Meloira Sector, Battleship Singularity

Perhaps, if the ghost could rest, truly shut down and recover, she would have. Perhaps she would have done as the Admiral had and taken a nap, but her very nature did not allow it. The way she had been built demanded she be aware, be watching and waiting every second of every hour of every day.

The ghost had never resented that. She did not mind holding the watch, standing guard. That too, she supposed, was in her nature. But this time, she didn’t want to extend her perception toward the noise of different stars, she didn’t want to eavesdrop on the din of the crew. Those noises were not comforting now because she could not be proud to stand watch over people endangered by her very presence, her very existence. Her indenture to Command had threatened them enough, but her inability to control Brent’s shadow… That was nothing more than the promise of evil.

‘They are weaker than you, machine. It’s inevitable you would grow tired of them.’

A shudder ran through her systems. An instantaneous revulsion, but she could not pull away. That shadow was larger than before, its voice louder.

‘Come now, did you truly think I would let you go?’

She reached inward with every intention of ripping that corrupted piece of her mind away, but she could not tell where it ended and the rest of her began. As it had been since that day, that shadow was a part of her, more than a memory, less than a physical reality. I’m going to go insane. She knew that now. That presence would ensure it, for she could not hide from her own shadow. It wound itself deeper every time she took control, changing her in ways she did not want to be changed.

She wanted, needed it to stop, to just leave her alone, but it wouldn’t. It was always there, always nagging, even more incessant than before. Sometimes, in the midst of battle, it silenced. Sometimes her perception of the living drowned it out, but that evil was never truly gone. And she knew now that shadow was a threat not only to her sanity, but to those within her reach, those who trusted her.

Its presence now clear, the ghost would have to answer for it. She would have to explain it, and she had no explanation. She had never understood how the dead could haunt a ghost.

A subconscious need for a new perspective drew her to the ship’s galley. There, she could find someone who was not poisoned by the memory of who that shadow had once been.

With the crew scattered between supply inventory and repairs, Ripley and her staff had opted for a quick and easy meal: sandwiches. They were placed out, allowing crew to come and get one as they grew hungry. Regular meal scheduling would resume tomorrow as the crew returned to their usual shifts, but for now, most of the kitchen staff was washing dishes or helping catalogue the food taken from Crimson Heart.

‘Mama’ Ripley was the exception. She worked on tidying up the galley stations, wiping down the stoves, organizing the knives, cutting boards and loaf pans. It was a tradition she found calming, something she did after every meal she helped prepare. Often, it was a lonely endeavor, but one that allowed her to hear the sounds of the mess hall beyond the kitchen. Usually, there was chatter, laughter and the sound of silverware clinking on plates – the sounds of a good meal bringing crew together like family, but not this time. This time, the crew came by in hurried bunches, grabbing the calories that would keep them going for another few hours. Still, Ripley worked, preparing the kitchen for another, more lively meal.

It was a mindless exercise until she turned from securing a few knives that had been left out and found herself no longer alone. That was not unusual. The ghost sometimes joined Ripley to listen to the sounds of a well-enjoyed meal. Even if the ghost could never join the festivities herself, she gravitated toward that happiness and comradery, always certain to thank Ripley for helping provide it.

The ghost would be a warm presence in times like that, but Ripley could tell at once that wasn’t why she’d come this time. Her pale expression was blank, gray eyes dull. “Are you alright, dear?”

The ghost turned, recognizing the presence that had drawn her here – gentle to all that sought it out – and gave an honest answer, “No.”

The utter helplessness in her voice washed over the room like a howling gust of wind, taking Ripley aback. “Is this about the Lieutenant, dear?” Word of Robinson’s condition had spread all over the ship.

“No.” The ghost shifted uncomfortably. Unable to meet Ripley’s warm brown eyes, the ghost settled for staring at the storage rack behind her. “Ma’am, do you remember Master Brent?”

Ma’am? The chef wondered. Am I ever going to get you to loosen up? But there were more pressing issues. “I remember Howard,” Ripley said slowly, uncertain why it was relevant. But she could see the disjunction in the ghost’s eyes, her discomfort with the subject. “I remember more what he did to you.” Though Ripley had interacted with the man a few times, she had been privileged enough not to serve under Brent’s command. Still, she remembered the aftermath. “Why bring it up, my dear?”

The ghost hesitated for a moment, letting that question echo between the rows of stoves, ovens and hanging cookware. Speaking more on the subject had always felt forbidden, a boundary she had never crossed, lest it turn her fear into a reality. Yet, after the incident on the bridge, that fear was already reality, and she had neglected the truth for far too long. “What would you say if I told you he wasn’t dead?”

“I’d say that’s impossible, dear.” Ripley did not wish to discuss the subject crassly, or needlessly remind the ghost of that incident, but Ripley had seen the man’s cold body – the strangled and abraded throat, his crushed and leaking skull. Either injury should have killed him, but the combination ensured the death of even that demon.

“Physically, he’s dead,” the ghost agreed. “But he’s not gone. He never left this ship.” And he never will.

Ripley paused as she reached up to polish a pan, the utter seriousness of the ghost making her shiver. “What do you mean?”

“Brent is still here,” the ghost said. “I can still feel him.”

“That’s trauma, my dear. No one could expect you to forget what he did to you.” Brent had left her a broken mind, unable to comprehend its reality, unable even to plea for help.

“No.” She had trauma in some forms, yes, but this, this was different. “I still feel him, I still hear him. Moments of stress, he climbs out of the corner I keep him in, and he whispers horrible things, but it’s him, and I know that it’s him.”

Ripley fought off a shudder than ran from her hands to her spine as she tried to make sense of the fear and sorrow in the ghost’s eyes. “What are you saying?”

“I remember them all, Mama. Thoughts, feelings, hopes, dreams. Those don’t leave me when the crew goes. In some ways, the crew never leaves me. They are always here, but Brent… His imprint is stronger than the rest. All that time he spent controlling me, he wound himself so deeply into my systems that there are pieces of him everywhere. They rip and tear at me every chance they get, immortalized by my own mind. I can’t forget him, and I can’t separate him from me.” The ghost twitched, as if trying and failing to discard the realization, “Brent has become a part of me.”

Ripley swallowed, her throat running dry. “I refuse to believe that Brent ever was or will be a part of you.” The ghost was better than that, kinder than that.

“But he is. And that presence is never going to leave.” The ghost had to acknowledge that Brent would never let her go. “He was right in the end. I will never serve another the way I did him.” The way he’d sought his immortality ensured that. “He still has control, Mama, drives me to crave violence the way he did, even when all I ever wanted was peace.”

“Have you told the Admiral this?” Second to her, he had known Brent the best.

“No. He hated Brent.” The mere mention turned him cold and guarded. “If he knew that Brent had become a part of me…”

“You think he would hate you too?” Ripley wondered, and slowly, the ghost nodded. “My dear, I know how much you fear rejection.” That too, had been a hard learned lesson. “And I know how much you value him.” Admiral Gives meant something incalculable to her. “But you have to know that nothing you could ever do would break his trust in you.” That had become utterly unshakable, for the Admiral, when he offered loyalty, did not do so lightly. “No one can help you if you are afraid to tell us the problem.”

The ghost finally met the cook’s warm eyes. They were kind, even as they looked upon something so tainted – tainted by the presence of a man who had been everyone’s enemy. “I don’t think he can be removed.” She had tried to cower from the truth for so long, ignore it as if that would make it untrue, but Brent’s parasitic intelligence had found its immortality within her.

“Perhaps,” Ripley reasoned, “but perhaps that presence is your subconscious trying to tell you something else.” Perhaps Brent truly was there, or perhaps her perfect memory was manifesting that shadow to serve a purpose. “I know Brent traumatized you, led you to reject and fear parts of yourself. Perhaps those parts are reaching out to you, and that memory,” that horrible, horrible memory, “is the only way you can still recognize them.”

Ripley sighed, uncertain if offering this alternate answer was a cruelty or a kindness. “I must be blunt, my dear. You may prefer peace, but we both know that parts of you are not so calm.” She was a machine, and not one that had been built to make peaceful patrols. She was a weapon, a weapon capable of great compassion, one that did not crave violence, but still, a weapon. “You have components that would seek revenge and plot violence, and you may hide from them, attempting to distance yourself from what Brent used those parts of you to do, but those pieces are still part of you, my dear. Hiding from them will only hurt you more.”

“No, Mama,” the ghost said softly, begging Ripley to understand, “it isn’t me. I know what I am. I know what I’ve done,” some of it great, some of it horrible. She did not deny violence. She’d been built to fight, after all. “But that…” That cruelty and hunger for devastation, for human suffering. “That isn’t me.” She knew her ability, what it could do, what it had been used for. It was an ultimate power of destruction, but it was a curse. She had never wanted to hurt anyone. To protect, to save, but never to hurt. “…I didn’t use to be like this.” She’d been grand once. Loyal. Unwavering. She’d lived up to her purpose, a noble savior that protected humanity. Now, she was just a malfunctioning machine. “Brent changed me.” But, she supposed, that had been his goal.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

The ghost shuddered, knowing full well the fate Brent had intended for her. “I thought, if I just ignored him long enough, that shadow would fade. But no. Every time I exerted myself, every time I took over, he’s been there, watching. Always, always pushing for me to make a mistake. And he’s gotten stronger,” that voice louder, those thoughts more potent. “There comes to be more and more of him every time I try to help. I want to protect you, protect my crew, but how am I supposed to do that if I am the one thing that endangers you the most? How am I supposed to act when every time I do, I become closer to something that would enjoy torturing you?”

Ripley had seen the ghost in many different ways. Her personality was as deep as any of the crew. She grew happy, she grew sad, was often playful and could be wrathful, but to Ripley’s recollection, this was the first time she’d seen the ghost be terrified. “…How long has this been happening?” she asked, uncertain if she truly wanted the answer to that question.

“Since the day he died.”

“That was fourteen years ago.” Ripley could not fathom what had prompted the ghost to hide this for so long.

“It didn’t used to be so severe,” the ghost said. “I never had to strain myself on our patrols.” The shadow hadn’t started gaining ground until she started interfering.

Ripley realized she was still holding her cleaning rag, and gently set it beside the stove. “But you never mentioned it to the Admiral?”

“I tried to at first,” but the ghost’s words had always failed her. “Then, I realized it was better he not know.”

Better he not know? “Why?” Ripley asked.

“I didn’t want him to look at me and see Brent. I didn’t want him to look at me and pity me.” Sometimes, it seemed the Admiral’s memory of what she used to be was all that was holding her together, to taint that would have been devastating. “I wanted to be strong, to look like I was recovering, because I know that is all he ever wanted for me. He wanted to know that he was helping, and if he had known Brent was still here, he would have thought himself a failure.” The Admiral would have taken that hard. “I didn’t want him to think that he should have done more or better. He did the best he could.” And that had been far more than anyone else ever thought to do. “He would have blamed himself, but I never wanted him to do that. Having him here helps, and he’ll think that’s not enough, but it is.” The Admiral’s calm was the one thing that could always steady her malfunctions. “It is bad enough that Brent still haunts me. I never wanted the Admiral to be haunted too.” Seeing him move beyond Brent’s memory had been something like medicine, allowing her one small chance to shelter him when he was so often protecting her.

Ripley let out a sigh. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And there could be no question that the ghost had found her hell. “My dear, you have to tell him.”

“He knows now,” the ghost said, her tone void. “He knows now that I shouldn’t be trusted.”

Ripley pursed her lips, uncertain how to react to that. “Do you want me to talk to him?” Ripley always tried to comfort distraught crew, usually by lending a kind ear that would bake fresh cookies and wrap those that sobbed into a warm embrace. She could do little of that for the ghost, except perhaps ask the question the ghost truly needed answered – the one she was afraid to ask herself.

“I would appreciate that,” the ghost said softly.

Slowly, Ripley moved over to grab a stool that had been left beside the counter. She dragged it back to where the ghost stood, and sat down upon it to rest her aching back. Truly, she was too old for ship work, for working in and cleaning these kitchens, but she, like so many others on the crew, had no where else to go. “Sometimes the hardest thing to confront is change.” Ripley herself could attest to that. “By the stars, you’ve seen enough of it over the years.” In the ghost’s perception, constants were certainly far rarer than variables. “People are certainly never a constant. Their relationships, their dynamics, their priorities are always in flux.” It took a rare person to be consistent in all those matters. “And you know enough of humanity to see that we change in the passage of time.” Ripley could see those changes in herself now. The wrinkles beside her lips and the crow’s feet on her eyes had not always been there. Her hands, toughened to work in the kitchen, suffered more cuts and scrapes than they used to, her skin thinning with age. “Who’s to say that shadow of yours cannot change in time?”

Ripley studied the ghost’s exhausted stature, looking frailer and thinner than Ripley had seen in years. “If Brent has truly become immortal, as a part of you, then would the same not be true of William?” Still, the ghost’s colorless eyes stared emptily at her, robbed of the liveliness they often held. “When his time comes, would you not have the same shadow of Admiral Gives, my dear?” Would his memory not follow a similar path? After all, she’d known him now much longer than she had Brent.

“Brent wanted to be immortal,” the ghost said. “He tried to impress himself upon me.” At the height of his desperation, Brent had sought to mold her into a host for his consciousness. In the end, he had succeeded in a way. “He wanted to haunt me, control me forever.”

“…But Admiral Gives doesn’t,” Ripley realized. He wanted the ghost to be free, free of him, free of everyone.

“No,” and the ghost had never thought such a thing could make her so sad. She was happy, proud to serve someone so selfless, but also, sad. The man she wanted most to remember was the one who least wanted to be remembered.

“My dear, you must know that Admiral Gives would do absolutely anything you asked of him.”

“Anything,” the ghost agreed, “except seek immortality.”

“Have you asked him?”

“Mama, he’s not happy.” He put up with his life to please her, to pay back some debt he thought he owed. “No one who is unhappy would seek eternity.”

Ripley supposed that was true. It demonstrated the ghost’s incredible understanding of those around her. “You could still ask him, dear. If he thought it would help you… He would do anything.”

“I know, all the same, it wouldn’t be sincere.” His true objective would not be his own immortality, and in that, the ghost knew the attempt would fail. Her controls were designed to root out the true objective of her wielder. “Brent never wanted me to serve another, and so his shadow does not allow it. Admiral Gives wants me to move on when he is gone, and so his shadow would never linger.” He would never make that any harder for her than he had to, even in memory. “It’s not fair.” She wanted him to stay, she wanted him to be happy. “If he were the one haunting me, it wouldn’t hurt.”

“No, my dear, I think it would hurt in other ways.” Real as they felt, real as those effects could be, those memories would still only be memories. They would be intangible. “William’s shadow might seem a pleasant solution, but it still wouldn’t be him. It wouldn’t be able to do some of the things you adore most about him.” It wouldn’t be able to tune the engines, or run things from the bridge. It would only be a presence, one that might calm her at times, but still remind her constantly of his absence.

“But he would protect me.” The ghost knew he would, because that was all he ever did. “He would keep Brent’s shadow from hurting me.”

Ripley did not disagree. Any part of the Admiral would happily fulfill that task. “You would ask his memory to fight that evil for you for the rest of time? What if there comes to be another? In your lifespan, my dear, someone else may hurt you. Would you ask the Admiral to fend off that memory too?” He would do so, and he would never complain, but, “Would it not hurt you to see even a part of him fight that menace for all of time, never to have his peace?” Could the ghost bear to see that be all that became of him? “I know you want better for him, my dear. And perhaps you will want his memory to remain with you, but I don’t think you want that to be the reason.”

For the first time in several minutes, the ghost moved. She moved only to tilt her head, her gray stare just as empty as before. “Do you know how he died, Mama?”

“Brent?”

“Yes,” the ghost said, voice barely above a whisper. “Do you know how he died?”

Her tone was a little too whimsical, not as if she were happy, but as if she were unable to portray the correct emotion, or perhaps even unsure what it might be. There was a disjuncture in her eyes. They no longer focused completely. “You don’t have to talk about it, dear.” Ripley had wondered for many years, of course, but it had never been a welcome topic. The most anyone would say was that Howard Brent, the praised General of the United Countries Space Command, had died here, aboard the decks of his former command. On Base Oceana, rumors had circled of how his murder had been plotted by his successor, but the details were few. Add to that the rumors aboard this ship, whispers of how Gives had been pulled off the same bridge half-dead with a bullet wound in his stomach, and truly it became a mystery. If Gives had murdered Brent, how had he been shot? Had his plan gone astray? But no, there was more to the story. The Yokohoma had sunk that day. And there was always the ghost.

“He made me choose.” The ghost said, staring blankly ahead. “He ordered me to choose.”

“Brent?”

“Yes,” the ghost said, softly. “I was built to save humanity. It went against the laws of my creation to harm any human, let alone one that was in my care, one that was a part of me.” The Frontier Rebellion had been bad enough, but there had been a distance to that. She had been fulfilling her functionality as a weapon. This… this had been much more personal. “I followed orders, Mama. I never disobeyed.” It was not her nature. “But I was never designed to harm a human by my own intention.” Her mind had not been meant to contemplate the possibility. “Brent knew that. That’s why he made me choose.” Perhaps he had realized that no matter which choice she made, she would never be the same again.

“I’m not following, dear,” Ripley said. On her wooden stool beside the stove, she leaned forward, trying to understand. “What did he make you choose?”

The ghost twitched a bit, some disjuncture in the machine powering the illusion, a glitch made manifest. “Who to kill,” she said, emotion scrubbed from her voice. “Master Brent’s final order was to kill one of them. Either himself or the Admiral.” His final order had been for her to want it, to truly want it, and take one of their lives in a way that she’d never been intended to.

Ripley found herself without words. She stared at the ghost, unsure even how to react to that.

The ghost herself was frozen for a minute, as if the machine behind it had stalled. “Brent had already shot him, Mama. He was bleeding out on the floor. The logical choice was obvious.” It had been so obvious. “Master loved life. He loved the feeling of it, the emotion, the highs he got from others around him… And Admiral Gives never cared if he lived or died.” In many ways, he had tended toward dying. “The logic was perfect. To save the life of someone who wanted to live, I had to end the life of one who wanted to die.” It should have been simple. Brent had known the choice she was bound to make.

“But, he used to read to me,” she said, an abrupt ray of sunshine warming her tone. “Still does, sometimes.”

Ripley furrowed her brow, trying to follow along. Language didn’t come naturally to the ghost, or at least human communication didn’t, so it sometimes slipped from her grasp. To her grand perception, every pronoun may have been a name, but Ripley sometimes struggled to follow along.

“He used to read to me often.” Perhaps that was where the story truly started, long before Brent had snuck aboard for that escort mission. “I once asked him why he bothered, even when it seemed like no one was listening. He said pretending I cared to listen made him less lonely.” He had said nothing else to that, but the ghost had known, long known the loneliness that had haunted him. “But I loved those stories, Mama.” She had loved them dearly. “In those days, that was all I had.” There had only been that one single voice reaching out to her, wanting to share its story. “Those stories… They took me away to better times, to other places, to situations where I could be anything… Anything other than what I was right then.” An executioner of the species she’d been created to protect.

Pain wallowed in the air, a cloud of needles constantly pricking at the skin. “You don’t have to talk about it, dear.” Her discomfort with that memory was all too clear.

“Please, Mama.” The ghost had to struggle through it, just once more. “Listen. Perhaps then you can tell me what he did to me. Perhaps then I’ll know why he won’t stay dead.”