acknowledged. “But I will warn you that if this goes unchecked, we do not know the repercussions. Human telepaths are notably unstable… and I really don’t think this one’s human.” That made it all the more dangerous.

“I know fifty years of history that suggest this will not be an issue. Admiral, out.” He put down the handset before Havermeyer could argue. Looking up, Zarrey was waiting for him, with the expression of a lion waiting to be given a tasty morsel. Of course, the Admiral was well aware that Zarrey, Galhino and Alba were chasing the same mystery that Havermeyer was. But, he doubted they would ever figure that out. “Sergeant Cortana claims to have been spooked by the ship’s resident poltergeist.”

Zarrey had expected something more serious. Laughter erupted from his chest. “Wow, the Sarge really can’t handle not being the center of attention for five damn minutes, can she?” It was always something dramatic with her.

“Apparently not.” It seemed that Sergeant Cortana had made an adversary, but that was hardly surprising. When it came to personality, Sergeant Cortana and the ghost were seemingly opposites, one determinedly selfish, and the other inherently selfless. ‘Are you certain there is nothing you want to tell me?’ he silently asked the ghost. Havermeyer had managed to learn a surprising amount of not-untrue information.

‘She may have prompted me to lose a slight degree of control,’ the ghost admitted. ‘You know I don’t always have conscious reactions.’ In fact, she’d become wholly aware of that interaction surprisingly late in it. By then, there was no stopping it. She could only display a bit of pity. ‘She’s a threat to my crew.’ It was an instinct to try and end that threat.

‘You want me to kill her?’ He didn’t make that offer lightly, but well, Cortana had tried to kill him twice. Strictly speaking, he’d already given her one too many death-row pardons.

‘Of course not.’ Sergeant Cortana was lucky enough to be protected by the same objectives that had always protected the crew, even if her presence constantly, dully screeched against the ghost like nails on a chalkboard. ‘You know I cannot truly wish her harm.’ The ghost could not seek harm upon any member of humanity by her own volition, and for better or worse, Cortana was human.

Admiral Gives did her the respect of not questioning that. The situation did, however, warn him to pay closer attention. If Sergeant Cortana had ingratiated herself so poorly with the ghost that the ghost would act unconsciously against her, then things had the potential to get very messy.

Sergeant Cortana, of course, was not his concern. She had been warned numerous times by him and others, and she had dug her own grave. Whether or not she climbed out of it was entirely her decision. However, if Cortana chose to lie in that grave, he needed to be the one that pulled the trigger. The last life that the ghost had taken in defense of the crew still haunted her. Taking another for any reason would be some order of catastrophic.

“…I’ll tell you what though, I swear on my life that white-haired witch is real.”

The Admiral refocused only to realize Zarrey was still talking to him.

“The Sergeant might be a bit of a bitch, but she isn’t a liar. A whole bunch of us saw that ghost back in the Aragonian Sector. It was standing over your dead body.”

“My dead body.” The Admiral echoed, picking his papers back up. “I fail to see how that is possible, considering I am not dead.”

“You know what I meant,” Zarrey complained. “I, for one, thought she’d killed you.”

As if, the Admiral held back a retort. Technically speaking, the ghost had saved his life. Well, his and the entire rest of the crew’s more than twice over since this misadventure against Command had begun. And yet, for that heroism, the ghost was regarded as a cancer, something malign. The crew was terrified of her because humanity almost always feared what it didn’t understand. Without knowing and understanding the ghost’s true nature, the crew would probably always fear her, but it was too dangerous to let the truth free.

The Admiral knew it was cruel. He knew it was difficult for both sides, but his hands were tied. If he intended to keep the crew alive, the ship intact and the ghost sane, then this was the way it had to be.