Meloira Sector, Battleship Singularity
Sergeant Alise Cortana startled awake with a hacking cough, her nose absolutely burning. She jerked her face away, but the chemical burn followed, riding straight up her nostrils and down her throat like fire. Desperately, she swatted at her face, trying to rid herself of the source. Her fingertips came away covered in a cool gel that had a gritty texture. Eventually, she scratched enough of it off that she could properly breathe, and braved opening her eyes.
The lights were bright, so bright that it took her a moment to adjust, and then she could see the bedsheets covering her legs. They were white, scratchy and cheap, just as all military-issue sheets were. The mattress below her weight was a little lumpy, and the bedframe had been adjusted to put her in a halfway sitting position. The low rumble in the background – engine noise she still hadn’t grown used to – told her where she was even before she had enough wits about her to recognize who was standing over her.
The Singularity’s chief medical officer had the look of most veteran medical officers. He was perpetually disgruntled, and felt no real need to be polite or iron his white coat. Wrinkled, it hung over his uniform, weighed down by whatever was in his pockets, and stained by whatever he’d last cut open. “Smelling stimulants aren’t the nicest way to wake up, are they?” he asked.
Cortana wiped that vile substance from her fingertips onto the bedsheets. “No,” she said sourly, “they aren’t.”
“Well,” the doctor shrugged, “you were drugged to the gills when they brought you in. Probably would have slept for two days without it.”
Then let me sleep, Cortana nearly snapped. Why wake her with something so crude? But she held her tongue as the doctor bent over to check the machine monitoring her vitals, because she saw he wasn’t her only guest. The second man stood unnervingly still, so still she’d initially disregarded his very presence. Poised like that – arms folded behind his back in some version of parade rest – he may as well have been a mannequin. His expression was every bit as blank.
“We checked you for injuries, Sergeant,” the doctor continued, offering out a damp cloth. “Didn’t find anything beyond bruises. Does anything hurt?”
“No,” Cortana said, wiping the rest of the smelling stimulants from her upper lip. They’d served their purpose and unpleasantly woken her up, which, no doubt, had been the objective.
“Right,” Doctor Macintosh said, “then I’ll take my leave.”
He wasted no time ducking out past the curtain drawn around her bed, which Cortana didn’t find particularly comforting, but she could hardly blame him. If she thought it would help her, she probably would have done the same. Instead, she was left face to face with the emotionless expression of Admiral Gives.
For a long minute, he stood there, not speaking, not moving. She felt like an ant under a magnifying glass, utterly uncertain if it would be angled toward the sun to cook her, or simply observe her path. Anxiety tightened her jaw, and she wondered, not for the first time, if he simply enjoyed making her uncomfortable.
It was easy for him. Sergeant Cortana had met high-ranking officers of all varieties. She’d been the Secretary of Defense’s personal guard, so it wasn’t his rank that unnerved her. It was the complexities of who he was: the deadliest officer to ever serve the UCSC fleet, and the brother of the man she’d failed to protect. Perhaps it was the latter that unnerved her so much, because his face, though wiped of emotion, was still similar. Colder and darker in color and personality, she could still see those similarities.
In the end, when he spoke, even the range of his voice wasn’t so different, just a little deeper and perpetually disinterested. “Do you have anything you would like to say for yourself, Sergeant?”
“No, sir,” she answered.
“Unfortunate,” he said simply. “Then perhaps you have a preference on how you would like to be punished?”
“Punished?” she echoed in disbelief. No wonder your reputation proceeds you. “Is this how you treat all your wounded soldiers?”
“Only the ones that fail to follow orders.”
“I followed your orders. I nearly died guarding the damn airlock.” She didn’t deserve to be under scrutiny. “I don’t know why that bastard didn’t kill me,” her memory of the encounter was foggy, but she remembered fighting, clawing to get free. “I fought him as best I could!”
“Your orders were not to fight,” the Admiral said coldly. That had not been the purpose of her placement at the airlock. “Your orders, Sergeant, were to radio in a warning, which you failed to do.”
Cortana stared at him. There was absolutely no trace of emotion on his face, not even in his eyes. It was disconcerting. She expected malice, but it just wasn’t there. “What the hell do you want from me?”
“I want you to understand what your neglect cost, Sergeant.”
“Neglect?” she argued. “I didn’t neglect anything! You should have placed more guards at the airlock.” This was no more her fault than it was his.
“Perhaps,” he allowed, “but it only takes one person to raise the alarm, and failures in our line of work are costly.”
He moved then, unfolding his hands from behind his back to reveal folder in his grip. Beige cardstock stamped with the insignia of the fleet; he tossed it down into Cortana’s lap.
“Why are you giving me a personnel file?” Cortana asked, reading the name off the tab. “Robinson?”
“You should know who paid for your mistake, Sergeant.” A cruel reminder perhaps, but a necessary one.
For the first time since she’d woken, realization dawned on Cortana. Someone else got hurt. No, it was certainly worse than that. She felt sick. “I don’t want this,” she said, trying to hand the folder back.
The Admiral made no movement to take it. He folded his hands behind his back once more. “Read it.”
“Sir?”
“Read it,” he said, steeling his tone. “It was not a request.”
Cortana turned from his icy blue gaze and pulled the folder clumsily open. Robinson’s record awaited her there, white sheets with a small ID photo clipped to the corner. Robinson was pretty. Her skin was tan and her brown hair was lit by highlights of caramel. She wasn’t smiling in her photo, but she had a gentle expression upon her face. Cortana had seen her in the mess once, but hadn’t spoken with her. Still, under the cold weight of the Admiral’s presence, Cortana began to read.
Lieutenant Keifer Robinson was the Singularity’s primary communications officer. She had been born and raised on the planet of Ariea just like Cortana herself, but hailed from one of the poorer nations: Scorpio. Despite that, Robinson had graduated from the fleet academy with honors. That award was not as high as a valedictorian title, but was prestigious none the less. As a communications specialist, Robinson had been certified in several languages including Hydrian, a rare skill. Her first assignment in the fleet had been to the Flagship Ariea.
“After forcing his way past you, the enemy took your gun and attacked the bridge,” Admiral Gives explained. “Lieutenant Robinson was shot and is unlikely to recover.” She lay not far away now, wrapped up in ventilators and other machines that would keep her technically alive after undergoing hours of surgery. “You may not have known her, Sergeant, but others on this crew did, and I doubt you will find yourself comfortable in their company.”
His tone was void, but Cortana understood the implication. The crew would hold her responsible for the loss. Any progress she’d made at joining their ranks would be invalidated. She would continue to be left as an outsider – tolerated out of necessity, but avoided at all other times. Damn it all. “You planned this,” she accused. “You’ve been against me since the moment I got here.”
“I have been no more against you than I would be against any other soldier that failed to protect their charge and was then assigned to this ship both against their will and without my request.” That had been a rotten situation, no doubt the responsibility General Clarke before his death. “I believe you would be hard pressed to find another commander who would elect not to punish you for attempting to take his life twice over, even after you revealed a tactical weakness to Command without his consent.”
Cortana slammed the folder in her lap closed. “Concealing the Singularity’s structural damage from Command was illegal.” Regardless of anything else Cortana had done, she’d been in the right to reveal the nuke’s structural damage to the inspector. “You do not own this ship. Command does.”
A level of frost took root in the Admiral’s tone, “Command did not want this ship. They did not want her crew. They are in my care, and I will not tolerate threats to them, Sergeant.” He had built his reputation on uncaring carnage, and she would not be exempt. “I have been tolerant of your situation long enough. Make another mistake, and I will throw you off my ship personally.”
“I can’t do anything right as far as you’re concerned,” Cortana told him. He was impossible to please. “Don’t pretend you weren’t going to throw me off the next time we dock at a station anyway.”
“Sergeant, I have no intention of throwing you off on a station.” He would throw her off mid-flight if it became necessary. “This is your last chance,” the Admiral told her. “Use it.”
With that, he turned and left. Sergeant Cortana watched the gray curtain fall back into place after him, never more frustrated. It took a cold person, an utterly uncaring personality to act that way toward a subordinate who had nearly died. But she should have expected nothing less, considering their past encounters.
Defeated, Cortana returned her attention to the folder in her lap, a sadistic reminder of a loss that had been out of her hands. She’d tried to protect Robinson, tried to protect everyone by fighting that man at the airlock, yet it wasn’t enough. It was never enough.
Picking up the folder, wanting nothing more than to forget it and its contents, Cortana reached over to set it on the side table. The folder wasn’t heavy, nothing more than cardstock, some papers, a photograph and a paperclip, but the movement made her wrist hurt. It twinged with discomfort even after she finished setting the folder aside. Rubbing it seemed to do nothing, the ache deep, yet not severe.
In the medical bay beyond, Admiral Gives looked again to the corner of the room. Robinson lay there, concealed by a gray curtain identical to the one he’d left swishing behind him. It had long been his tradition to visit the wounded, but Robinson… Well, he did not feel his presence would have been welcome, particularly not while she was so helpless. Robinson had valued the distance he maintained from the crew, so perhaps it was most respectful to leave her be.
Wiping his hands on his pants, trying once more to forget the sticky sensation of Robinson’s blood, he turned his attention to the only other casualty that remained in sick bay: Corporal Kallahan. The old Marine was sitting up on his bed, adjusting a pair of crutches. Once he had them set correctly, he would be free to go. The nurses had removed his armor and properly bandaged up his knee. The armor lay in a blood-flecked pile beside the bed, needing to be sanitized.
Best to get this over with, the Admiral supposed, and stepped over to close the curtain around Kallahan’s bed. Only then did the Marine look up, his expression soured by distaste. Admiral Gives elected not to take that personally. “It seems I owe you a debt,” he told Kallahan.
“We have our differences, but I am still under your command,” Kallahan reminded. All of the ship’s Marines were bound by oath to protect the ship’s crew and serve her commanding officer. Any of them would have reacted to protect the Admiral on the bridge. “And,” Kallahan added quietly, “I’d rather not see what happens to the Angel if you die.” For better or worse, and very likely worse, the weapon seemed very attached to him. “By removing that shadow from your body, it has doomed itself to insanity, and you, more than anyone, should know what that thing is capable of.”
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“That thing has a name, Corporal, and she has wants and fears just like any of us. She did not intend any harm.”
“You always defend it.” Kallahan had never understood that. The Admiral was a logical man by all appearances. Yet, on that one point, despite knowing that weapon’s tendency toward chaos, he elected to trust it beyond recourse.
“I would not be here without her,” the Admiral said. “The same is true for many members of this crew, including you, but I am not here to perpetuate that argument. I am here to thank you, Corporal, for stopping Brent. I would rather not have had my sword run through Lieutenant Galhino, though she may, on occasion, deserve it.”
“So… that personality that possessed you. That was Brent?” Its attitude made sense now, particularly that toward the ghost. Kallahan had puzzled over why the weapon would create something that treated it so poorly.
“Yes, though I would ask you to keep that information to yourself.” The scars of Brent’s tenure still lingered. Rumors of his cruelty had been passed down to the current crew, though they had never served directly under Brent’s command.
With another slight shrug, Kallahan turned to grab his helmet and slipped it on over his lightly colored hair. “The others never recovered when their minds were rewritten.” Maybe they had been possessed by people too, all those years ago. Not human people, certainly, but how would he know for certain? Their minds had been unwound, leaving only corpses behind. “I’m left to wonder if this is actually you, or if that thing just made something that acted like you.” With such a powerful telepath, how much truth was there to any of the personalities within its reach?
“I suppose that would be your judgment to make,” the Admiral told him. “All the same, I trust you will put a stop to it if the issue arises again?”
Kallahan hauled himself off the bed, leaning heavily on his crutch. “You know I will.”
“Very well,” Admiral Gives allowed, “then rest and recover.”
With a grunt, the Corporal straightened his posture. “One more thing,” he said, watching the Admiral turn to leave, “what are you planning to do with the lizard?”
“Interrogate it.”
“And how do you plan to do that? It won’t willingly answer your questions, especially in our language, and the only officer on this ship fluent in Hydrian is in a coma.” Robinson, the communications officer, was the only one with that certification.
“Do you plan to offer your services?” Admiral Gives asked.
Kallahan snorted, “I don’t know any Hydrian beyond their word for food. That’s what they called us in the War, and I’ll be damned if I willingly stand in a room with one of those bastards.”
“Then I fail to see how it is your problem,” the Admiral said.
“You should know those scaly bastards are telepathically-sensitive. That’s how their hives work,” Kallahan warned. “There’s going to be no concealing the Angel.”
“I am aware,” and the Admiral fully intended to use that to his advantage. “The Hydra will be dealt with accordingly.”
“Hmph,” the Marine said, bending over to pick up his armor. “Spoken like a cadet on the frontlines. You don’t know what those monsters are capable of.” No veteran of the War would have been so confident the alien could be ‘dealt with.’ The Hydra were deadly in close quarters, and difficult to engage at range. “There’s a reason we nearly lost the War.”
“There is a reason we won it too, but you seem less inclined to acknowledge her.” And with that, the Admiral slid the curtain open. Debating the nature of the Hydra with Kallahan would get them nowhere and the interrogation itself had to be the Admiral’s next priority. In fact, he should have focused on that before dealing with Cortana or Kallahan, but he’d already been in the medical bay for the autopsy.
The seating area in the center of the medical bay was empty, and the Admiral stalked past it, not giving the worn couches and coffee tables a second glance. Outside the medical bay, he took a sharp turn, heading for his quarters. He didn’t make a habit of carrying his sword around, but he would need it before interrogating the Hydra. Weapons were a symbol of status in Hydrian culture. High-ranking Hydrian warriors carried piezoelectric blades on long pole arms, spears, effectively. Admiral Gives didn’t possess the traditional spear, of course, but his sword would still be an indicator of status.
On his way, Admiral Gives contemplated anything else he remembered about the Hydra. Their civilization was not particularly well-understood. At times, the Hydra were ruthlessly logical, other times fanatical. All their nests were capable, but many had a specialty, meaning they bred for different traits. Some bred strategists, others warriors of brute force, and still more, scientists. The Hydra were not a hivemind. A single drone could survive on its own, but they were rarely found alone. Each Hydra usually had dozens of brood mates they travelled with, and each nest contained thousands more drones. All available information indicated that the population of the Hydrian Empire was staggering, which was why the Hydra had invaded humanity’s territory for resources – the initial cause of the war, sixty years prior.
Approaching his quarters once more, Admiral Gives was surprised to find someone waiting beside the door for him, but he was even more surprised by who it was: the ship’s head chef, ‘Mama’ Ripley. The moment she saw him, she ran up the corridor and grabbed his sleeve before he could decide to turn around. “William.”
“Please do not call me that,” he said, electing not to resist as the old woman dragged him over the boundary to his quarters. He had been born and raised mid-continent, so he knew better than to fight a tornado, and this surely was one. He could tell by the troubled look in the cook’s brown eyes.
“Shut up,” Ripley said, closing the door behind them before she shoved a bag with a sandwich into the Admiral’s chest. “Eat this.”
“Ma’am, I appreciate the gesture-”
“Just eat it!” Ripley commanded, storming across the room to see the untouched breakfast plate sitting on the corner of his desk. “For the sake of the stars, have you eaten anything today?” She folded the logbook closed and began straightening the piles of papers on the desk. “This is a mess,” she chastised, “it looks like you slept here!” She paused to note his continued silence, “You did, didn’t you?”
“Ma’am-”
“You absolutely, irresponsible fool!” Ripley abandoned the desk and stomped back over to him. “William, this is no way to live.”
The Admiral carefully removed Ripley’s grip from his sleeve. “Please do not call me that.” He didn’t like that name. “Now,” he said calmly, “care to tell me what the matter is?”
“This!” Ripley said, throwing her hands in the air. “This is the matter!” This room was no bigger than the quarters of the ship’s other senior staff. It was mostly an office with a nice seating area by the entrance, and a desk further in. The sleeping quarters and head were around the corner, out of sight from the door. The Admiral’s office was lived-in. He’d lined the room with bookshelves and art, made the sitting space comfortable with old, cozy furniture. He kept it lit by warm lamplight rather than the bright florescent tubes built in overhead, but the desklamp was always on and he never seemed to rest. “You work constantly.”
“That is my job, ma’am.” Commanding officers rarely received holiday.
“No, it’s not. You work until you pass out from exhaustion. You don’t eat.” Ripley softened her tone, “It’s not healthy, Will.”
He froze for a moment, noticing the tearstains on Ripley’s face. Admittedly, this wasn’t the first time the cook had scolded him, but it had been a long time since he’d seen her cry. Her hair, whitened by age, was out of place and her apron had been abandoned. “What happened?” Ripley turned from him, but he caught her by the shoulder. “Tell me what is wrong,” he said, issuing it as an instruction, not an order.
Ripley’s hands shook as she tried to flatten her wiry hair down where it had escaped from her neat bun. “Brent was a demon.”
“Yes,” the Admiral said, guiding Ripley to the couch, “he was.” The old woman took a seat, and he went to damp a rag in warm water, then offered it out to her.
Ripley took it and began to wipe down her face, rubbing the tear marks from her cheeks. “She told me how he died,” Ripley said, noticing the way the Admiral stiffened – not a fear of the subject, just an extreme discomfort. “You knew, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Admiral Gives answered. The ghost had long suffered for the illogicality of sparing him that day. He had tried to ease that suffering, but there was always some part of him that insisted it was never enough. If Brent had died in any other circumstance, in any other situation other than right there and right then, perhaps the ghost wouldn’t have been so scarred.
“I never knew,” Ripley said, burying her forehead into that warm cloth. It eased the headache of an hour’s tears. “That poor thing.” No one should have been put in that position, least of all someone who could neither resist nor forget the command. A human may have found a solution, managed to dodge the problem, but the ghost had not been given that chance. “I cannot imagine what she went through.” That incident alone would have been beyond traumatizing, even without the years of prior abuse. “But she told me something else too. Brent’s not gone.”
“I know.” It was a conversation he hesitated to initiate with the ghost, but Admiral Gives was now well aware of Brent’s shadow.
“I thought it might just be a memory, but she insists that shadow is real. That he’s really still here.” Ripley dug her fingers into the damp cloth, taking solace in its gentle warmth. “I’ve never seen her react like that, Will. She was terrified.”
The Admiral may have thought the same and blamed past trauma, but he had felt that presence for himself. Sitting down in the reading chair beside the couch, he told the cook, “Brent is no mere illusion. He’s here. There is no question of that.”
Ripley frowned. “How do you know?”
“He may or may not have briefly possessed me on the bridge earlier.”
“Briefly possess-” Ripley interrupted herself, suddenly comprehending what he’d said. “What?” her mind reeled as she stared at his unfaltering calm. “This can affect you too?”
“Apparently,” the Admiral said. Whatever the issue was, it wasn’t strictly limited to the ghost, but of course, with a telepath of her strength, the lines got blurry. “I’m uncertain if anyone else is at risk. I’m still working out what exactly Brent may have done to cause this.” And truly, faced with direct, physical threats from Command and potentially the Hydrian Armada, the issue simply couldn’t be his priority.
“You don’t know what Brent did?”
“No.” He did not.
“But no one understands her better than you,” Ripley said. The ghost always spoke fondly of him in such ways. “No one ever has.”
“That may be true.” Admiral Gives had spent a great deal of time working with the ghost, and he liked to think he had a good understanding of her inner machinations. “However, the reality of the matter is that she is unique. She is capable of things that are beyond the understanding of human science as a whole, and there is no baseline for her. We have no comparison for how things might affect her.” That was one of many reasons he tried so hard to keep her safe.
There was a wisdom in him. Sometimes it took Ripley aback to find such wisdom in a man that was notably younger than she, but the moment she saw his eyes, she remembered it was no fluke. Admiral Gives had the eyes of an older man – the eyes of someone who had seen things well beyond his years. He had seen more than most would in their entire lifetime. In that, Ripley knew what his answer would be before she even asked the question. “Knowing Brent’s shadow haunts her, and that she can’t control it… Does that lower your trust in her?”
“No.” Perhaps to another’s logic, it should, but Brent had haunted the ghost since the day he died. That trust had never steered the Admiral wrong before, so becoming aware of the issue should change nothing. “I trust her completely. Brent is not a part of her, and she has proven time and time again that she is beyond him, stronger than him. That shadow is an obstacle, not an end.” If he could give her the time and support needed to heal, she would. “I will do my best to help her through it, if that is what she wants.” Understandably, this might be something she wanted to handle on her own.
Ripley admired him for a moment. He was stoic, but ever so certain. That kind of loyalty was beyond rare in these worlds. ‘Does that answer your question, dear?’ she thought to the ghost’s presence as it lingered invisibly nearby.
‘Yes,’ came the reply. ‘Thank you.’
There was relief and gratitude in that response, Ripley knew, but there was a degree of concern too, a concern that lingered around the Admiral. Ripley understood, seeing the sandwich she brought him once more set aside. “You need to eat.”
“Not hungry.”
“Why not?” Ripley demanded.
“I will get to it later.” Admiral Gives was not particularly squeamish, but he suspected the sight of that spy’s implant would linger with him for a while.
“You need to take care of yourself,” Ripley told him. He was not deserving of the neglect he gave himself. “You’re a good man. Sometimes, I think you just forget that.”
The Admiral lowered his gaze to the stellar chart books on the coffee table between them. “My purpose here is to serve and protect this ship and her crew.” That was his only objective, the only place he had in these worlds.
“You’re a member of this ship’s crew,” Ripley reminded him gently. “And no matter what you may think of yourself, you should know that the ghost thinks the worlds of you.” That respect had been well-earned over not just years, but decades. “I’ve known you both for so long.” The ghost had been different back then, shy and skittish, a far cry from the often-playful persona Ripley recognized from her now. Admiral Gives had been different too. He’d always been stocky, and Ripley had no memory of ever seeing him without his black uniform, but his hair had been darker – flecked with fewer grays. She had never known him to be completely without the grays, but she suspected his hair had started turning at a very young age. Still, as a younger man, he’d been more outgoing, never carefree, simply less guarded. “I know how it looks when you both push yourselves too hard.” He and the ghost served as a pair, neither quite functional without the other anymore. “You need to rest, take the time and heal.” Too many threats had been forced upon them both today: Brent and the Hydra, demons of the past brought into the present.
“Yes,” the Admiral said, pushing himself back to his feet. “But not yet.” He was overdue to interrogate a lizard.