Tulope Sector, Battleship Singularity
Montgomery Gaffigan and Don Jazmine sat bathed in the white light of the Rhino’s control screens. It splashed onto them, illuminating the crisp lines of their dress shirts. In the back, their suit jackets were hung to stay fresh through the journey ahead of them. Already, the air between them tasted stale and recycled, though heavy with anticipation.
The lift had brought them flush to the landing bay. Its flat, artificial plain yawned out before them, colored by the angle and distance markers the pilots used to help land. They both sat for a minute in silence, contemplating this choice, and then Jazmine reached up to his headset. “This is Jazz. Requesting departure permission.”
“Granted, Jazz,” came the reply of the flight officer through his headset. “Releasing mag-locks now.”
“10-4,” Jazmine said, checking over everything one last time. When the mag-lock indicator went dark, he began to ease them up. The movement took more effort than he remembered, as if the mag-locks were still tugging them back, hesitant to let go. But in an instant, that was gone and they were on their way.
Montgomery Gaffigan watched the ribbed structure of the landing bay pass by mournfully. “I’m going to miss her.”
No, Jazmine thought, you’re going to miss her weapons. That wasn’t quite the same thing. “Cheer up, Monty.” He said, “This is going to be fun!”
Monty crossed his arms and pushed himself as far into the copilot’s seat as the cushions would let him go, “Maybe for you.” As far as Jazmine was concerned, he was on the path of reliving his glory days as a smuggler, now with the extra drama of now being a military spy. Monty did not share his enthusiasm. “You didn’t get beaten on the Olympia.” He was not excited to head out into a place where he could get beaten again.
“Oh, come on.” Jazmine rolled his eyes, steering their small craft out into the void. “You’ve been through worse.” Everyone knew that. “I’m quite happy to report that Midwest Station has no Black Box. You won’t have to worry about neurofibers there.”
The mention of neurofibers made the back of Gaffigan’s neck tickle in a most uneasy way, just as it had been after their last few FTL manuevers. “Stop talking.”
“I mean, I’d think that would make you more comfortable there than staying on our renegade ship, given that theoretically, Command could, you know, activate the Box at any time.”
“Stop,” Monty growled at him. “I don’t want to talk about it.” He never wanted to talk about it.
“Daaamn,” Jazmine replied, drawing out the word. “I was just trying to make you feel better. No need to get feisty.”
Gaffigan focused on the controls in front of him. The jump coordinates had been precalculated and uploaded to navigations, but he still needed to prepare the drive. “Just get us to the jump point,” he told Jazmine. With a shake of his head, he muttered to himself, “Learn some tact.” Ordinarily, he and Jazmine got along well, but that was aboard ship. And Gaffigan preferred not to leave the ship unless it was to go drink to excess, numbing the memories he’d spent years trying to forget. As a munitions officer, there was always plenty to do on a battleship, and that kept him from thinking too much, as did the drink when he took leave. But a mission like this, those memories had a way of coming back, and it didn’t help that Jazmine liked to poke at them.
Monty knew Jazmine was trying to help. He did mean well. But Jazmine had also lived a carefree life. He’d been a few tight fixes, not the least of which had led to being caught by the Singularity and hauled back to Ariea for trial, but he’d never seen insanity. He’d seen violence, death even, after the nuke, but he’d never seen insanity. He hadn’t been on the Matador. The rest of the crew at least knew better than to bring it up, even if they were aware of his history. After all, the Singularity had been the one to rescue what was left of the Matador’s crew. It had been before Jazmine’s time, but they’d seen that insanity too.
The survival rate of the Matador’s crew had been less than one percent. None of the other survivors had gone back to shipboard assignments. Gaffigan himself, fresh out of that hell and the following few months of inquiries and therapy, had thought the Admiral was crazy for offering such an obviously unstable person the position of chief armory officer. His reasons for doing so remained unclear, but Gaffigan was grateful.
He’d always found something calming about the Singularity, despite knowing that the ship possessed a Black Box like the Matador had. He’d never quite figured out why, but in the end, he supposed it didn’t matter. The ship hadn’t turned on them yet, and since it hadn’t happened by now, he figured she never would, though not everyone shared that opinion. Those like Jazmine were concerned about the safety measures Command had installed on the ship, the Black Box in particular.
But Gaffigan knew better than anyone that those failsafe measures didn’t work flawlessly. They could malfunction, as had been the Matador’s fate, and he suspected, might also be the Singularity’s case. The Matador’s Box had become hyper-functional, but he suspected that the Singularity’s might simply be non-functional. At least, that was what he told himself, because the last thing he wanted to consider was that it might be malfunctioning in an active capacity.
“Monty, you’re being awfully quiet.” Jazmine didn’t like it. The way he was staring back at the Singularity’s long form felt foreboding, as if he might never see it again. “The Admiral said he’d handle it if something went wrong.”
“I’m fine,” Monty said, breaking free from his thoughts. Now wasn’t the time to consider the Matador’s fate. He briefly checked the status of his controls. “The drive is charging.” Then, he turned back to the Singularity, now shrinking in the distance. The ship looked tired. The hull lighting looked dimmer than he remembered it, casting longer and darker shadows on the hull. The bow had a few misplaced bumps on its usual shape – fresh damage from the FTL maneuvers. Subspace had torn at the gaps in the hull repairs and widened the ship’s wounds once again.
“Man, you’re going to have to come off a little less dead by the time we get to the station.” Jazmine pulled back on the controls, slowing them down as they reached the preselected jump point. “No explosives specialist in the underworld hates their job.” They came off as freakishly happy people.
“I love my job,” Gaffigan defended. “I just like doing it on the ship with the big guns.” Their Rhino transport had been given a partial loadout – ammunition for the guns and some defensive measures, but they hadn’t been allotted any missiles. In the underworld, missiles were hard to come by, and it would have been suspicious to fly freely with a full set. Vaguely, Gaffigan gestured back to the Singularity. “If any of those pyromaniacs got a taste of the genuine article, they’d find stuff like this boring too.”
Jazmine focused on the controls. The Rhino’s dashboard displays were brighter and more integrated than a Warhawk’s tactile switches and knobs, lighting the compartment with a soft ethereal glow. “I knew a guy who blew up ships for a living. He was frighteningly creative. The man could turn almost anything into a bomb. I’m sure he’d find guns designed to do that boring.”
You really shouldn’t be that impressed. “It’s not that hard to make a bomb.” Most households had all the materials necessary in the cleaning closet or kitchen. “I target the largest ship-mounted guns ever built for a living. I shot through a moon.” That was much more exhilarating than blowing up a freighter with dime-a-dozen homemade explosives. “I bet none of the underworld pyros have ever managed that.”
“No, I guess not.” That was a fair point.
“Any pyro would salivate over my day job.” That was a fact. With the freedom the Admiral gave him to make things disappear, it was a demolitionist’s dream. The potential for carnage was almost endless. “You really don’t pay enough attention to our ship, Jazz.” He was too focused on proving himself as a pilot. “She’s incredible. After Frontier Rebellion, it legally became a war crime to utilize a Constancy-class battleship for orbital bombardment.”
“Orbital bomb-what now?”
“Orbital bombardment, dumbass. Firing onto surface targets from orbit.” Most ships in the fleet were not capable of doing so. It usually wasn’t necessary, but the bigger ships, the likes of the Olympia and Singularity included, were capable of precision strikes with devastating results.
Jazmine furrowed his brow. Orbital re-entry was a hot and complicated business. The friction would eat away at things until there was nothing left without a safe angle and heat shielding. “Don’t the shells just explode in the atmosphere?”
“They do, unless you’re using ATM shells.” Gaffigan grinned, just thinking about it. “Solid tungsten. They won’t burn up completely in atmosphere, and with the gravity assist, can hit with more penetrating power than a nuke without the messy radiation. If the projectiles are big enough, and fired at the correct angle and target, they can puncture the crust of a planet. Make a new volcano.”
Jazmine watched him make a little volcano with his hands, waggling his fingers in a show of spewing lava. “Uh-huh.” That’s not concerning. Monty presented that information a little too happily. “Well, I’m sure Command confiscated those shells.” If they were that dangerous, Command never would have allowed Admiral Gives to keep them. Especially not after New Terra.
“Eh,” Monty shrugged, running final checks the drive and the navigation coordinates. “The Skipper’s proven more than once that he is perfectly willing and able to hide whatever he wants from Command.” Most certainly, that included a few ATM shells. “Besides, we can cast our own shells for the Singularity’s main battery. If we got our hands on some tungsten, we could just make them ourselves.”
“Well,” Jazmine realized, “maybe I’m just the only one hoping he never finds a reason to exterminate a planet.”
Monty didn’t bother making a response to that. The way he figured, it wasn’t his job to contemplate the morals of what he was told to do. His job was to make whatever he was told to, disappear. He preferred to keep it simple like that. In his experience, none of the Admiral’s orders had been that questionable, but then, he hadn’t been on the ship during New Terra, Icarus Gap, or even the incident with the Yokohoma. And those instances, not the lame patrols the ship had run for the last few years, were what had cemented Admiral Gives’ reputation as the deadliest officer in the allied fleet. Strictly speaking, firing on other UCSC ships during this rebellion of theirs was probably the most questionable thing Gaffigan had been asked to do. It was a little messed up if he thought too much about it, but he made a point not to think too much in general. “You ready?” he asked Jazmine.
Jazmine opened up the medical tin that sat between them. He handed Monty one small white pill, then took one of the others for himself. He popped it in his mouth and downed it without bothering with the water canteen, despite its foul taste. Anti-nausea meds had been graciously supplied to them. Granted the now-limited supply on the ship, most of the crew had elected to go without, but the away team couldn’t show up to Midwest Station looking jump-lagged. “Ready,” he told Monty, feeling the medicine coat his throat.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“Then, here goes.” Monty flipped the switch to discharge the Rhino’s FTL drive, and with all the grace of a beached whale, the dropship punched its way through subspace.
When it reappeared in a flash of rainbow light, Lieutenant Jazmine nearly lost his lunch, regardless of the anti-nausea meds. “Uggh,” he groaned, swallowing back bile. The discomfort vanished quickly, thanks to the meds, but he could still feel a bit of numb exhaustion pulling at his hands. “Stars, I was so damn miserable on the ship, I’d forgotten how much worse it is to be off it.” The Singularity traversed subspace with surprising ease. The misery was much more pronounced on smaller ships like this one.
No reply came from the copilot’s seat. Concerned, Jazmine turned, but only found Monty gently nursing his recently-broken nose. By now, only a shadow of the bruising could be seen if one knew where to look. The ship’s doctor had helped accelerate the healing, but now, the weapons officer held it as if the injury was unfamiliar. “Is it bothering you?”
Monty startled, as if suddenly remembering he wasn’t alone. “It’s fine,” he answered quietly, moving to scratch at the spot that kept itching on the back of his neck. There was a raised bump where his neck met the base of his skull. Had that always been there?
“You alright?” Jazmine said, with increased concern. “If you’re not up to it, Monty, now’s the time. We can still turn back.”
“I’m fine,” Gaffigan snapped. “You’re the one that dragged me on this damn assignment, so why don’t we just get it over with?”
“Shit, dude, chill.” Jazmine said. “You didn’t have to come. The Admiral offered to replace you.” But wasn’t that in itself odd? The Admiral had made that offer not once, but twice. And he never repeated himself without a reason. “Monty, you’re not acting yourself.” This was more standoffish than Jazmine had ever seen him be, scratching at his neck with strange fixation.
“Sorry,” Monty forced his hand back to the controls, preparing the next jump. “I just don’t like this mission. We have no protection and no support if something goes wrong. We can’t even blast our way out.” He felt weak without the Singularity’s weaponry. Out here, they had only the pathetic amount of explosives and paper-thin armor the Rhino carried. “And these jumps… Stars, these jumps.” He suddenly lowered his head, trying to clear it.
“What about these jumps, Monty?” Jazmine inched his finger toward the subspace transmitter. This wasn’t normal behavior for the armory officer. Did he need to abort the mission?
Monty saw the pilot’s hand start to move, and with the deftness of someone deeply familiar with the controls of a Rhino, locked the subspace transmitter to the copilot’s controls. “We’re not aborting.” He would see this mission through. Quickly, his hands swept across the controls, initiating calculations for their final jump to the Mississippi Sector.
“Monty, let’s talk about this.” Jazmine shifted in his seat, remembering the sidearm on his hip. It was pressing against him, holstered, but loaded and ready. If he had to, he could knock Gaffigan out with it.
“I’d rather not,” the armory officer said, reaching across to begin recharging the drive.
“Man, we really can’t afford to have an issue on the station.” The fate of the entire fleet was in their hands. There wasn’t enough time to start a new plan. “We’re only going to get one shot at this.” Once their cover was blown, it would all be over, and it was clear now that Monty was distracted.
With nothing to do but wait as the navigations computer calculated the jump and the drive recharged, Monty moved his hands to his knees. He wrapped his fingers around them, just to give his hands something to hold. He had never been this anxious to go on a mission. “You want to know my problem, Jazz?” he gritted his teeth, “You really want to know my problem?”
In that instant, Jazmine realized his copilot was trembling. His whole body shook like a leaf on the wind, and it was jarring to see an officer who was usually so cheerful and so eager, so clearly rattled.
“I’m starting to remember things. Things I didn’t remember before.” All these FTL maneuvers were doing more than fatigue his body, they were jumbling his thoughts and memories. The brutality of it was knocking things loose – things he wasn’t sure he was supposed to remember.
“Look, if this is about the Matador, I’m sorry I brought it up.” Jazmine hadn’t considered that might be hurtful. Monty usually seemed so unbothered.
“This isn’t about the damn Matador. It’s about the fucking Olympia.” Reeter’s self-dedicated cathedral of worship. “They beat me. I knew they beat me. I remembered that.” Given his wounds, it would have been strange not to remember that. “But I didn’t remember being interrogated.”
“…And now you do?”
Flexing his hands, Gaffigan shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe?” These jumps were messing with his head. “It’s just flashes, Jazz. It’s not coherent, but it doesn’t make sense. How could I not remember that?”
There was an honest distress in the question, evident in white knuckles and a trembling voice. It took Jazmine entirely aback to see the gleeful pyromaniac in such a state. “You weren’t there,” he remembered. Oh, stars. “You weren’t on the bridge when the Admiral mentioned it.”
“Mentioned what?”
“The Erans’ AI, Monty. It’s capable of memory manipulation.” Why hadn’t it occurred to him sooner? “He said that it could turn us against ourselves, that it could alter our memories to change our loyalties and personalities.” At the time, while disturbing, the information hadn’t felt dooming. “We tried not to worry, because we were on the Singularity, and she’s immune to AI infiltration. But you weren’t there. You were on the Olympia.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Rumors of the AI’s ability had circulated quickly amongst the crew. “But I felt fine until we started jumping, and now something’s wrong with me. I know it.”
“Then we need to turn around. Get back to the ship and let Doctor Macintosh fix you.”
“And what the hell is the doctor going to do if the electric impulses of my brain got rewired?” Macintosh wasn’t equipped to fix that. Monty didn’t think anyone was. “But it’s not that. I don’t think I’m a danger-”
“That’s exactly what they would want you to say, Monty!” It was exactly what he would be programmed to believe!
“I was trash to them, Jazz. I wasn’t supposed to make it off that ship. I wasn’t some tactical asset, and if I’d been implanted with some urge to betray you, don’t you think I would’ve done it already?” They’d escaped the Wilkerson Sector by the skin of their teeth. If there had been an instant for him to betray and sink the Singularity, it would have been then. “I’m not their naddlethworfing agent.” He knew that much. “I was interrogated, but they didn’t want me to remember why. That’s why they fucked with my head.”
“And…” Monty gripped his knees even tighter, creasing his black slacks unwillingly, “That’s why I have to be on this mission, Jazmine.” He remembered that now, even just from the flashes of memory. “I screwed up, and I need to make it right.”
Jazmine swallowed. The man sounded honest, a brutally upset honesty. But, exactly how well could the Eran AI reprogram people? What if this was all part of the charade?
“It’s my fault.” That one domino which had set so much in motion could be traced back to him. “The New Era wants the Admiral’s head. And it’s my fault.”
“How the hell is that your fault?”
Monty could feel the chaffing of cuffs on his wrists. His skin itched, sore and irritated. “Because I told them everything they wanted to know. They drained it from my head like liquid from a straw.” He hadn’t been able to stop it. He’d been immobilized and bound to that chair in the Olympia’s interrogation room, staring ahead as he felt the AI sift through his mind – all his memories and knowledge laid open to see. “She wanted to know about Admiral Gives, and she used me to learn. Do you know how that feels?” No, of course he didn’t. “I should have died on the Matador. I should have, but I didn’t. And do you know who pulled me out of that nightmare?” That writhing, rotten, blood-stained nightmare? “It wasn’t the Marines. It wasn’t the engineers. It wasn’t even a rescue team. It was Admiral Gives. He’s the one that got me out of there.” Monty owed the man his life, and he wasn’t the only crewman who felt that way. “But now, because of me, the Erans don’t just want to kill him, Jazmine.” That would have been normal. “No, they want him alive, and I guarantee whatever they do to him will be worse than death.”
“How is anything worse than death?” Jazmine quite liked being alive.
Montgomery turned his eyes to the darkness around them. “You don’t know because you’ve never seen hell.” Not many people had. Most that visited didn’t come back. “I envy you for that.”
Jazmine knew he’d been a carefree adventurer, but it was easy to live that way when you had nothing to lose. Now, he had a ship full of people he considered family counting on him to succeed in this con for the coordinates of Crimson Heart. “Monty, you’re not in your right mind. Let’s turn back while we still can. There’s no shame in it.”
On the dash in front of Gaffigan, a light started blinking, indicating the FTL drive was at full charge. “No,” he said. “I have to do this.” There may not be shame in retreat, but he had to prove to himself that he was still loyal, so he reached out and flicked the switch.
Jazmine didn’t even get time to protest. The next instant, they were in the vile, compressing grasp of subspace, and then, nearly as fast as he could process it, it was over. New constellations adorned the velvet darkness around them. “Damn it, Monty!” There’s no turning back now! The Jayhawker had drones set up to monitor the path toward the station. Their craft had surely been seen the moment it appeared. It would be suspicious to jump away and then return later.
Gaffigan heard his complaint, but it was dulled by a piece of memory, taking him back to that soundproofed room. He was chained to that metal chair, robbed of cushions or comfort. A woman stood before him, a predator’s grin twisting her pixie face as something his mind blacked out crawled up his leg. “I saw her,” he realized, jolting back to the present with the glaring memory of that horrible, horrible smile.
Jazmine wasted no time taking the controls. He steered their small craft forward, knowing it was now too late to turn back. “Who?”
“The Eran AI.”
“So what?” Why did that matter? “It’s a computer!” Monty could have seen the face of a devil, but technically, that devil didn’t have a face. “It can change its face whenever it wants.”
“It could, but it won’t.” Humanity knew little of artificial intelligences, but knowledge on Hydrian AI was taught in officer school. “The Hydrian Bylaws encourage AI to maintain one primary appearance.” An AI could deviate, but would often return to one consistent avatar.
“So, it usually looks like the white-haired bitch that showed up on the Palindrome?” Big deal. “We all saw that hologram.” The whole bridge had been watching that communication.
“But didn’t it strike you as familiar?”
“No. Why would it?” He’d never seen the AI before then.
“Are you dense?” Monty asked, feeling the ship turn below him as Jazmine took them into the path between the Mississippi Sector’s dark planets. “White hair.”
“So, what if she had white hair?” Far as he cared, it was a fashion statement that made the AI easy to distinguish. “Why would that matter?”
“Because you’ve seen it before.” The AI’s appearance hadn’t been a stranger to him on the Olympia. He’d heard the rumors years before that. “You saw her standing over the Admiral’s body in the Aragonian Sector.” And Zarrey, Alba and Jazmine had all described her the same way: white hair.
Oh. “Hell fires in heaven,” Jazmine gasped, his mind reeling so hard he nearly steered them off course. “It’s on the ship.” No, wait. “It wasn’t the same face.” Jazmine hadn’t looked too closely at either of them. Both had been unnerving, but he’d never forgotten a lady’s face, and he took great pride in that.
“Idiot!” Monty said. “Why would it be the same face?”
“You just said it would appear the same way every time!”
“Each AI will have a consistent appearance, yes.” That was the decree of the Hydrian Bylaws. “But that wasn’t the same AI, Jazmine. Don’t you see?” Gaffigan felt their acceleration pick up, as if Jazmine was trying to hurry the mission along. “If what the Admiral said is true, then there are six AI of human origin. Six.” He held up the number with his hand. “And, however they built them, they probably used similar methods, so the AIs probably are similar to each other and will share traits when they appear, such as hair color. But still, they differ in strength, so we know they’re not identical and by result, some traits won’t be identical.”
“Meaning the faces on their avatars might differ.” Jazmine could follow that far. “But it doesn’t make sense. The Singularity can’t host an AI.” The ship’s design didn’t allow it.
“She doesn’t need to.” Those very same words had been echoed to him in his fragments of memory. A host need only enough complexity and an electrical control network. “But that’s what it’s after.” Gaffigan could remember the hunger in its expression. “The Eran AI thinks one of its kin is on the Singularity. That’s why I was interrogated.” The memory of it all was still fragmented, but the mere thought of it made him angry.
“But that’s crazy.” Jazmine said. “I don’t know what I saw in the Aragonian Sector, but there’s no AI on the Singularity. We’d be dead.”
“Not if it doesn’t want to get caught.” No, for the first time in a while, Monty was starting to make perfect sense out of everything. “It’s on the run.” And it’s using us as a shield.