Mississippi Sector, Battleship Singularity
The Admiral’s Warhawk touched down gently. Only then did he release the slight tension that pinched his neck and shoulders. Gaffigan and Jazmine’s Rhino sat ahead of him on the landing bay, its bulbous gray form completely undamaged. So, that could have gone worse, the Admiral supposed. The away team was back safe and sound with Crimson Heart’s coordinates. He would have quite the mess to clean up with Zarrey and the bridge crew, but somehow, he’d manage.
‘Welcome home,’ the ghost told him. ‘You may want to shut down the engines of your Warhawk.’
Right, he reminded himself. The engines weren’t thrusting at the moment, but they still had to be disengaged before the elevator brought him down. He reached up can began to cut off the fuel feed, enacting the shutdown procedures. ‘Thank you.’
Ordinarily, something like that would never have slipped his attention. He had made hundreds of combat landings in conditions far worse than this. ‘Are you alright?’ she asked.
‘I’ll live.’ He would pay the price for what he’d done on that station, but he’d live. Below his craft, the elevator thunked and shifted, starting to draw the Warhawk in. It would pass through a series of airlocks before being brought down onto the hangar deck in the ship’s interior.
Exhausted, Admiral Gives pried his hands off the control yoke of the Warhawk. He hadn’t noticed it before, frustrated by the Jayhawker’s ploy, but stabbing pains were running through his left hand. Burned and wounded in the Aragonian Sector, his joints ached with throbbing pain worsened tenfold by the tension he’d used to hold the Warhawk’s flight controls.
Carefully, he nursed that hand a bit, trying to stretch the pain out, but the movement didn’t help. It only made the ache more acute. The injury had bothered him off and on. As a hand wound, and third-degree burn, it was being incredibly slow to heal. Every time he moved his hand, he set the healing process back, no matter how many healing stimulants Macintosh put on it or how regularly it was redressed. He had hoped by this point to feel some improvement, but it still ached, even if he managed to ignore it most of the time. Perhaps the burns had dealt some lasting nerve damage. It was no matter at the moment. He couldn’t afford to let it slow him down.
When the elevator lurched to a stop on the hangar deck, the Admiral unbuckled and made his way to the exit hatch. The movement was anything but graceful. His steps were clumsy and uneven, not aligned with his perception as they should have been. Not now, he thought, fumbling with the airlock controls, but he had no way to resist this.
With the adrenaline of facing down the Jayhawker now fading, the repercussions of what he had done on the station could take full effect. It didn’t hurt, but it messed him up pretty good. Anymore, it did not affect his mental faculties. He was still lucid when the worst of it hit, and could usually communicate just fine, but physical movements became challenging. Walking on a flat surface became harder than staggering through gravity storm fluctuations – forget climbing a ladder or anything else. So, when he made it out onto the wing of the Warhawk, he slid down to sit on the leading edge, hoping the movement did not look like the collapse it nearly was.
He latched one hand onto the metal panel below him and used the other to rub at his head. This set in way sooner than usual. Still, it wasn’t as severe as it could be. The first few times he had done this, it had knocked him out like a light. It had gotten easier over the years – not that this was something he did often – but he still paid a price for it. While he could summon the ghost to him, and the ship with her, she described the process akin to overloading a transmitter. The level of power it took to pinpoint a location during an FTL maneuver… Well, the human brain wasn’t equipped to handle it. Parts of the brain, such as his finer motor control, just shut down to protect themselves. He would recover in a few minutes, but the effort always fatigued him beyond compare.
A pair of black shoes stepped up in front of him, tapping on the deck. With effort, he managed to look up at their owner, recognizing it to be his assistant, Ensign Feather. She kept her face mostly relaxed, but there was still a shadow of concern in her expression. “Are you alright, Admiral?”
He managed a weak nod. “I will be fine, Ensign.”
She pursed her lips a little. “Here,” she offered out a mug, “I brought you some tea.”
He was decently certain that Feather knew more than she let on in situations like this. She always knew what he needed, and usually brought it without being asked. She was perceptive and independent, but she didn’t pry. And tea, that was exactly what he needed. Whether it was the calming aspect of its warmth or the caffeine helping jumpstart his brain, tea helped him recover. Clumsily, he took the mug, managing not to spill since she had only filled it partway up. “Thank you, Ensign.” She was a good assistant. She was not disturbed by this condition, but then, she had seen him worse off.
“Colonel Zarrey is …unhappy, to put it delicately, sir.” Feather had stopped by the bridge on her way here. “I also must inform you that we’re in no condition to jump. The maneuver that got us here did a number on the structure.”
Subspace maneuvers were always taxing, but summoning the ship made it worse. As the ghost had explained it, the process varied from a normal FTL jump. Another fraction of a second was spent in subspace, and that alone inflicted an extra magnitude of stress. “Any damage?” Considering the other jumps they’d already gone through, he had taken a risk to pull this off.
“None, sir.” Feather answered. “Are there any orders you’d like me to relay to the bridge?”
He considered it for a moment. The only order to give in a situation like this was to maneuver away from the station into the field of dark planets and buy time until it was safe for the ship to jump again. Still, that wasn’t urgent. There was nothing wrong with leaving Midwest Station at their mercy for another few minutes. “Not at this time,” he answered Feather. “Thank you, Ensign.”
She nodded and brushed her black hair back behind her ear, contemplating her next question. Ordinarily, this would be the end of the conversation, but she did find it necessary to ask. “Is your hand alright, sir?” It was still covered in a black glove, so the extent of its injury was concealed. “It’s twitching.” It lay in his lap like it should have been limp, but joints were convulsing slightly. Considering how still the Admiral usually was, it was exceptionally odd.
He lifted the hand for a better look. Sure enough, it was twitching. That’s new. Ignoring the way it throbbed, he curled it into a fist to make it stop. “Nothing to worry about, Ensign.” It was probably just lingering nerve damage from the burns.
Feather didn’t look especially convinced, but she didn’t argue. “If you say so, sir.”
Making their way over from their own transport, Lieutenants Gaffigan and Jazmine came up behind Feather. Jazmine was grinning. “Hey! Look at what we got!” He called, waving around a yellow folder.
Feather grabbed the folder and opened it up. A part of her had expected the papers inside to be blank, but the coordinates were printed in crisp black numbering. They carried a good level of precision. “Looks legitimate,” she told the Admiral.
They’d better be. Otherwise, Nathan Gadwood was as good as dead. “The Jayhawker makes good on his trades.”
“With some convincing?” Feather said.
“With some convincing,” he agreed. “Take those and log them with the central computer. Later, we will need to conduct some research on the surrounding area.”
“Yes, sir.” Feather said, and set off, leaving the Lieutenants behind.
Neither of the two men looked hurt as far as the Admiral could tell. Jazmine seemed happy, proud to have completed the mission. Gaffigan, on the other hand, was looking at him very strangely. That was to be expected, he supposed, since it wasn’t clear how much Gaffigan had seen on the station, awake when he should have been asleep. The Admiral chose not to address it. Soon enough Gaffigan would find those memories fading, or be coerced into believing nothing he’d seen was strange. The ghost would see to that. She didn’t like to mess with the crew, but sometimes it was unavoidable. None of them would ever be hurt by her abilities, but sometimes protecting them from the truth required a bit of intervention.
“You both did well today,” the Admiral told them. “It was a dangerous mission, but you accomplished your objective.” They were both good officers. “Take the night off and get some rest. Your skills will be needed when we strike Crimson Heart tomorrow.”
Jazmine nodded and ran a hand through his silky brown hair. “There’s one thing I don’t understand, sir,” he said. “When did the Singularity get here?” He began to frown a bit, perplexed. “In fact, I don’t remember much of what happened on the station after you arrived.” He remembered the Admiral’s arrival, how he’d known the Jayhawker’s real name, but there were so many other gaps in his memory. “The Jayhawker… He made you order the Singularity to jump directly into the Tormenta Sector.” A jump that would have destroyed her. “How did she get from there to here? Let alone survive that?”
“I left the ship with specific instructions in my absence, Lieutenant,” the Admiral said patiently. “It was all part of the plan.” Or, he supposed, most of it was. Truly, he had hoped to manage an exchange with the Jayhawker – a peaceful monetary or informational exchange once Gaffigan and Jazmine had been released. Ordering the FTL Drives offline had stacked the cards in his favor. It had bought him time to negotiate, or try as the case had been, but he had come prepared to play his ace, and the ghost had not let him down.
“Right,” it didn’t surprise Jazmine to know there had been a plan. “But I know the Jayhawker, and apparently so do you. He never would have allowed a subspace transponder to be brought aboard Midwest Station. He would have sunk any ship that dared to activate one, and killed any person that dared to carry one, including you, without hesitation.” The Jayhawker’s interest in having him as a hostage would not have exempted Admiral Gives from that. “So how did the Singularity get here?” The jump to Midwest Station was impossible without the real-time position of the station, which only a subspace location transponder could provide, and the Jayhawker forbade them in all circumstances.
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That was a tricky question the Admiral supposed. Jazmine was curious, but Gaffigan, standing beside him had a darker color in his eyes: suspicion. Admiral Gives was plenty familiar with it. How many times had he been accused of psychopathy? Interrogated by Command as a separatist agent? How many times had the crew suspected him of being uncaring? Gaffigan’s suspicion could be any of that or none of it. It hardly mattered. A lie here would be an obvious one, and Admiral Gives tried not to lie to his crew. He took a sip of his tea, enjoying the warm, earthy flavor. “Do you know why Admiral Reeter never became the Fleet Admiral, Lieutenant?”
Jazmine scrunched up his face, uncertain he saw the relevance. “Well, because he could never beat you in the War Games.” The victor of the fleet’s War Games became the Fleet Admiral, as tradition dictated.
“True,” the Admiral supposed, “but that was more the result than the cause.” Reeter was a perfectly capable tactician, though his impatience was often his undoing. “In actuality, Admiral Reeter’s plans were brilliant.” There was a reason he’d earned command of the Flagship at such a relatively young age. “But, his plans always had one flaw, Lieutenant.” The fault of all confident people. “He put everything on the table, and I saw all his cards.” That same fault had gotten them out of the Homebound System when the Olympia had tried to activate her flagship weapon, Thunderbolt. If Reeter had managed a sufficient distraction, that weapon easily could have landed a killing blow, but Reeter had been confident that the Singularity would not have enough time to escape and had not bothered to create a distraction. “The best tacticians always keep one card up their sleeve, Lieutenant. They never play their ace in the open, because an ace in the open is not an ace. It is a target.”
Jazmine stood there for a moment, trying to think that through. “So… you’re not going to tell me how you got the ship here?”
“No, I am not.”
Jazmine laughed a bit. “Alright then.” There was no arguing that. While it looked like an issue of trust, Jazmine wasn’t offended. The Admiral had explained why he wouldn’t answer the question. The method he’d used to get the ship here gave Admiral Gives a tactical advantage, one that had already saved Jazmine’s life once, and he wasn’t eager to disregard that. “I suppose disclosing your strategy to anyone puts it at risk.” Ordinarily, Admiral Gives was very open with the crew. He was known to declassify Command’s secrets if it was helpful on a mission, but these were different times. Revealing anything to anyone put it at risk, because if that person ever fell into the Eran AI’s clutches, then that information would be forfeit to the enemy.
“You’ll have no further questions from me,” Jazmine decided. “Thank you for saving my butt, sir. I’m not convinced my body in the next life would be quite this handsome.” The Jayhawker would have killed him, and being alive was rather nice.
“Think nothing of it, Lieutenant.”
The answer was as calm as Jazmine had ever heard. He turned to Gaffigan with a glare. You’re crazy if you think there’s anything wrong with him. As far as Jazmine could tell, there was nothing weird going on with the Admiral. This calm, tactically calculating persona was exactly what he remembered, and no AI would have come to bail them out on the station. “Let’s go wash up.”
Gaffigan turned to follow him, but was stopped almost immediately. “Lieutenant Gaffigan,” the Admiral called after him, “your sidearm is in the copilot’s seat. Secure it before you go.”
Right, Monty suddenly remembered the empty holster on his hip. “Of course,” he said, turning around. “Thank you, sir.” He had handed Jazmine’s gun back to him, and the Admiral had used his to hold the stationmaster hostage.
Monty stepped up onto the wing and ducked into the interior of the Warhawk. This recon ship had the same general layout as the Rhino he’d ridden back on: two seats in the front for the pilots, and then storage and extra seating in the back. The Warhawks were a little smaller than the newer design of the Rhinos, and the age showed in the controls. The control panels of the Warhawk were all tactile, with physical switches and buttons, shiny and colorful. The nose of the craft also tapered a little, so Monty had to bend over to reach into the copilot’s seat. At first, he didn’t see the gun, but then he saw it wedged between the center console and the edge of the seat. That’s one way to keep it from flying loose, Monty supposed. Unsecured guns were a major hazard, and given the incident twelve months ago, which ended with the Admiral getting shot, Monty figured he was more aware of that than most.
The weapon’s safety was on, so Gaffigan reached down and grabbed it. He checked it over, noting the bullet missing from the clip – the one that had been used to shoot the stationmaster. The sound of the gunshot echoed in his ears, near deafening. How the hell had Jazmine slept through that?
Still, the memory of that gunshot only brought back the image of that woman and her stark white hair. An AI. The one masquerading as the ghost that haunted the Singularity. Monty had seen her standing there clear as day. But how? How had she been standing there? AI avatars required a format to manifest themselves in, be it a holographic emitter or even just a screen to appear on, but the Admiral hadn’t brought anything with him – not even a gun.
…But he brought himself, Monty realized. And if the AI was using him as a host, then maybe, somehow, it could have infected the station and used the emitters installed on the station. That might also explain the ship’s presence. If that AI had infected the station, then it could have hijacked the station’s array to transmit coordinates to the ship. That all made perfect sense. If the AI was trying to hide here, that even explained why Jazmine hadn’t been given a real answer.
There was just one problem with the entire theory. Why would an AI hiding from the New Era risk everything to recover two Lieutenants captured on a mission gone awry?
This still doesn’t make sense. Confirming his suspicions about that AI’s presence only raised more questions. He had overheard so much on that station, and almost none of it made sense. In fact, the conversation didn’t make sense. Admiral Gives had spoken to that avatar with something like familiarity, which was the most amicable Gaffigan had ever heard him. And that AI had replied. Why would an AI have a conversation with its host? Hosts were by nature, an extension of the AI. They were controlled by it. Drones, not partners.
“Stars,” Monty breathed, rubbing his head as he made his way back out onto the wing. Nothing made sense anymore.
“Did you have any trouble finding it, Lieutenant?”
The question brought Gaffigan’s attention back to the Admiral. He was still sitting on the leading edge of Warhawk’s stubby black wing. In fact, now that Monty thought about it, that was odd. Usually, the first thing the Admiral upon return from a mission was head to the bridge, but Gaffigan had barely seen him move. Studying him in more detail, the Admiral looked a little paler than usual, though it was hard to tell with his stony countenance. But beyond that, he looked the same, even acted the same as Gaffigan had always remembered him. His hair was black, flecked with grays. He was calm, patient with the crew, but had a stormy blue gaze that was always sharp enough to catch the details.
Now was not an exception. He could tell something was up with Gaffigan. “Is there a problem, Lieutenant?”
Gaffigan tightened his grip on the gun in his hand. He knows. Or did it know? Just who was looking at him through those blue eyes? Was it the Admiral? Or was it the AI hiding in his body? “There’s no problem, sir,” he managed.
Admiral Gives didn’t believe that for a second. He’d stared one too many mutineers in the eye. This didn’t look like a mutiny in the making, but it damn well looked like trouble. “I trust you would tell me if there was an issue, Lieutenant?” he asked.
Gaffigan watched the Admiral sip his tea, uncertain if that calm comforted or unnerved him. There was a confidence in the way the Admiral sat. Not arrogance, but confidence. It was a certainty that this amounted to nothing, even if his back was perfectly exposed Gaffigan, who held a loaded gun in his hand.
It twisted Gaffigan’s stomach.
If this was an AI, then it had chosen a perfect host, because they needed Admiral Gives alive. Aboard the Singularity, there was no way to remove an AI from its host. The ship simply didn’t possess that technology. And that meant, they couldn’t rid themselves of the AI without ridding themselves of the Admiral. They couldn’t kill it, without killing him. But this was Admiral Gives, and Gaffigan was certain the Admiral would rather die than endanger his ship as an AI’s unwilling host.
Either way, Gaffigan had to get to the bottom of it, but not here. Here, there were too many hostages. Every crewman on this deck was a potential host. He would have to confront the situation in a more isolated location, so he walked away.
The Admiral watched him go. It was clear the weapons officer suspected him of something, what exactly wasn’t yet clear. The Admiral supposed he’d find out soon enough. For now, he took a long sip of tea to conceal his relief. For a moment, he’d thought Gaffigan might shoot him, and that would have been problematic.
Exhaustedly, he finished tea and tested his coordination. His legs were at least willing to move now, so he set down the mug and prepared to stand up.
‘It’s too soon,’ the ghost warned.
He elected to ignore that, and pushed himself to his aching feet. He nearly fell over before he was even halfway up. It hadn’t been noticeable as he sat, but his equilibrium was effectively non-existent and his legs still weren’t ready to take his weight. Defeated, he collapsed back onto the wing and started rubbing his head. It hurt like the devil.
‘Told you,’ the ghost said.
‘You’re not helping.’ He hated feeling helpless, and right now, unable to move, he felt helpless.
‘You did this to yourself.’ She had told him repeatedly that the human body was not meant to be abused in that way. Did he ever listen? Of course not. ‘Idiot.’
He tightened his grip on the round edge of the wing below him. Her sass was unwelcome, but he knew to expect it. He was lucky to have been caught in a public space, or she would have chewed him out with far more dedication. Usually, she chastised him on the fact they didn’t actually know what this capability did to him. They didn’t know if it was damaging or dangerous, but the way he figured, if it was going to kill him, it would have done it by now. He didn’t like the repercussions he suffered, and he didn’t like the complications of hiding the truth, but he hated summoning the ghost like that for another reason entirely.
It reminded him too much of something he often tried to forget.
A summons steered too close to a command – a command that she would be forced to obey. It was a reminder that her entire existence, her very mind, was slaved to him. Times like this, there was no ignoring it, and there was no avoiding it. Everything she was, her thoughts, her memories, her personality, was in his hands.
The thought disturbed him too much to contemplate, so he lowered his gaze to the scuffed ablative floor beneath his shoes. ‘Are you okay?’
The ghost read his concern. For her, it was always very real, no matter how crass her treatment of him was. ‘I am quite all right,’ she told him honestly. She knew what troubled him, privy to those thoughts that concerned her, and truly, she pitied him. It wasn’t easy to know that he was responsible for the entire existence of his only friend – that the wrong words, the wrong thought could alter the balance between them forever. But that concern was also the reason the ghost regarded him so well. It was the reason she was so grateful to have him, so she did her best to put his mind at ease. ‘You didn’t order me to come help you,’ she reminded. ‘I made that decision on my own.’ It had been her choice.
The Admiral had given her the opportunity to help rescue the away team, but he had not forced her in any way. He trusted her enough to let it be her choice. ‘Naturally, I had to come make sure my idiotic Admiral wasn’t going to get himself and two of my officers killed.’ She never would have left them behind. ‘But, let’s not forget: you owe me.’
He could feel the smile in her thoughts and allowed that to comfort him. ‘I understand.’
‘Then you’ll sit there and let yourself recover for five more minutes without complaining,’ she ordered. ‘And I’ll spare you paying the other half of your debt until later.’
That was fair. ‘Thank you,’ he told her. She did not have to treat him kindly. She did not have to help him. If she had chosen to hate him, he would have understood. Who wouldn’t hate someone who controlled their entire existence? But she was better than that, kinder than that, kind enough to tolerate even him.