Cardioid Sector, HR-14 System, Battleship Singularity
To be completely honest, coming to consciousness on the floor with a throbbing headache and a permeating sense of nausea was not entirely unfamiliar to the Admiral. He’d made an unfortunate habit of drinking himself into a stupor at several points in his life – not to mention had the utterly unique experience of nearly getting his brain fried by the ghost on several occasions. So really, finding her pale face hovering above him, laden concern also wasn’t out of the ordinary. “Fucking hell,” he groaned, clumsily reaching up to his throbbing head. “What happened?” It felt like a stake had been driven through his skull.
“You, uh…” Oh, what was the word, “fainted?” Yes, that was the one.
“I fainted?” he echoed her uncertainty.
“Don’t act so surprised,” she said, regaining her confidence as she recognized the Admiral’s presence to be once again him, and not that dreadful nightmare brought back to life. “You skipped breakfast.”
“Stars,” he cursed, feeling the texture of the deck tiles prodding at his back, “you really are a horrible liar.” This had nothing at all to do with him skipping breakfast. He knew that because looking at her hurt. Perceiving her illusion actually, legitimately hurt – not that he was going to tell her that. Incidents where her power overtaxed him always pained him like this, as if the overstimulated parts of his brain were tender and warning off further abuse. He rubbed at his temples, surprised by the clumsiness of his fingers. Their movement felt almost unfamiliar, yet his sense of touch was extra-sensitive, as if he had been deprived of it. “Are you going to tell me what actually happened?”
She averted her gaze to the floor. “There may have been an incident.”
Very helpful, he thought, rolling himself off his back with a heave. The entire movement felt uncomfortable, and not entirely due to his lingering bruises. It just felt burdened, and took a great deal more focus than he remembered. Eventually working his way into a sitting position, he turned to look at the ghost, ignoring the discomfort that brought him. “Why do I feel like I got possessed?” His body felt used, and he had some memories that were for lack of better terms, just odd. “Look, I’m not going to say the thought of stabbing Galhino hasn’t crossed my mind, but I don’t think I’ve ever walked over to her with the express intent of doing so.” And Owens, poor Owens, why would he have grabbed her like that? He usually did his best not to touch people, because he didn’t like to touch or be touched.
The ghost went pale, or in her case paler, but she said nothing. In that, the Admiral knew she’d rather not talk about it. Fine. There were more urgent issues at hand. “How long was I out?”
“A couple minutes, but the mission is progressing as planned. We’re sailing toward the base now, and I’ve ordered the boarding party back into position.” They would be ready to move once the ship maneuvered for docking and the airlocks connected.
“The base’s power?”
“Working on it,” she assured. “You write a very detailed mission plan. The automated protocols have had no issue following it.” That was of course, the reason he wrote the plans the way he did. It gave the automated protocols something to follow if things went wrong.
“What about the Hydrian AI?” the Admiral asked, using the wall to clamber unsteadily to his feet.
“Still no sign of a physical core, but I did manage to get an ID: HHCS Swordbreaker. It’s a scoutship, had a crew of only one. I’d guess the AI is a bit over a decade old, but I can’t be too sure. Its mission data was heavily corrupted.”
“Corrupted?” he echoed, picking his sabre up off the floor. The movement made him pause, nausea rising again to the surface, but he swallowed it down and began to inspect his dark blade. He was pleased to find the sabre’s edge had not been damaged, so he slid it back into its sheath and started pulling his uniform jacket back into place. “What could cause a Hydrian AI to be corrupted?”
“The obvious answer would be a Cataclysm, perhaps caused by the loss of its single crewman, but I would deem it unlikely. The AI’s logical functions seemed mostly intact, and I doubt Crimson Heart would risk involving themselves with that, given their proximity to the Azura Quarantine Zone.” Established after the last, utterly destructive Cataclysm humanity had borne witness to, the Quarantine Zone was an eternal reminder of AI insanity and its consequences. Those in this region of space would not be quick to dismiss signs of instability in an AI, regardless of what tactical advantage the AI promised them. “Given the corruption, I could not determine the AI’s original mission, or if it crossed into our side of the Neutral Zone by intent, but I saved the data. Maybe you can make more sense of it.”
The mention of the Quarantine Zone worsened the tension in Admiral Gives’ shoulders, reminding him that the agony of his current headache could still get worse. There were very few places he outright refused to take the Singularity, but the Azura Quarantine Zone was one of them, regardless of how ‘safe’ the ghost said it was. “Did you get the AI’s location?”
“No, it shut itself down when I started grabbing the mission data.” She frowned, “I think I might have scared it.” Understandably, it had been alarmed when computers that had been helplessly paralyzed five minutes prior counter-attacked it with any degree of success.
He considered that for a moment, trying to rub out the strain on the back of his neck. “Look out for any sign of a Cataclysm. If you see or feel anything, we’re pulling out. With or without the food.” A Cataclysm was the last thing they needed to get involved with, especially this close to the Quarantine Zone.
“I understand.” This was the mission-focus she expected from him, but she still couldn’t shake the maddening memory of Brent standing in this corridor just as he was now. She could still hear the words of an abuser spoken by the voice she trusted beyond all else. The mere memory was enough to make her shudder, and the sound of that voice again now… She wanted to cower from it. But that was unfair. It was not the Admiral’s fault that his voice had been turned against her. She had only herself to blame. He could not have stopped it, and no matter how it sounded, that hadn’t been him. Admiral Gives would never have said those things to her, and yet he had. His voice had.
Forcibly, she pulled away from that contemplation. The overlap of the man who had damaged her so badly and the one who had done his best to repair her was a damning spiral. It would end in a complete breakdown if she fixated on it, so she focused again on the present and discarded everything else. Watching the Admiral take inventory of his new aches and older injuries, she could not help the modicum of concern that crept into her expression. “Are you okay?”
“Well, I halfway feel like I want to barf up the breakfast I didn’t eat, but I guess I’ve felt worse,” he offered, only to find that his honesty pooled unexpected sadness in her eyes. “Relax,” he added, “I’m not blaming you for anything.”
“Even if you should?” Too many of those injuries had been caused by her.
“Now,” he quirked an eyebrow, “why should I blame you for me failing to eat breakfast and then fainting?”
“Because we both know that’s not what happened.”
“Really?” he said, lacing the word with mock surprise. “I could have sworn you told me I fainted.”
“But…”
With a sigh, he realized she was missing the point. “We don’t have to talk about it right now, alright? It’s okay.” He could feel the guilt in her presence, but he hadn’t been permanently injured as far as he could tell, and he knew, knew that her intent would never have been to hurt him. “Let’s do our jobs and get out of here, and then, if you want to talk about it, we can talk about it.”
She nodded, relief relaxing her expression. “Thank you.”
“Just stick with me.” This mission was enough of a mess already. “We’ll be fine.” Like he would for any member of the crew who lost their way, it was his job to throw out a lifeline and bring her back home. “All that matters is that you’re okay.” He did not want to find her wounded by her own actions. Everyone made mistakes, especially in times of emotion and stress, but not everyone shared her perfect memory. Any error she made could become an eternal scar, and she had suffered enough scars.
It had been his intention to leave then, but his words only seemed to make things worse, heightening the self-disgust she held for herself and the wariness with which she regarded him. She said nothing and made no attempt to call after him. She was willing to let him walk away, but he wouldn’t, couldn’t leave her like that. “You know,” he said, “I’m never going to be afraid of you, or afraid of helping you, but I don’t like seeing you hurt.” He knew very well her capability. Compared to him or any other member of the crew, she may as well have been a goddess, untouchable by the enemy. It was her own doubts that brought her the most pain. “You are not a monster.”
It took a moment for those words to register. Often, the Admiral said nothing more than what needed to be said. That was enough. It had been enough in this situation too. She would have asked nothing more of him, but still, he offered it, offered what she most wanted to hear, for she had never wanted to be a monster. Yet, Kallahan among others considered her to be a true demon capable only of carnage. And they were right. “I nearly killed you,” she admitted, voice barely above a whisper.
“You’d be surprised how often that happens to me,” the Admiral said. People had a tendency to want him dead. Understandable, he supposed. He’d done a lot of bad things.
She stared at him for a duration observable to human perception, eased to find that familiar calm upon his familiar face. All her components disrupted by Brent, damaged by the fight, could align themselves with that calm. There was more to say, there was always more to say: that physically he would have lived, but the him she knew, the him that cared for her would have died, yet he never prompted her for those details. He didn’t care about them, about how or why he’d gotten hurt, only that she was unhurt, or rather, undamaged.
“I’m like a cat,” he continued, stoic as ever. “I’ve got nine lives, and while I haven’t been counting, I’m sure I’ve still got a few to spare.”
She stood there blankly, struggling to come to terms with it all. “You don’t like cats,” her machine reminded her.
“I know.” It made the comparison all the more accurate. “Honestly, I don’t like me very much either. That’s why you’re in charge of me.”
Her rosy lips curled into a small smile. She couldn’t help it. She was tired, beyond exhausted by all that had happened, but he was now, like so many other times, being an idiot. “Thank you.” She meant, that truly meant that, as she restrained herself from latching onto his weakened presence. “But you,” my dear Admiral, “are needed on the bridge. I’ll be disengaging the automatic controls shortly.” She didn’t want to risk making another mistake. It would be better to let the crew handle things from here on.
“Wait until we dock. That’s where the initial phase of the mission plan ends.” Strictly, the automatic controls were not supposed to yield back to crew control. There was a very lengthy procedure to override and disengage them that took a fair amount of crew effort – effort they didn’t have the manpower for during the raid. It was possible, albeit unlikely, that the automatic protocols might yield control back to the crew after a mission plan was completed, but switching over in the middle of such a plan would be incredibly suspicious, to say the least.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Aye,” she confirmed.
He gave her a final nod, then headed toward the bridge. This mission cannot end soon enough, he thought. Not one single part of it had gone right so far. First the stealth technology on the shore batteries, then the railgun, then the cyberattack, and the now the involvement of a Hydrian AI. Admiral Gives did not have the slightest clue what he was sending the boarding parties into on the pirates’ base, but there was no avoiding it.
The door to the bridge creaked a bit as he opened it, but he thought little of it as he stepped through and sealed it again behind him. From there, he walked past the sensor console, nearest to the door, and headed for his usual spot beside the radar console’s flat top. The movement gave him a very odd sense of déjà vu, and a peculiar sense of annoyance – annoyance very specifically about how many steps it took him to get there.
Puzzled by the thought, he stopped midway across the room, only to look up and meet Kallahan’s gaze. It was studying him with poorly veiled distrust, but it also held a degree of pity, and Admiral Gives did not like that. Anytime Kallahan was not actively arguing with him, things had usually gone very wrong. But pity… That was entirely new and unwelcome.
“I was just telling them you felt unwell,” Kallahan said without missing a beat. “Nearly fainted out in the corridor while we spoke.”
That’s the best excuse you could think of? Almost anything would be better than that, but the Admiral had no choice but to roll with it. “Yes, my apologies. I just needed a moment to myself.”
“Shall I call Doctor Macintosh up here, sir?” Robinson asked.
“That is not necessary. I am feeling much better now.” There was no sense in pulling the ship’s doctor away from his post to aid in this farce. Still, he could feel that Kallahan, nor anyone else was convinced. Owens rubbed at her hand like it hurt while she, among others, avoided looking at him. Even Galhino seemed wary of looking is way, as if it would put weight on fractured glass. The last time the crew had regarded him with such hesitation had been in the years of Brent’s command, when they had feared he would react just like Brent, inflicting pain for the slightest infraction.
Then he saw the mug sitting on the edge of the console, its bitter odor hanging in the air like an unanswered taunt. Coffee. And though he had the memory of asking for it, he didn’t drink coffee. But he knew who did, and the realization instantly pushed nausea back to the forefront of his mind.
Stars. He’d made that possession comment mostly as a joke. Clearly, it was no wonder the ghost had not laughed. The crew was obviously treating him like Brent because he’d acted like that damn psychopath.
Between the pity in Kallahan’s eyes and the way his head hurt, Admiral Gives knew the ghost had somehow been involved. It wasn’t lost on him that she sometimes struggled to maintain control, nor was it lost on him that she struggled with Brent’s memory, but the shame in this situation was entirely his own. He meant every assurance he had offered the ghost. He would not resent her for something that had been unintentional. But if that memory, that horrible memory, had come to possess him, of everyone here, then what must she truly think of him? At least some part of her had to believe that he really was no different to her than Brent had been – an abuser, not a protector. And that, that truly did bring him shame, because he had never wanted to hurt her, even if he knew that he had.
Yet, no aspect of these worlds paused for shame. The mission certainly didn’t. From far aft, he heard the pitch of the engines change as the ship began to bank. He felt only an instant of the acceleration as the inertial dampeners compensated for it. It took them a hair longer than usual, their reactions slowed by the battle damage, but they kept the force well within comfortably tolerable limits. Naturally, he expected nothing less. The inertial dampeners were considered a critical system as they, like life support, were essential to keeping the crew alive. As such, they were one of the most redundant systems on the entire ship, and outside of purposeful sabotage, would likely never be rendered non-operational. Their efficiency suffered with damage, and sometimes the accelerations weren’t comfortable, but the dampeners always kept the crew safe.
And luckily, the perceptible movement shifted the crew’s attention off of Admiral Gives and back to the operations of the automated control network. By the print-outs on the screens, the location of the pirates’ base had been confirmed, and the ship had maneuvered towards it, facing no further challenges. Shown as little green dots on the radar displays, their support craft were shadowing the ship’s movements, staying alongside the Singularity’s port flank, exactly as intended.
Kallahan returned to his usual guard position by the door, and the Admiral moved into his usual place beside the radar console, giving the mug of coffee sitting on its edge an unnecessarily wide radius. Tapping on the rim of the console, he summoned a fragment of the ghost’s attention. ‘How’s it look?’
‘It looks like an asteroid with a base built from stolen habitat modules carved into it.’ Nothing about that was interesting or surprising. ‘Judging solely by the fact they haven’t fired on us, I would say the base is unarmed.’ She’d scanned for weapons and found none, but with Hydrian stealth tech capable of concealing things from the ship’s sensors, that meant less than the simple fact they hadn’t yet been attacked.
In that, at least one assumption Admiral Gives had drawn about Crimson Heart’s defenses was proven accurate. Technically, he’d also been correct on the number of Crimson Heart’s forces, just not their capability. Logically speaking however, it did not make sense for the pirate base to be armed. Even if an adversary had managed to punch through Crimson Heart’s other defenses, such an adversary would still have to locate the base’s exact position among the sea of roughly 700,000 asteroids that populated this system, and that could have taken days, even with a sensor system as powerful as the Singularity’s. And of course, that was before stealth tech and sensor interference got involved. Arming the base would only have made its power signature and material footprint larger and easier to detect.
Mounting weapons on the asteroid that housed their base also wasn’t necessarily wise, regardless of if they could go undetected. Even if Crimson Heart built mounts with enough strength to survive firing, the recoil of launching said weapons could spin the asteroid and make it difficult for their own ships to dock. Attitude thrusters could be installed to counter that, but once again, increased the detectability of the base. In all, the ability to hide among the asteroid belt was a far better defense than any weapon. Likely, Crimson Heart would never have engaged the Singularity had she not come into close proximity of their base – a base the Singularity only found because of coordinates acquired from Midwest Station.
‘Initiating specified scans…’ the automated controls announced. It specified no further, as the mission plan logged in the central computer dictated the bandwidth and duration of the scans. They served a very specific purpose: to locate a target that could transmit an electromagnetic pulse through the base’s power systems.
‘Priority target not found,’ the automated network reported, and having written the mission plan, Admiral Gives knew exactly what that meant. No solar arrays could be detected on the outside of the base or surface of the asteroid. The pirates were using an alternate method to power their base, likely an internal generator fed by stolen fuel. Still, the secondary target, while not guaranteed to be as effective, was guaranteed to be found. ‘Secondary target identified,’ the computers confirmed, jumping down a line to continue, ‘Loading modified missile…’
Far below decks, the Singularity’s loaders pulled one missile out of the lineup and slid it into position with one of the firing tubes. The missile’s waiting position and inventory tag had been specified by the mission plan, though its ugly, chipped paint made it seem an odd selection alongside its dozens of awaiting kin. However, the missile’s coating had only been chipped the previous night as the engineers and weapons specialists had disassembled it, replacing the missile’s explosive payload with a contact-triggered EMP generator. The mass distribution of the missile had been thrown off, so they’d modified its guidance and control systems too. Now, the wiring in the missile’s innards looked like strands of confetti, rerouted to balance its mass back out as the wiring harnesses were zip-tied together and wound in protective tape. It wasn’t a pretty thing, inside or out, but the job had been done by professionals.
The modified missile’s EMP generator couldn’t put out a signal with a large, destructive amplitude, as the Singularity was capable of, but it could output a power form specifically selected to disrupt and burnout the types of commercial equipment that Crimson Heart was likely to be using. It was designed to afflict the enemy base, and only the enemy base, unlike the self-destructive EMP the Singularity had used against Squadron 26.
To affect the enemy base, however, the missile had to strike an exposed target that could transfer its EM Pulse to all of the base’s power systems. In that, a solar array was an obvious priority. A direct source of power generation, a solar array would be tied in with the base’s entire power system. Without a solar array in use, however, the communications array became the next best option.
The irony was not lost on Admiral Gives. The enemy had used the Singularity’s communications array to weasel their cyberattack into the surrounding systems and paralyze the ship. Now, the Singularity was targeting the pirates’ array to destabilize and knock out power. The method they were using, a modified missile, had also been seen today. It was a Hydrian tactic that the Admiral had altered and adopted. Records indicated that the Hydrian Armada had been quite fond of modifying their missiles with shaped charges designed to breach certain armor architectures, or with other tricks such as tracking beacons and transmitters that physically carried their cyberattacks to the target.
In all the predictions he had made for this mission, Admiral Gives had not expected to be using a modified Hydrian tactic against a potentially Hydrian target, but he supposed that did not alter its effectiveness. When searching for a threat, most didn’t think to look in the mirror.
‘Firing…’ the automated control network declared, and unlike with the ship’s main battery, that was the only indication of the attack that could be felt, seen, or heard so deep in the ship’s core. All the ship’s missiles were self-propelled, and the propulsion systems of the modified missile had not been touched. By result, it imparted no recoil back onto the Singularity as it launched. The magnets in the missile tube latched onto the electromagnets inside the missile and flung it outward. Thrown a safe distance from the hull, the missile’s main engine kicked on: a large, bright rocket motor easily capable of evasive maneuvers though none were necessary as the weapon arced toward its target.
A few seconds later, impact was nothing special. The sheer force of the impact shredded the mesh and wire skeleton of the communications array and the missile’s long form crumpled into the structure of the base, tearing itself into a pile of small debris. With the missile’s warhead removed, there was no explosion. Only a few small remains of the missile drifted free, hardly even noticeable.
In the visual spectrum, the attack seemed useless. Physically, it damaged little, and on the base, nothing outwardly changed. However, the Singularity’s sensors rarely ever bothered with the visible spectrum. It was too easily obscured, and its finer details were difficult to accurately process. In the wider electromagnetic spectrum, the heat and magnetic effects that accompanied active power sources were much easier to study through the outer shell of the repurposed mining habitats that made up the pirate base.
‘No power signatures detected,’ the automated network confirmed, then proceeded with the mission plans. ‘Issuing attack command for unit designation: Task Force Alpha.’
Once again, the overhead speakers on the bridge crackled, playing the commands being transmitted to the support craft hugging the Singularity’s side. “Task Force Alpha is cleared to attack mission target. Repeat, Task Force Alpha is cleared to attack mission target.”
As the ever-calm voice of the automated protocols faded from the air, and the small swarm of friendly contacts dispersed on the radar readouts, heading toward the base. The automated control network wasted no further time. ‘Maneuvering into docking position…’
The thrum of the ship’s engines picked up, but only momentarily, closing the distance to the base now that the pirates’ sensors were taken out and theoretically blind. From there, the ship’s maneuvering thrusters did most of the work, making fine alignment corrections to line up the airlocks and ensure the ship had a velocity of zero, relative to the asteroid. Any difference in relative velocity would eventually rip the airlock connection apart, so what seemed a simple maneuver truly required a high degree of precision, but none beyond what a ship like the Singularity was capable of. The maneuver was not as quick or graceful under automated control as it perhaps would have been under the hand of a skilled pilot, but the job was soon done, and the control network confirmed as such, ‘Docking complete.’
The mating of the airlocks made no real noise, but Admiral Gives could still feel the reverberating clank that shivered across the Singularity’s structure. It was a nearly unfamiliar feeling, for it had been over a year since the Singularity last docked directly with any base or station. He did not trust others to respect and watch over the ship as her crew did, so he usually let their support craft or a station’s runners transfer their supplies and personnel. That had helped maintain a welcome buffer between the Singularity and the rest of the worlds.
As the automated network registered a solid connection on the airlock contact sensors, it issued the final command stored in the initial phase of the mission plan. ‘Issuing attack command for unit designation: Task Force Beta.’
Once again, the feminine voice of the Singularity’s automated protocols washed over the bridge, this time carried by the ship’s intercom to reach the boarding party below decks. “Task Force Beta is cleared to attack mission target. Repeat, Task Force Beta is cleared to attack mission target.”