Polaris Sector, CT Badger

Quarters on the Badger were cramped at first. The children were always underfoot, the walls were too thin, and the corridors were too small to pass by someone walking the other direction. It drove Amelia mad at first. There was no sense of privacy and no true moment of quiet, but in the end, she adjusted faster than she thought she would.

The crew had welcomed her aboard the Singularity, but she had been an outsider. A passenger. On the Badger, she quickly found her niche as a school teacher, returning herself and every child aboard to a welcome routine. She was thanked, and more than welcome – she was considered valuable.

The daily lessons were difficult at first. She prepared according to what her students back on Ariea should have been capable of. It had not occurred to her that standards on Sagittarion were vastly different – and vastly inferior. The orphans were lost and overwhelmed, but she quickly adjusted, and found a sense of meaning in teaching these young children. Their ages varied, but they were all behind in their education, and Amelia had made it her personal mission to get them up to standard.

It felt nice to have a purpose, and the orphanage matron, Helena Delleora was more than grateful, she was amazed by the way Amelia organized the lessons and handled the classroom. Amelia was perplexed by that at first, until she realized that the matron had an education no better than the rest of them. She, born and raised on Sagittarion, had been turned into an adult well before she was ready. She’d simply had the luck of being the oldest kid in the city block, and become somewhat responsible for the rest. Still, she never complained. Amelia supposed that was because Helena didn’t know better. She had never known a life where she herself might still be learning a trade. On Sagittarion, this was the norm.

With Amelia giving daily lessons for the kids, Helena was free to do other housekeeping – cooking, cleaning and laundry. She had taken those tasks over from Ron and Amelia. Amelia had tried to fight it at first, arguing that she could do her own laundry, but it simply worked out better to let the matron do it. That was life on a ship – living tasks were divided and conquered. Those with other skills did not always have time for the mundane, so others picked up the slack.

The Badger itself was also a change. Surprisingly, the altered gravity – lower than the planetary standard of 1G - was a quick thing to adjust to. It was almost fun, once one got the hang of it. It was easy to jump, everything was slower to fall, and after standing all day to give lessons, Amelia found her feet hurt less.

It was not as easy to get used to the utter lack of privacy. Her son Harrison, and Ron’s daughter, Anabelle, had taken to sleeping with the other children, all packed into the cargo hold’s wide-open space. To them, it was fun. To Amelia, it sounded like hell. She herself only shared quarters with the orphanage matron, while Ron bunked with one of the Badger’s other passengers: a terrestrial policeman by the name of Officer Jones. Captain Merlyn had his own quarters, and the ship’s engineer bunked in a hammock somewhere in the engine spaces.

The entire ship only had two lavatories. It had clearly never been designed to house this many people. But, with a strict rotation for showers, they made it work. Amelia didn’t dread staying here. She mourned the loss of her comfortable life and home on Ariea, but the Badger wasn’t so bad. With her lessons, she had the opportunity to change the trajectory of these kids’ lives – assuming they lived long enough to make landfall on a planet with some level of opportunity.

In all, it surprised Amelia to find that the Badger was more comfortable to her. At first, the ship had felt fragile, and far too small. The bulkheads had been paper-thin, rooms far too cramped, the visible structural supports had looked so glaringly fragile. But, as she spent time here, she realized she’d been looking at it wrongly. The Badger was freeing. The Singularity, with all its creaks and shifts, massive beams and dark coloration had felt oppressive. The Badger was lighter and less present, leaving more room for those aboard to live their lives. And of course, there was a lack of expectations here. On the Badger, she was just a school teacher, back in the life she knew. On the Singularity, she’d been the Admiral’s flesh and blood, and given the formalities to match.

The Badger’s Captain Merlyn kept himself scarce for the most part, but he wasn’t any worse than the Admiral had been in that regard. Merlyn would occasionally come down to eat with his passengers, and brief them on developments within the refugee fleet. Merlyn always looked tired, dark bags hanging below his eyes. There was a slump in his shoulders, and it was clear the situation weighed upon him, weighing heavier and heavier with every day that went by.

The orphanage matron did her best to cheer him up. She’d scavenged materials for a simple sponge cake from supply, organized the kids in a song, and even had them write thank you notes. The Captain was appreciative of the gestures, but the haunted look in his eyes never left him.

In that, as Amelia climbed up the narrow ladder into the Badger’s small bridge, she wasn’t surprised to see his hunched figure in the command chair. He spent most of his time there, monitoring the condition of the fleet, listening and responding to communications. Lately, the news had been grim. Even with severe rationing, the food supply was getting tight. By halving meals, the fleet could make it a couple more days, but after that, people would be going hungry. No one wanted to find out what happened after that. Frightened and hungry people made irrational decisions, Merlyn had said. He seemed to expect infighting, and made it a point to say nothing about the Badger’s food stores.

The Badger had been resupplied by the Singularity – sent extra food, living supplies and even given mechanical upgrades. But the Badger was the only ship in the fleet that had received that treatment, and Merlyn well knew that those extra food stores would paint them as a target. The fleet would demand their extra supplies be split, but split amongst so many, that food would amount to nothing. At least on the Badger, it bought them time and kept the kids well-nourished. But, the Badger, like every other ship, would still begin to starve if the Singularity never returned, even if it took longer than the rest.

“Captain,” Amelia said, stepping carefully across the Badger’s compact bridge. There were only three consoles in the space, but they were crowded in a volume not meant for high traffic. The floor wasn’t level. The engineering and communications stations were in the back by the ladder, and the command chair was lower and centered in the middle, giving anyone sitting in it an uninterrupted view through the windows that wrapped around the bridge. The command chair itself looked exceptionally high-tech. Buttons and flight controls were built ergonomically into the arms, and screens hung down from above, but Merlyn insisted the setup was standard for cargo runners like the Badger. “I’ve brought you something to eat. Helena was worried you didn’t come down.”

Merlyn raised his head, the dark rings around his eyes looking even deeper than before. “Thank you,” he said, setting a data pad aside as he reached out for the sandwich she’d brought up.

The screen of the data pad glowed softly, and ordinarily, Ameila would never have given it a second glance. Usually, it seemed to be communications traffic or supply evaluations, but this time, about half the screen was taken up by a portrait – a portrait of someone she immediately recognized.

Merlyn took a bite of the sandwich she’d brought up. It was nothing special, just peanut butter and bread – a decent mix of carbs and protein. They now relied on supplements cover the nutrient deficiencies of their limited diet. Admittedly, he’d come to like his passengers, even the extra few the Singularity dumped into his lap. It had been a long time since he’d been around kids or family or anything resembling either. There was a pleasantness to it that made him dread their situation all the more, and given that Amelia had been among those dumped here by the Singularity, it hardly surprised Merlyn to find her staring at the data pad. “I imagine you recognize him.” It was hard not to, considering that the man’s appearance had barely changed over the years. Merlyn didn’t know if that was a gift of time-dilation or simply genetics. “Did you meet the Admiral when you were aboard?”

It wasn’t the first time Merlyn had asked her that. Amelia always found a way to extricate herself from the conversation when it came up. The tenser the situation became in the fleet, the more terrified she became of revealing her relation. “In passing.”

Merlyn made a noise of contemplation, then picked the data pad back up. “I kept the records of the big players in local storage.” He had to be ready at any time to strike a deal for cargo, or in the case of this player, know when to surrender. “The Fleet Admiral of the United Countries Space Command… Well, he was as big as they got.” Coincidentally, he was also the one Merlyn had most wanted to avoid. Life was funny like that. “Our lord savior and protector… Unfortunately, he never seemed the type for charity.” Still didn’t, as far as Merlyn was concerned. “I’ve yet to figure out why he bothered with us.” It made very little sense to Merlyn, “So, I doubt he’s coming back.”

A pit opened in the depths of Amelia’s stomach, a feeling of vertigo that was uncommon in the Badger’s light gravity field. “You don’t think so?”

“I don’t see why he would.” Merlyn shrugged. As much as he tried to keep his updates more upbeat for the matron’s sake, Amelia was older and more mature. She could handle the truth. There was a level of deep understanding in her eyes, and something achingly familiar about her face. Merlyn hadn’t managed to put a finger on it. “We’re a burden to the Singularity’s resources. Beyond it simply being the right thing to do, there’s no reason he should go hunt down supplies for us. We can’t offer him anything.” Taking off from one of the poorer worlds, the refugees didn’t even have money. In such a scenario, it seemed reasonable to ponder the low odds that Gives would return. “Here,” he handed the data pad up to Amelia, “I’m sure you weren’t provided this when you sailed with them.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Taking hold of the tablet, Amelia could not help but stare at the screen. The Admiral’s public service record was pulled up on it – the very thing she’d been denied in the Singularity’s archives, the very item the Admrial had removed to keep her from seeing. But why? The blue-eyed portrait of the man offered no explanation. It was stoic and silent as much as the real thing, expression still as stone.

Scrolling down, the record listed general facts: rank, title, hometown, educational history – nothing she didn’t already know. Below that were the commendations and awards. After the first few, Amelia stopped reading them. There must have been dozens. “I had no idea he was so decorated.” She’d gone to military functions with her late husband. Any officer who had awards had pinned them proudly on their chest, the medals polished and glimmering. Yet, in his portrait and in the brief moments she’d seen the Admiral, he’d been wearing no medals, only pilot’s wings and the standard fleet insignia that all officers wore.

Merlyn shrugged. “The military loves its pomp and circumstance.” Taking a bite of his sandwich, he watched Amelia read further down into the Admiral’s public service history. Nothing about it was too unexpected. Gives had spent nearly his entire career on the Singularity, a single eight month gap the only exception. No details were offered for those eight months. The file simply said ‘redacted,’ which wasn’t so uncommon, for the military also loved its secrets.

Amelia saw nothing too uncommon either, as she skimmed the document. “I don’t understand why he, they,” Amelia corrected herself to save face, “wouldn’t let me see this.” She kept reading, onto the service summary. It was lengthy in itself, even though days-long battles and months-long campaigns had been summarized into a sentence or two for each. Married to a Marine, Amelia was no stranger to reports like this. At times, that had been the only information she could find on her husband’s deployment, and his status. But, her husband had served in a time of peace and seen only a few combat deployments. The Admiral’s record was another beast entirely. Until it was all listed out like this, it had not occurred to her just how much he’d seen. This service summary was pages upon pages long.

“It’s easy to miss in there,” Merlyn allowed. It was stuck in like a note between the pages of a book. “But I suppose they wouldn’t want to bring to much attention to it.” Though, given the Admiral’s separation from Command, the press back in the central worlds would be pulling out things formerly swept under the rug. The man had probably been demonized beyond repair by now – not that he didn’t deserve it. “The Yokohoma didn’t mean much to most.” It hadn’t been the martyr of some great protest. It had been a cruise liner ferrying passengers on a standard run.

Amelia froze. I know that name. “The Yokohoma?”

Merlyn chewed a little slower, observing Amelia in the white lights of the Badger’s bridge. There was a trickle of worry in her expression and a glint of recognition in her eyes. “Did you know someone on the Yokohoma?” She was old enough to, Merlyn thought. She would have been young at the time of the tragedy, but she wouldn’t be here if she herself had been a passenger.

“Yes,” Amelia said softly. “My mother,” the wife of the Secretary of Defense, a renown philanthropist. “That’s all my father would tell me. She was on the Yokohoma, and it sank.” Every passenger aboard had perished. Amelia found herself searching the Admiral’s file. The details were lacking, but there it was: a mention of the ill-fated cruise liner. “Admiral Gives took responsibility for the Yokohoma’s sinking?”

“Took responsibility…” Merlyn scoffed. That’s a pathetic euphemism. “He did more than take responsibility, he caused it.” The mention of it was purged from the records now, but it had been quite the scandal at the time. “The Yokohoma sank because the Singularity put a broadside into her.” Recovered evidence said there’d been no warning, just a simple execution.

Amelia’s hands began to shake, making the words on the data pad she held impossible to read. “I don’t understand…” Why would he do that? And why hadn’t her father told her? Surely, this was what the Admiral had been trying to hide. But why?

She remembered it. She had been young, only a gangly teen more interested in fashion than her future, but the news had come in like a sledgehammer. Her mother had left on one of her trips to do work with underprivileged populations, but she wasn’t coming back. Not then, and not ever. The days after the news had gone by in a blur as she was dragged from event to event. Everyone had wanted to remember her mother, loved and adored in so many circles. Everyone had offered condolences to her father, thinking of the Secretary and his family, but no one had spoken to her as she stood silently in his shadow. They had looked at her with pity and sorrow, but none too deep, as they knew the Secretary of Defense’s daughter would be well-cared for. Secretly, Amelia had despised them all.

The only exception to that, the only one who had spoken to her at all, had been the Admiral.

It had been a week after her mother’s death, just hours after a funeral service with an empty casket. There had been a knock on the door. She had opened it to find the Admiral, a formal cap tucked beneath his arm. He had never been a consistent figure in her life, his brief appearances rare. She’d always known why he was scarce, of course. He was a career soldier. She never seen him wearing anything other than a uniform. When he’d shown up then, she hadn’t known what to say, but she had found it rather comforting to see another member of the family, since her small family had just grown another degree smaller. Her father, on the other hand, had been less pleased.

When he came up behind her to see who was at the door, he’d grown angry. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I have come to offer my condolences,” the Admiral said.

“Your condolences?” her father echoed, growing red in the face. “I don’t want your fucking condolences. This is your fault!” He shoved past her into the doorway. “You were supposed to protect her! Isn’t that your stars-forsaken job?”

The Admiral did not react to that, standing so perfectly still. He may as well have been a statue. His expression never strayed from calm. “I am sorry, Johnathan.”

“No, you’re not,” her father snapped. “You were jealous. Always so jealous because Christine and I had what was taken from you. And you just couldn’t stand that, could you?”

The Admiral said nothing, his expression left perfectly blank.

“You always do this. You’d rather be quiet than lie, as if that makes you less of a monster, but it doesn’t. It just makes you pathetic. You made your choice.”

Stoic as he always was, the Admiral had turned from his brother, and looked toward her, toward the young teen with tear-stained cheeks. “I am sorry.”

Amelia had never known him well, only enough to know that his disposition was always so severe. But still, that apology, made directly to her, had stood out among so many other hushed words.

Her father had taken less kindly. “Leave.” He commanded, quaking with so much anger that the door knob he held rattled. “Now. Before I hit you. You are a wanted member of no family,” straight poison filled those words, “And you never will be.”

The Admiral nodded once. “Understood.” He affixed his cap. “Good day, Mister Secretary.” He pivoted on his heel and stalked off. Amelia’s father had slammed the door behind him.

At the time, she felt her father had taken the anger of his grief out on his brother without real cause. Amelia had been old enough to understand the Admiral’s duties. Everything and everyone in international space flew in his domain. He had always been indirectly responsible for the Yokohoma’s fate. But now she knew the blame was more direct than mere responsibility. It was causality. “He killed my mother.” Or rather, his ship had, but having spent time on the Singularity, she knew there was little point in distinguishing one from the other.

Merlyn nibbled on the remaining crust of his sandwich, observing her. “You didn’t know?”

“My father never told me.” What would have been the point? She had not seen the Admiral after that day, and had Reeter not abducted her, she doubted she ever would have.

Merlyn sat for a moment, remembering his own loss: wife and children killed aboard the Yokohoma. He’d taken on the orphans to fill that hole and prove to the universe that he could have been a good father. But, as those kids seemed likely to starve out here, it had become a cruel joke. “I never could figure out why he did it,” Merlyn admitted. The Yokohoma was such a sloppy, random attack from a soldier renown for his methodical nature.

Amelia pursed her lips, and pointedly handed back the Captain’s data pad. “He was jealous.” Jealous of the life he never got to lead. Amelia had known that feeling too, in the months since her husband’s death. Every time she’d seen a happy couple or a happy family, it had stabbed at her, a dark and twisted jealousy. Their happiness had made her irrationally angry. It had prompted her to leave stores and restaurants early. It had prompted her to snap at some of them once, as if they should have seen her misery and kept their happiness unseen and unheard.

Amelia’s resentment never would have prompted her to make them as miserable and lonely as she was. But then, she wasn’t a notorious sociopath with a weapon the size of a city at her beck and call. A lapse of judgement in her case meant a sharp word. A lapse in the Admiral’s case could sink a cruise liner. “Gives’ sister-in-law was on the Yokohoma,” she told Merlyn. “His fiancée left him alone, so he felt his brother should be alone too.” It was sick, but she understood it in weird, disturbing way. It was difficult to see others live the life one had wanted for oneself.

Merlyn put the data pad away, thinking the answer was now clear. The Singularity wouldn’t be returning to this fleet. And yet, Merlyn could not shake what the Admiral had said to him in that otherwise empty conference room. We both now serve as protectors of things we can never have.

Merlyn was protecting Helena Delleora’s orphans because he longed for the family he’d never see again. He was not clueless. He well knew what had brought him here.

But what had the Admiral been referring to?