Cardioid Sector, HR-14 System, Battleship Singularity
Admiral Gives felt sick. Feverish chills swept across his body, coupled with an all-consuming headache that worsened in every move he made. It hadn’t gotten worse after his near-collapse, but it also wasn’t getting better.
Kallahan was studying him, trying to predict when he might collapse entirely. Perhaps that would be a mercy, or perhaps, given the severity of his current condition, it would plunge him into a dangerous coma. Not even the Admiral would pretend to understand the consequences, only that he, usually a determined pillar of strength, was suffering. Still, he concealed his condition well. He was usually still. He never idly shifted his weight or tapped his foot, so none of the bridge crew thought anything of his unmoving position against the wall, but Kallahan had seen him nearly keel-over and seemed determined not to let the matter rest. “Are you certain you’re alright?”
Let’s not pretend you care, the Admiral thought. “I am fine,” he told the Marine, pleased to hear his voice default to its calm, practiced neutral. This felt something like the flu, if the flu permeated his entire existence and could not be eased by fever-reducers. However, this was not the first time he had held the watch in some form of illness or injury. Personal misery hardly affected the logic required of command.
The crackle of the bridge’s overhead speakers spared him Kallahan’s response as the ship picked up another transmission from the boarding party. “Base,” Lieutenant Colonel Pflum’s accented voice called, “this is Unit Alpha-One. We’ve made contact with Baron Cardio. He’s offering to negotiate a surrender with terms.”
Lieutenant Robinson looked over to the Admiral, who nodded. Oddly, the movement didn’t worsen his headache, only pushed a bit of nausea to the surface, but he supposed he hadn’t suffered a physical injury as much as he had suffered a mental one. “Put me though,” he said, moving back toward the radar console in the center of the room. He made the walk slowly, not wanting the Baron to think him over-eager and because his hand-eye coordination was still not quite right. He could move, but even the simplest tasks took more effort than they should have. Even the result of even a practiced habit like walking was imperfect, gait unsteady, but if he focused, it was manageable. However, the need to focus on such mundane tasks was exhausting.
Robinson hurried back up to the raised ring of consoles that circled the edge of the bridge, taking her usual place beside the comms controls once more. As the Admiral wrapped his hand around the handset on the radar console, she signaled ready, but the sound of another incoming transmission made him pause.
“Base, Unit Beta-One. Put me through to Actual. It’s urgent.”
Colonel Zarrey sounded breathless, not pained, but utterly shocked. That wasn’t normal for the Colonel’s lively disposition. The Baron can wait, Admiral Gives knew. He met Robinson’s brown eyes, “Connect me to Beta-One.”
‘Wise choice.’
The ghost’s input nearly made him flinch. It wasn’t painful, but he hadn’t felt her attention shift back onto him the way he usually did. It was rather like happening upon someone he had heard coming down the hallway versus turning around and finding someone breathing down his neck, except the hallway was his head, and he didn’t like surprises. But the ghost continued, undisturbed, ‘Of course, you are always rather wise, Admiral.’ His instincts were some of the finest she had ever seen. Usually, they brought him to the right decision before she ever had to intervene.
From his perspective, that hardly felt like praise, and not in the playful sense that being called wise made him feel old. No, the comment felt void. It had been leveled without any warmth – a compliment paid by a prim, business-like presence, cool, yet not cold in feel.
In that instant, the ghost felt more like a machine than she ever had before.
He tried not to let that concern him.
As he picked up the handset, Robinson patched him through to Zarrey’s team. “Beta-One, this is Actual. Go ahead.”
“Thank fuck,” Zarrey said. “I’ve got the mother of all damn surprises down here, Actual. A stars-forsaken Hydra!”
That statement probably should have surprised the Admiral, but the signs had been everywhere, all pointing to some level of Hydrian presence on the base. From the cyberattack, to the shaped charges on the missiles, to the fuel barrels in the hangar, this could hardly be an unexpected development. And, ill as he felt, he didn’t have the energy be alarmed. “Congratulations, Colonel, you are the first Marine to encounter a living Hydra in the last forty-seven years.” A thought occurred to him, “And he is alive, correct?”
“Yeah,” Zarrey answered, clearly still grappling with his encounter, as the answer came off somewhat whimsical before he corrected himself with more certainty. “I mean, yes, sir. He is alive.”
“Good,” the Admiral answered. “I have a few questions for him to answer.” And very likely, the answers that Hydrian drone gave would determine if his presence on this side of the Neutral Zone had been an accident or an intentional act of war. “Is he being cooperative?”
“Oh yes, sir,” Zarrey said. “Freakishly polite. Says he’s been Crimson Heart’s prisoner for many cycles, whatever that means.”
“Years, Colonel.” It means years. But if the drone had been missing for that long, why had the Empire not come looking, or accused humanity of violating the treaty? “Thus,” he refocused himself on the immediate priority, “I doubt he will object to a change of scenery. Bring him aboard. Secure him in a small state room. Guard him until we disembark, then someone will relieve you.” Under no circumstances could the Hydra be left unsupervised, but they also couldn’t default to throwing him in the brig – not until it was proven the Hydra had done something wrong.
“Aye, sir.” Zarrey acknowleged. “We’ll pack up and head back, Beta-One out.”
Yet, while Zarrey willingly complied, the ghost snarled at the Admiral, ‘I don’t want that thing brought aboard.’
‘I need to interrogate it.’
‘Yes,’ she confirmed. ‘And you can interrogate it in its cell once the base is secure.’
‘I won’t risk Crimson Heart killing their prisoner before we find out why it’s here.’ If the pirates were somehow collaborating with the Hydrian Empire, or concealing their own violation of the treaty by imprisoning him, they may, out of desperation, kill the prisoner before that could be revealed.
She didn’t reply to that. The concern was valid. How Crimson Heart had acquired Hydrian technology, along with a Hydrian prisoner was still unknown.
‘I understand how you feel.’ Her past with the Hydra was storied. The carnage wrought by the War had been unforgivable, and she had borne witness to far too much of it. ‘But we need answers, and that drone is our best shot at getting them.’
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘But I’ll be keeping it unconscious until you interrogate it.’ The crew would be safer that way, and it might prevent her from snapping the Hydra’s mind in utter disgust.
That debate settled, the Admiral ordered Robinson, “Connect me with Pflum’s unit.” Time to see what the Baron wants.
‘He wants the Hydra,’ the ghost informed him.
‘Well, he’s not getting it.’ The answers that Hydra gave under interrogation could very well determine the fate of humanity. The question of the alien’s presence here needed to be answered, even if most of the possible answers pointed toward war.
Adjusting the weight of the handset he held, Admiral Gives was pleased that his hand had started to ache. While it hurt, it meant that his sense of touch was finally realigning to what it should be. Holding this handset’s weight, his burned hand should ache. Curiously, he tapped his other hand on the console, grateful to feel the scratches on its surface, rather than a static tingle. The movement of his fingers still weren’t perfect, but they were finally beginning to improve.
When the line to Pflum’s team on the other side of the base connected, the Admiral spoke, “Alpha-One, this is Actual. Where is the Baron?”
“He says he is safely guarded in the control room, sir. He also noted there are no supply stores there, so we have no need to pursue him, especially since we have already located Crimson Heart’s main storehouse.”
And there goes any hope that Pflum’s team had captured him directly. Naturally, that would have been too easy. “I am willing to accept his surrender on those terms. We do not need the base’s control room for our objective.” The Baron was more than welcome to hole up there.
“Those were not his terms, sir,” Pflum relayed. “There is a prisoner here, held in the east side of the base. The Baron wants him left there. If we withdraw from that part of the base, he is offering to let us take the supplies without further resistance.”
“How did the Baron contact you?”
“A small drone, sir. Climbed out of the vents.”
A drone. Small drones with independent power sources may have been insulated from the power surge that had taken out the rest of the pirate base’s systems. “Patch the Baron’s messenger in. I want him to hear what I am about to say, directly.”
“Yes, sir,” Pflum answered. “Just a moment.”
There was a pause as Pflum’s team worked on connecting the Baron’s drone into comms. During that pause, Admiral Gives found the bridge crew looking at him strangely. They knew as well as he did that the position marker for Zarrey’s team was on the eastern edge of the base. The Baron was negotiating to keep a prisoner that Admiral Gives had already ordered removed.
“Ready, sir,” Pflum said, “We’ve set up the Baron’s drone as a relay.”
“And I thank them for that,” the Baron’s velvety voice cut in. “I must say the aptitude of your crew surprises me, Prince. The fleet always rated them lowly.” He helped himself to a hearty chuckle. “Now, what is it you wanted so badly for me to hear?”
“You do not have surveillance in the eastern part of the base,” not a question, but a statement. Surveillance existed on the base, but not there. The Baron knew some of the Marines had headed toward the eastern part of the base. He had likely seen them in route, but was unaware the prisoner had already been found.
“Sure I do,” the Baron replied confidently.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“No,” the Admiral said more forcefully, “you do not.” The Baron had chosen a poor bluff. Admiral Gives pressed the handset to his shoulder, allowing the thick fabric of his uniform jacket to mute his conversation with the Baron. He turned his attention instead to Robinson, “Can you isolate the control frequency for the drone?” Now relayed on their communications, it should be exposed – higher in amplitude than the background noise it had previously been hidden amidst.
Robinson nodded, “Yes, sir.” Carried by the communication, it was now easy to identify.
“Standby to begin jamming,” the Admiral told her, then returned his focus to the leader of the pirates. “Surveillance drones are only as good as their concealment, Baron.” Bringing one into the open had been a mistake.
It was a matter of logic. Any drone that managed contact with Pflum’s team would have been small, small enough to conceal itself and sneak into audible range. To claim knowledge, even partial, of the fight was another misstep. Not only would the drone providing that intel be small, but it would also have to carry cameras and speakers, identifying it as a surveillance drone. With power out, there could be no automated control system for such drones. They would have to be controlled by a human operator via remote. The frequency band of that remote was usually discarded as background noise, but if discovered and disrupted by jamming or other means, the drones became inoperable, no matter how many were hidden on the base.
“I will offer you a choice, Baron,” the Admiral told him. “You can pull back your men and live to steal another day, or you can resist further and be executed alongside them.”
Baron Cardio scoffed at that threat. “I want my prisoner left alone, Prince.”
“That was not my offer.”
“You are to pull your forces from that part of my base,” the Baron said. “Take everything else in exchange.”
“Everything else is already being taken.” Further resistance mattered very little.
“You would endanger your crew so willingly? My prisoner is heavily guarded by my most capable crew.”
“Was,” the Admiral corrected.
“What?”
“Was heavily guarded by your most capable crew.” Zarrey’s team had already fought their way through. “But such details should hardly concern you, Baron.” To take or leave the Hydra was entirely the Admiral’s decision, and though the decision was already made, the Baron would be none the wiser to it once his drones were cut off.
“That prisoner is the key to everything I have built!”
“And your surrender is the key to your survival,” the Admiral said, a hint of ice taking root in his tone. “I will give you one minute from the end of this conversation, Baron. After that minute, your drones will be rendered inoperable. Use that time to order your men to stand down. If they fire on my forces after that minute, I will consider that consent for both your and their execution.”
“This is not a negotiation.”
“And you have no ground to negotiate from.” The Singularity’s forces were quite decisively winning this fight. A surrender now only hastened the inevitable end. “We will be taking your supplies and it is my decision to leave or take your prisoner. We will be long gone from this system by the time you learn what choice I made, so the only real uncertainty you should consider in this situation is if you live though this raid.”
“And what is to stop you from destroying my base once you leave?” What point was there in surrender?
“Absolutely nothing,” the Admiral answered honestly. Sheer boredom and the satisfaction of being unpredictable perhaps? “However, I may be encouraged to permit your continued existence by your immediate surrender.” But perhaps not.
The Baron laughed loudly. “Enjoy this surrender, Prince, for if you take that prisoner, it may be the last you ever receive.”
----------------------------------------
Cardioid Sector, HR-14 System, Crimson Heart’s Base of Operations
Watching the airlock was every bit as boring as Alise Cortana had dreaded it would be. It was a pointless waste of her talents. She, a decorated Marine from one of the most honored posts in the fleet, had been relegated to this – to standing with her boots planted on the wall in zero-G. The airlock opened at her feet like a hole, ready to swallow her whole, stretching down, down, down into the structure of a ship. Maybe, without gravity, it shouldn’t feel like a deadly pit, but she supposed the foreboding she felt from it had nothing to do with the size of the opening, or with the web of trusses that waited beyond, patiently awaiting the moment they could tangle her in their web. No, it had nothing to do with the physicality of the walkway that stretched between the hulls. It had everything to do with the battleship itself.
Sergeant Cortana had been on other ships. True, they had never been her permanent assignment, but she had seen them, traveled aboard them. The Singularity was something worse than all of them. It had nothing to do with the age of the ship, though she was not fond of its antiquated composition. It had nothing to do with the crew either. They were a colorful bunch, a far cry from the practiced manners and formalities of those she’d served with in Eagle’s Talon, but they weren’t inherently bad people. Even if she’d ostracized herself from their ranks, they meant her no harm. And, as much as she’d like to blame the Admiral for her lingering sense of malcontent, she had only interacted with him a handful of times, most of which were missteps of her own making.
No, Cortana could not discern what exactly made the Singularity feel so dreadful. That in itself frustrated her beyond compare. It should have been easy to identify, as if she could point a finger at that specific trait and will it into nonexistence. Yet, she couldn’t, so standing here on the edge of an airlock that felt ready to swallow her existence only tightened her jaw with more anger.
Her constant anger came from everywhere and nowhere and she tried not to take it out on the crew, but it showed. It twisted her temperament every time they denied her skills, every time she was singled out for a duty she didn’t want. Honestly, she had never wanted to be on this ship, to be part of Admiral Gives’ rebellion from Command. All Cortana had wanted was to prove herself as the Sergeant, the leader she knew she could be. Sure, she was not as experienced in zero-G as the Marines that had served shipboard their entire career, but she knew she could lead them where it counted. Leaders didn’t need to be the most skilled person in the unit. They only needed to be confident and orderly, prepared to use the skills of those under their command to complete the objective. Leaders weren’t supposed to be the first one in through the door, something the Singularity’s pig-headed executive officer seemed incapable of comprehending.
Yet, for all her certainty, for all her leadership training and experience, she was relegated here, to stand watch over the gaping entrance to a cursed ship. The rest of the crew would never call it that. For some reason Cortana could never comprehend, they adored the old battleship and all its quirks. They called its weird creaking comforting, its uncanny reflections of emotion marks of character – as if that was all normal.
There was only one oddity the crew didn’t brush off as normal: the ghost. Usually, they wouldn’t speak in depth on the subject, but they had told her enough. The apparition was an ill-omen. Those who saw its long, white hair were marked for death. Perhaps that was why the crew had been so determined to leave her here. If she were destined to die, it was better her fate not entangle one of the Marine teams. Such superstitious drivel would have annoyed her if it hadn’t been for her horrific second encounter with the revenant in question. That incident drifted through her thoughts in pieces, a half-remembered memory, comfortably out of reach and yet leering at her from beyond. The details of it were hazy, but the threat, the fear ever-present. She would never have imagined a rumored ghost could be that powerful, yet it had folded her mind with greater ease than paper.
Ever since, Cortana had looked at the crew differently: with more respect, perhaps, but also with curiosity. The Singularity’s crew was rumored to be a group of misfits and misdemeanors – not the kind of people that would create a competent, agreeable crew, especially on the long, isolated voyages the ship’s commander favored. So how many of those rumors had been false? Or how many of the crew had been visited by the ghost and folded into shape?
Sergeant Cortana’s contemplation went no further than that. The radio in her helmet cracked. “Hey, Sarge, we’re coming around the corner,” warned a voice that given its utter lack of decorum could only have belonged to Colonel Zarrey.
“Roger,” Cortana replied, annoyed by both the interruption and the warning itself. If he felt the need to warn her of his approach, surely he thought her incapable of telling friend from foe before firing. “My rifle is secured.” Her finger had hovered near the safety, but she’d never disengaged it on this incredibly boring watch.
“Good,” Zarrey replied. “We’ve got a rather scaly traveling companion. Wouldn’t want you to jump. Definitely wouldn’t blame you if you did, though.”
Sergeant Cortana was not given time to consider that reply. Zarrey’s team began to round the corner. The Colonel led them, looking even more unkempt than usual, a gouge carved deep into the matte black surface of his helmet. The sniper, a tall, narrow woman of few words followed him. Cortana had never liked her, but wasn’t given time to fixate on that, because the thing following absorbed her attention completely and totally.
It looked entirely fake. Naked, not even a yard of fabric hung anywhere on its form, but it hardly needed it. There was nothing for clothing to conceal, its skin held a thick, waxy appearance, subdivided into scales that flexed and slid smoothly over one another with every movement. Each of its four limbs were as long and dexterous as the others. Its wicked claws found purchase on the smooth walls with horrifying efficiency as it followed in line with Zarrey’s team.
Cortana could not help but stiffen as it approached, wary of the way it moved: quick, and unfathomably efficient in zero-G. Hopping between surfaces without magboots, it looked to be swimming through the air. “Is that…?”
Zarrey nodded, “Sure is.”
The Colonel said a few other things, some explanation of where the Hydra was being taken, but Cortana didn’t care to hear it, fixated on the Hydra’s dark eyes. It didn’t glow with body heat the way that the humans around it did. Its outline was just a little lighter than the surrounding walls, giving it a phantom-like appearance though her infrared goggles. She flinched unwillingly when the Hydra latched onto the outer door of the airlock connection, its long, slender body, stretching and twisting into the space beyond her feet. Its sharp, split tongues lashed out, tasting the air before it paused and raised its head once more. “Your ship reeksss like a Queen’s nest.”
“I’m going to take that as a complement,” Zarrey called from deeper into the ship. “Now, let’s move, big guy.”
The Hydra paused for another moment, tilting its head as it drilled Cortana with its dark stare. “You,” it told her, “you poison your Queen, taint giftsss that should ssstrengthen you.”
It said nothing else, just slithered into the airlock beyond, shadowed by the last two members of Zarrey’s team. Cortana stared after it, a shiver creeping across her skin. What did that mean?
Several minutes later, Cortana was still staring after the Hydra when she heard a clatter down the corridor. Wrenching herself free of distraction, she raised her rifle to scope out the direction of the noise.
She saw nothing in the distance. The prefabricated hallway and its plain surfaces were just as empty as before, save the little piece of metal drifting away. A wrench, she identified it as it bounced away from the wall. It hit the ceiling of the passageway again a little further down, making another, softer clatter.
Recognizing the oddity of something she was certain hadn’t been there before, she turned to scope out the other approach angles to the airlock. A pair of strong hands grabbed her from behind before she could complete the movement.
Damp and scratchy, a rag was shoved into her mouth. It muffled her cry, doused in some chemical that burned her throat and lungs as she inhaled.
Cortana tried to shake off her attacker, to pivot and toss him, but her feet were anchored by her magboots. She fought to disengage them in a panic, just trying to get free any way she could, but her inexperience cost her. One foot came free, the other didn’t. She kicked backward, clawing at the gloved hands holding that chemical rag over her nose and mouth, but it was no use. Her attacker wasn’t standing behind her, but on the adjacent wall, in a different orientation – something she only realized as her head began to loll and her thoughts began to slow.
Seconds later, her arms could do nothing but flail loosely, and her panic had been smothered by drug-induced relaxation. “There, there,” her attacker said, “it’s easier if you don’t panic.”
The rag was pulled from her face, and Cortana only bobbed back and forth, limply anchored to the wall by one mag boot. She felt nothing now, numb to the world, a call to sleep rising from her body.
Her attacker spoke with a husky voice, one she decided she liked as he took hold of her arm. “Telepaths can perceive others’ panic, their uncertainty. That’s why you need the drugs, Sergeant. If you don’t feel it, neither can they.” Gently, he straightened out her arm, pulling her sleeve up to expose the bare flesh of the wrist. “We’re on the same team,” he promised, pressing a silver device against her skin. “You know these worlds cannot abide anarchy.”
An injector. She could see the needles begin to emerge. One of them was massive, the other no larger than a vaccine injection. She tried to pull her arm back, wary of such a large needle, but her arm simply remained limp. Numbly, almost uncaringly, she watched those needles pierce her skin, sliding slowly and easily in. She expected it to hurt, but she felt nothing as her attacker pushed down the large plunger, planting something beneath the skin with a final jolt. The other plunger went more smoothly, an injection of some liquid – another drug as she felt her eyelids grow heavy.
“I’m so glad I found you, Sergeant,” he said, brushing tucking a strand of her hair gently back below her helmet. His touch was so gentle that she hardly even noticed her rifle strap being pulled up and over her head. “Now, I can complete the rest of my mission.”
He pulled the rifle into place on his shoulder, and offered a reassuring smile. “You’ll do wonderful, Sergeant.”
And the last thing Alise Cortana saw though the darkening tunnel of her vision, was a pirate pushing off the frame of the airlock, and sailing deeper into the ship.