15 hours later, Tulope Sector, Battleship Singularity
With a terrible groan and rather severe shake, the Singularity descended from hyperspace. The sound permeated the entire ship, a noise of utter exhaustion. The shudder, more concerningly, could be felt through Zarrey’s entire skeleton, and more importantly, was magnified like a hammer pounding his aching head. “Uggh,” he cradled his skull, “the painkillers aren’t even helping anymore.”
Admiral Gives rode it out with a considerable amount more grace. He was feeling the side effects of prolonged FTL travel too, but it was not his main concern. Without a word, he checked the structural integrity diagram mounted on the wall. Reflecting the ship’s suffering, a few more indicators had gone yellow, but none had dipped into an unhealthy orange tint. “Begin maneuvers,” he ordered Jazmine.
“Aye,” the helmsman acknowledged, and throttled up the main engines. Under thrust, the ship creaked a little more, but the noise was considerably quieter this time.
“Dammit,” Zarrey cursed, “any more of that, and I think I’m going to vomit.” The first two-thirds of their trek had been quiet and smooth, but the duration of this trip was starting to push what even the Singularity was capable of. The last few hours had been rough. After the first few trips, FTL tended not to make anyone sick, but that mostly applied to one-off maneuvers. Pulling maneuvers back-to-back for twenty-four or more hours turned grueling.
“You have twenty-seven minutes to regain your stomach, Colonel,” the Admiral reminded. “Then we begin jump prep.”
Jumping. The thought of it was enough to make Zarrey nauseous. Carefully, he pushed his coffee a little further away on the console. Drinking any of it would be a mistake. “I can’t believe the spooks at Command thought this shit wasn’t harmful.”
“Other than physical discomfort, mental disorientation, and nausea, FTL travel has never been linked to any harmful conditions on the human body,” Galhino informed him without turning from the sensor readouts. “Command has conducted extensive studies on prolonged FTL exposure using the scout fleet’s ships and personnel.”
Zarrey groaned on their behalf. “Oh, those poor bastards.” Those experiments must have been torture. He’d never been fond of the scout fleet. He always found them to be naïve explorers or disturbing clandestine types, but he wouldn’t wish this aching nausea upon anyone.
“In the process of that research, they discovered that no forces or radiation are found within hyperspace. If there is any emitted by intention or otherwise, our instruments cannot detect it. Of course, to the contrary, the environment of subspace is so violently destructive, our instruments can’t survive to take measurements.” Galhino found the topic of FTL rather fascinating. It was rare to see something so poorly understood utilized so freely.
On the other hand, Zarrey had never really considered the details of FTL. He had a rudimentary grasp on it in the sense that the process temporarily removed a ship from the galaxy – taking it to some other plane or dimension. Of course, he only knew that because a ship couldn’t be shot, caught or boarded at FTL, and that knowledge had a direct, practical application. The science of it had never been important to him, unless there was some way to make it stop hurting his head, but he didn’t like that description of subspace. “Violently destructive?” he echoed. “How does the ship survive that, then?”
“Well,” Galhino answered, continuing to study the sensor readouts, “FTL jumping is significantly less understood than warping through hyperspace. We do know that any transition to subspace lasts only a small fraction of a second. It’s near infinitesimal. It feels longer to us, but that is the limitation of how quickly humans can process something so severe.” Their brains required more time to process the change than the point-to-point transition took. “As to the physics of it, jumping worsens damage significantly, so it’s believed that there is a property in the sealed hull of a ship that rejects the forces of subspace. But, really, very little is known about it. The environment of subspace is simply too hostile to conduct experiments in. We only know, designing ships a certain way, that they can survive subspace. New ship designs are thoroughly tested in FTL maneuvering before they go to mass manufacture.”
“Well, that is fascinating.” Zarrey had certainly not expected to be lectured on the background of FTL today. “But what I understood from that is that the reason we jump is because it somehow works, but we don’t know why. And that makes every jump a literal leap of faith.” This is why I never ask technical questions. It usually led him to knowledge he’d rather not possess. Still, “If we don’t know how it works, how the fuck did we even develop that technology?”
“We didn’t, sir.” Ensign Alba answered, clicking through notifications on his console as he studied the ship’s structural strains. “We stole the technology and learned how to duplicate it. The hyperspace transition equipment was taken and reverse-engineered from sunk Hydrian ships during the War, but subspace tech, which was the backbone of the subspace transceiver network that colonized the known worlds, dates back centuries further than that. It’s so old that there is no agreed upon origin, but it is generally believed that the technology was alien.”
Zarrey gently turned his head to Alba, still very conscious of his headache. “Aliens?” What the hell was he talking about? “Like non-Hydra aliens?”
“Considering that the Hydra are not known to use subspace technology, yes, sir.” Hydrian warp drive was highly efficient, but they didn’t utilize FTL jumping, as far as anyone had seen.
Zarrey almost laughed, but held back for the sake of his head. “Well, that’s bullshit.” The Hydrian Empire was the only foreign species humanity had ever come into contact with. Everyone knew that.
“Colonel, it’s not unheard of to find ruins,” Galhino told him. “Often, they are revealed to be failed human colonies. But rarely, they are more ancient than that, and exist on worlds we would not find habitable.” She found it all quite fascinating. “Part of my job on my last assignment was to look for potential dig sites.” She missed that purely scientific venture. Working on a battleship usually didn’t require that kind of astrologic study.
“Sounds fake,” Zarrey retorted. “Nobody I know has ever seen alien ruins.” Human ruins, sure. Planetary colonization was a risky business.
“I have.”
The comment came, not from any console in CIC, but from the entrance to the bridge where Corporal Kallahan stood, minding his usual guard post. It was rare he inject himself into conversation, and Zarrey’s immediate instinct was to call bullshit, save how serious the Marine looked and the fact that Kallahan almost never spoke of anything even remotely personal. “You’ve seen alien remains?”
“They sure as hell weren’t human,” Kallahan surmised, then turned again to monitor the corridor outside CIC. “Lost a lot of good Marines there. Lost ‘em in ways I still can’t comprehend.” He tensed, both wanting and unwilling to forget those memories. “Nasty place, that.” He glanced briefly to the Admiral, “Something even nastier followed me back.”
Zarrey followed his gaze, surprised by the serious tone of this conversation. “What’s he talking about?”
“Rumors,” the Admiral answered.
“Rumors?” Zarrey sensed a tension between Kallahan and the ship commander, not for the first time. What was that all about anyway? “What kind of rumors?”
Kallahan sighed. Of course, the Admiral would evade the subject, but that would only be temporary. The truth would claw its way to the surface. “In the war, the Hydra considered our ships disposable paper boats. They sank in burning droves, and yet seemed endless, folded and manufactured with the simplicity of origami. When the day came that they feared one of our vessels, they called it a demon, for nothing of such strength could have been forged from our paper fleet.” Rumors and accusations had flown, but the truth had been buried so far down, it had never been expected to survive the War.
“Eh,” Monty stretched at his console, boredly trying to rid himself of the weird probing sensation on the back of his neck. “They just didn’t like it when we finally built guns large enough to reliably punch through their EM shielding, then mounted them a ship big and fast enough to carry them. There was nothing alien about that.”
The rest of the crew murmured agreement, but Zarrey kept his attention between Kallahan and the Admiral. The Marine said nothing else, but fearlessly met Admiral Gives’ glare. Zarrey pretended not to notice their exchange, but it was clear to him that Kallahan definitely knew something – something dark, if their previous talk was any indication. But was it the knowledge Zarrey was looking for? Or was it just another skeleton in the Admiral’s closet?
Another few minutes of idle chatter ensued. The Admiral made no move to silence the bridge. It would only have made them nervous, for the real part of the mission was getting ready to start. This half-hour was allotted to give the crew and ship some time to recover from FTL. They had stopped similarly several other times along their path. “Lieutenants,” he looked to Monty and Jazmine, “go get ready. You depart in under two hours.”
The two men handed over their stations to the reserve officers. “Yes, sir.”
“Wait,” Zarrey called after them, and the pair halted. “Are you two certain you’re okay with this?”
Jazmine flashed a confident smile. “We’ll be alright, Colonel.”
Next to him, Monty nodded, but Zarrey wasn’t convinced. They still had time to work out another plan. Something less risky. “I just want to make sure we’ve exhausted all the options before we commit to something like this.” There was a potential these two officers wouldn’t make it back. “Why can’t we just go hover on the edge of some merchant route and wait for Crimson Heart to strike? We could intercept them and use them to find their base.”
“Unfortunately, Colonel,” the Admiral answered, “there is no time for that. It could be weeks before Crimson Heart decides to strike again.” Crimson Heart’s recent successes ensured they did not need to. “Not only that, but we have no way of knowing where exactly they would take action, and we alone cannot survey an entire trade route.”
That was a fair argument. Zarrey knew they were hurting for time. “Then how about a trap? Maybe we could lure Crimson Heart out. We could borrow one of the civilian ships.”
It was a little late for that, but the Admiral had originally considered it. “None of the civilian captains would willingly have agreed to that.” Politics in the refugee fleet were complicated, and forcibly taking one of their ships would not have been looked upon favorably. “Again, there is no guarantee that Crimson Heart is searching for targets. Given the number of ships they have recently raided, their resources are most likely being used to rebrand and arrange buyers for the products.” No matter how tantalizing they made the trap, if Crimson Heart wasn’t looking for a score, the plan would fail.
Stolen story; please report.
He was right. Zarrey knew he was right. Admiral Gives was nothing if not thorough when it came to strategy. If he said this was their best option, then it likely was. “Sorry, sir.” He wasn’t doubting the man’s judgement. “I just want to make sure we’ve all thought this through.”
“That is your job, Colonel.” The executive officer’s responsibilities involved picking up details the commanding officer missed. “I would be more uneasy if you failed to voice your concerns.” This was a risky mission, and the Admiral was more aware of that than anyone.
Zarrey sighed. “Go on, gents.” Like it or not, this was the plan. “May Lady Luck fly with you.”
“They will not need luck, XO,” the Admiral corrected. “They have the Lady Sin.”
“Aye,” Gaffigan said, Jazmine grinning beside him. They could bet on the battleship bailing them out if things went wrong. “She’s a bit more reliable.”
Zarrey shook his head, admiring their unwavering faith. They were brave fools, but as a Marine, he’d seen people ordered into far worse situations. Hell, Monty had already survived odds worse than this simply by making it off the Matador. And Jazmine, for all of his boasting, actually was a mighty fine pilot, and a decent man. “Good hunting. Bring home the bacon.”
“Actually, sir,” Galhino turned in her seat as Monty and Jazmine headed out of sight, “bacon is a cured meat. You don’t hunt directly for it.”
“Shut up, Galhino.” Zarrey wasn’t in the mood to put up with a smart-ass. He turned to the Admiral, who stood beside him, calm as ever. “What exactly is your plan when this goes sideways?”
I’ll let you know when I figure it out, the Admiral mused. Still, outwardly, he presented control. “The manner in which our plans are derailed shall determine our course of action.” It hardly made sense to plan a single response for all eventualities.
Zarrey met the ship commander’s gaze for a long moment, trying to read something from it, but there was nothing to read. As usual, his stony countenance gave away nothing. No hints of intent. No traces of concern. Fine. “And how do you plan to handle Midwest Station if something goes wrong there?” Zarrey had to wonder. “You just sent the only crewman who can find Midwest Station on an insanely risky mission.” If something went wrong there, the rest of them could do nothing.
“I never said Jazmine was the only crew member who knew Midwest Station’s whereabouts.”
The reply was made calmly, so calm that it took Zarrey a moment to process it. Wait a damn minute. “What do you mean Jazmine isn’t the only person on board who can fly to the station?”
“To my knowledge, there remains at least one other.” There could be more. Jazmine was certainly the most vocal parolee, but he wasn’t the only one, so it was possible others were familiar with the route to reach the station. Noting the time, Admiral Gives looked to Alba. “Begin jump prep.” They would carry Monty and Jazmine through one more jump, then, the pair would disembark, and the Singularity would make her final jump alone. Almost done, he promised the old ship. Two more jumps, and she would be able to rest. Crew and sensors would be on high alert, considering the mission, but the ship’s structure would be allowed to rest – temporarily at least.
Zarrey scowled, the movement pulling at the scar on his chin. “So, you’re sending Jazmine, when we could be sending someone else?” Disapproval hung in his voice, “Jazmine is the most obvious choice to fly us in there if something goes wrong.” He was the ship’s helmsman after all. “Shouldn’t we send the other?”
“Lieutenant Jazmine has an intact reputation and background on Midwest Station. That will allow him privileges someone else could never attain.” Jazmine’s skill as a pilot had been recognized and rewarded accordingly in the underworld. Sending him back to Midwest Station would put him face-to-face with his former employer, and that was the most probable way to get the information they needed, regardless of the risk.
“I get that Jazz was a valid choice, but now we’re short the best pilot to fly us to the station. I have enough issues believing we have someone else with knowledge of this secret criminal outpost, but is this other person even a pilot? Could they even fly us to the station?”
“He was a pilot, yes.”
“Wait, what do you mean, was?”
The Admiral was spared having to make a response by Alba. “We’re ready to jump, sir.”
Checking the structural indicator diagram, he could see that none of the strains had eased. Many of the lights were still yellow. It would require more time to ease the ship’s structure to any meaningful degree. Unfortunately, they didn’t have time for that. At least this brief respite had allowed the crew some recovery, so he looked to Robinson. “Make the announcement.”
“Aye,” she clicked on the intercom, “Attention all hands, prepare for FTL. I repeat, prepare for FTL.” The usual sound alert followed, echoing onto the bridge from the speakers in the corridor.
Zarrey swallowed. There was no way out of this. He knew that. But, considering how horrible the last few hyperspace maneuvers had been, Zarrey did not anticipate a jump being pleasant. On a normal day it felt like someone was squeezing his skull. This, he knew, would not be a normal day. “I’m going to go sit down.” There were an extra few seats around CIC. Now felt like a good time to make use of them.
Admiral Gives made no move to stop him. He turned to the helmsman. “Decelerate.” It wouldn’t help much, but the less force and speed they carried into this jump, the better for the ship and crew. He waited until the pitch of the engines had lowered to a near imperceptible hum. Then, he didn’t bother with the countdown. Anticipation would just tense everyone up and make it worse. He simply nodded to Alba. “Engage.”
Alba took a breath, and with an apologetic thought to the old ship, turned the key.
The next instant landed like a brutal kick to the head. Zarrey came to hearing the cry of the decompression alarm and feeling the shudder of the ship’s structure.
“Seal the breach,” the Admiral commanded. He sounded as strong as ever, but he was leaning heavily onto the metal rim of the console in front of him.
“Got it, sir.” Alba said, voice quiet. “Damage worsened around the incomplete hull repairs. It progressed further than we expected it to.” Damage mitigation tactics had already been in place, but it was impossible to predict the effect of subspace with any accuracy.
The Admiral forcibly pulled himself off the console, reminding the ghost, ‘This is why we don’t start missions with incomplete repairs.’ He didn’t enjoy putting the ship or crew through this.
‘Don’t be an ass,’ she snarked back. ‘I don’t have to keep these maneuvers gentle.’
‘We clearly have different definitions of gentle,’ he remarked, studying the structural chart once again. The areas around the incomplete repairs had taken on a strong orange tint. In the same location, the hull indicators were all red. The recently repaired structural support in the bow had also taken on a very light orangish tint, not as severely strained. In all, she would hold for one more jump, but then he’d have to let the ship rest.
‘See how you like the next jump without my help,’ the ghost harumphed. ‘That’ll teach you to make a point.’
Doubt it, he thought, but she was clearly unhurt, so he turned his immediate attention to the crew. They looked all-around, rough. Dark bags had taken root under their eyes, and they were slow to recover. He could tell by their quiet groans and the way they reached up to massage their temples. Subspace sickness. Every sailor recognized its symptoms, and everyone went through it as a rookie, but it only resurfaced in extreme cases. Little was known about how and why the sickness occurred. Save dispensing painkillers which had limited effectiveness, there was nothing to be done about it. It was a miserable fact of space travel, like rough seas had been for the ocean faring sailors that had come before them.
“Sound roll call,” the Admiral ordered. Subspace sickness wasn’t usually dangerous, and the crew had been ordered to travel in groups of two or larger in case someone became sick, but there was no point in risking anything they didn’t have to. “XO, make sure everyone is accounted for.”
“Aye,” Zarrey said miserably, dragging himself into a standing position. His joints ached in ways he didn’t know they could ache. “But you’re crazy if you think we’re going to make another jump.”
“We are going to make another jump.” It wasn’t up for debate. “We have seen worse.” The unfinished repairs had complicated this trip, but overall, the ship had made longer journeys.
Nursing an uneven gait, Zarrey moved to begin checking the roll with the ship’s crew roster. “Feels like a good excuse for mutiny,” he grumbled. He didn’t envy Monty and Jazmine having to make two more jumps in a smaller ship. That would be nothing short of fantastically miserable.
“XO, I will elect to ignore that comment.”
Zarrey was kidding, mostly. He was only griping because it made him feel better. Although… “Considering her present condition, I bet your ship would side with me.” Especially if I bribe her with a few hours of rest and full repairs.
I would bet not. Still, the Admiral wasn’t going to stop him. “Try it, XO.”
The Admiral’s tone was as warm as it ever got: a completely undisturbed neutral. Zarrey found that more disturbing than a threat. It turned an invitation into a trap. He portrayed the remarkable lack of concern of someone who knew exactly how an attempted mutiny would play out. Of course, as far as Zarrey was concerned, he probably did know how that would end. Admiral Gives had put down several mutinies over the years, including that by his previous second in command. But, no matter what the motive, means or numbers, they always ended the same way: with the mutineers incapacitated or worse and Admiral Gives back in command.
With that history, Zarrey took it as a fact that no mutiny aboard these decks would ever succeed, and truly, he had never felt particularly motivated to mutiny. Colonel Zarrey wanted nothing less than the responsibility of command. At times, he acted out, questioning the Admiral’s motives, but he’d never resented the man. No, Zarrey had always found the Admiral to be terrifyingly competent. Nothing escaped his attention if it concerned the ship, but he was more lenient on crew matters. With a few exceptions, handling the crew was Zarrey’s job. He broke up the fights, disciplined the pranksters and heard out their concerns.
“Everyone’s accounted for,” Zarrey announced. “A few are sick enough to be dehydrated, but no injuries to report.” Even practiced space farers suffered with so many transitions in and out of FTL. “Probably a good thing you threw the civvies off the ship.”
I did not throw them off, the Admiral almost argued, then realized he simply didn’t care enough to contradict the point. He hadn’t been willing to take no as an answer, so in a manner of speaking, he had thrown them off, even if it had been for their own good. Enduring this would have sparked a new level of hatred from Amelia, and it occurred to him that Sergeant Cortana, coming from a terrestrial post, likely wasn’t fairing much better.
The ship creaked lowly, the structure beginning to resettle. This time, no physical shift accompanied the sound, at least not that Zarrey could detect, but then, his equilibrium was all kinds of screwed up. He looked around, sympathizing with the fatigue as he shuffled back to the Admiral’s side. “Do you ever feel bad about it?”
The Admiral wasn’t one for small talk, but Zarrey chatted as a way to entertain himself and the crew. It helped keep their minds off the looming danger missions and battles, so sometimes the Admiral chose to entertain him. “You are going to need to be more specific.”
The ship commander never made eye contact with him. He was focused on the various charts and readouts across the bridge, intaking and interpreting the data. Zarrey could almost see him doing the calculations that determined the ship’s fitness to proceed. But that, like everything for him, was a calculation. It was a cold, logical judgement based on fact. So, perhaps, to ask what he felt was the wrong question. Still, Zarrey was curious. “This ship. Do you ever feel bad about putting her through all these maneuvers?”
“No, why should I?”
Zarrey tilted his head in surprise. For someone so frequently defensive about the ship, it seemed strange. “These maneuvers suck, Admiral.” They righteously sucked. “The crew’s miserable, and its pretty obvious the old girl feels it too.” The structure was straining and the hull had actually torn bringing them out of that jump. “Don’t you feel bad for pushing her like that?”
“Do you feel bad for making the Marines train, for assigning the engineers maintenance, or having the chefs cook?” The Admiral asked, but didn’t bother to wait for an answer. “Of course not, because that is their job.” It would be madness to worry over those details. “Singularity’s job is to take us where we need to go. That is her purpose. To deny that would be to rescind our trust in her.” That was a greater grievance than strains the ship had been designed to handle. “Like I would any of you, I only ask that she do her job.” He expected everyone on this ship to manage their jobs or else find a new one. In the case of the ship herself, he knew better than to worry about routine use. She, like her crew, would recover fully from this trip.
“Huh.” Zarrey scratched his chin. “I hadn’t thought about it like that.” He’d considered it more of an abuse, but that was unfair, considering the ship had been designed for FTL travel. “Then, I wonder what it’s like. How does subspace really feel?”
Zarrey expected Galhino to answer with some scientific nonsense about how no one could feel anything in the immeasurable realm of subspace, but once again, it was the Admiral that replied, his voice calm, as always. “I was told once that you do not want to know.” He’d asked once, given the ghost’s control over the ship, what jumping was like. Utterly lacking her usual humor, that had been her response.
He had never asked again.