Hyperspace, Battleship Singularity
Legally, every ship in the fleet was supposed to be dry – no alcohol or other inebriating substances aboard. Of course, if one had been the fleet long enough, one knew that to be utter nonsense. The Singularity was no different, in fact, she might even be worse than the rest of the fleet in this case. The ship’s doctor and chief armory officer were members of a competitive drinking team, and the rest of the crew wasn’t keen on long-term sobriety either. Thus, one of the ship’s vacant compartments had been transformed into a bar. That was tradition on many ships, but usually the space was little more than a dingy closet.
That said, the Singularity’s crew did nothing halfway, especially breaking fleet regulation. The Singularity’s bar was a fleshed-out space with decorative lights, tables, games, and even something of a menu – drinks and food provided by none other than Mama Ripley. The crew took great pride in creating something like that beneath the nose of the commanding officer, as if it had been a new and noteworthy idea. It wasn’t, and the ship’s bar had existed in some form since launch, even if the Admiral usually pretended not to know about it.
Most of the crew never suspected that Zarrey, Mama Ripley and the supply officer, Lieutenant Letts, had secured the space, supplies and funding to enlarge and improve the bar with the Admiral’s backing. He, more than anyone, knew how boring their long patrols could be, and that it was healthy for the crew to have somewhere they could unwind. The dart boards, billiards tables and tabletop games were simply more effective than a dingy closet with bootleg alcohol. This public, nicely lit space with properly sourced booze was safer too. Generally, it was a joyous environment. They would do trivia nights themed with random questions from the ship’s archives, schedule concerts from the handful of hobby musicians on board, and the crew, a little tipsy after a battle, would often sing shanties. That, the Admiral knew, was the ghost’s favorite. Her presence always sung alongside them, beyond their perception, but singing all the same.
By now, however, the bar was empty. Any crew that had celebrated the completion of the raid had moved on. It was a stretch to say it was even still nighttime. At 0330, the ship’s chronometer was ticking toward the early morning hours.
Past the mismatched chairs and the scuffed tables that filled the compartment was a massive countertop with twenty barstools. Behind the bar were all the amenities expected of a popular shore leave joint: ice machines, shakers, blenders, taps, glass racks and sinks. Fridges were installed between the cabinets, and there was a small kitchenette around the corner used to prepare snacks.
Above the bar, decorations and trophies hung, lit by small spotlights. Most of them were prizes won from other crews or pilfered from less-than-official means. Among them was a politician’s favorite pen, a musician’s signed record, the helmet of a famous ace, the largest gem of a pirate’s treasure hoard, and even the fossil of an unidentifiable lifeform. But, front and center sat the most prized of them all: a ceremonial sword.
Every ship in the fleet had one. It was forged alongside the ship, and carried aboard – an embodiment of a ship’s capability on the human scale. In most cases, they were purely ceremonial, a point of pride brought out only on parade, and utilized only for ceremonies of high-honor, like the transfer of a ship’s command. Some exceptionally prideful ship commanders used them as personal weapons, but most found it uncouth to shed blood with the ceremonial blade.
The blade hanging above the bar, an obsidian longsword with a ruby-studded handle, was the Singularity’s sword. Like everything else on the wall, it had been swiped from its rightful storage place, and the ship’s crew was quite fond of the prize. The Admiral had been content to let them keep it. The sword did more for morale here than gathering dust in storage. And, for all the pomp and circumstance he’d gone through as the Fleet Admiral, he’d never once touched the ship’s ceremonial blade. When he’d gained command, there hadn’t been a ceremony. The sword had never been brought out, but he had never expected his predecessor to abide tradition.
Moving around the bar top, Admiral Gives stepped into the adjacent storage room. Shelves had been added floor to ceiling in this space, boxes of liquor, mixers and snack foods set upon them. The room smelled faintly woody, probably the result of a broken liquor bottle and a bucket of used wine corks sat in the corner, ready to be repurposed. At this hour, he’d expected the room to be vacant, so he was less-than-pleased to find himself face to face with the ship’s head cook.
The old woman threw her hands on her wide hips. “Why are you still awake?”
Loathe as he was to admit it, being caught here, at this time of the night, did feel like he’d been caught red-handed. Ripley’s scolding never missed their mark, and all she needed was a handful of words and a stern look.
“You should be asleep,” Ripley reminded him.
“So should you,” he countered.
“Please, you know the last few left only an hour ago.” Those who volunteered to work the ship’s bar were organized and trained by Mama Ripley. That meant, the night after a mission, Ripley herself usually handled the bar, giving the others a chance to partake. In exchange, the other cooks would handle the morning prep. “I’ve been cleaning.” After the last crew retired, the surfaces had to be wiped down, and everything had to be put securely away. That was ship regulation. Bar or not, she held this compartment to the same standard as the mess and the kitchens. “Why are you here?”
“I was just looking for a nightcap.” Something strong enough to help him sleep.
Ripley narrowed her eyes. “Are you drunk?” Or trying to be?
Tempted as he was to start hiccupping and staggering, he knew that would end with Ripley locking him in this supply closet until she deemed him sober enough to come out. “I am fine.” And he was. He knew better than to drink himself silly. He could be prompted at any time to make a decision that involved life or death for any number of the crew. He could not afford to compromise his judgement. And, staying mostly sober prevented him from saying anything he might later regret, no matter how true it was. “I’m just looking for a nightcap.” That was the honest truth.
It was always hard to tell with the Admiral. He was so stoic, and always looked the same. Even now, in the dead of night, he was in full uniform dress. Perhaps, Ripley reasoned, that was how he was most comfortable. Nothing on him gave away anything, but the presence draped across his shoulders like a cloak was another matter. It had calmed since Ripley had last felt it, not a churning mass teetering on the edge of self-inflicted violence, but a calm and steady weight. One she was certain he would never acknowledge. Given that, it was clear why he was still awake.
“You’re a good man,” Ripley told him.
“I am really not.” Clinging to such a foolhardy belief was a mistake made by far too many.
“I do not know anyone else who would offer that kind of patience, Will.” No, she corrected his name, “Admiral, that is a kind gesture.” Staying up and taking the time to try to steady the ghost was a kind gesture to an entity that had seen so very little kindness. “Even if she cannot speak to it now, I know the time you spend with her means the worlds her.” In better times, the ghost spoke of the books they went through together. She said nothing of the novels themselves, but of what it meant to have him read to her. Each word was a promise that he would not harm the ghost, and Ripley well know that he meant it. He would do anything to give the ghost or any other member of the crew a chance at a better life. The only suffering he ignored was his own, always trying to make up for a dreadful mistake that had been well beyond his control. He seemed to believe that if he worked enough, if he could just protect these people, that alone justified his continued existence.
But that was no way to live and Ripley knew it. “Did you eat anything?” She asked, reading the answer from his emotionless expression. “Would you like me to eat with you?”
“That will not be necessary.”
“You are going to kill yourself if you keep going like this. No one wants that for you.” Ripley would rather see him do well, so too would the ghost. Most of the crew probably did not know how he struggled, but they admired him in many ways, and would not want their image of him tarnished. “There are a number of people here who would help you without hesitation, even if it meant sharing a meal with the big boss.” Not every member of the crew would be perturbed by that.
“I am not hungry.”
“Because your friend is suffering?” Ripley did often wonder how much he felt of the ghost’s status. This refusal to eat seemed to be an indication that her degradation affected him too. “I know you would give anything to help her. I would too. But stars, you have to know that sometimes it is all we can do to show her that we are doing well. You cannot bear the burden for her. She must be strong enough to carry it. She will recover, Admiral. She is stronger than all of us, and you starving yourself to suffer with her is not helping. Show her how to move on. Show her how to keep going and she will follow in your wake.” That was the leader’s responsibility – to show others the path when they could not see it themselves. “So, I will get you a bottle.” That seemed a fair concession. “Allow yourself one miserable night and tomorrow, move on. Look toward the future, not the past.”
Giving him one last somber look, Ripley turned and moved over to one of the crates left against the wall. He said nothing, but the Admiral shadowed her movement.
The crate was marked for high importance, a critical supply. Surely that was some crewman’s idea of hilarity, or an excuse for Letts, the ship’s supply officer, to personally escort it and smuggle its contents aboard. Like any that held foodstuffs or fragile supplies, the crate was a bulky, insulated chest, with a gray plasticky exterior. It was near-identical to the storage crate the Admiral had investigated earlier in the long-term storage hold. Even down to a familiar scar.
As Ripley opened the lid, he caught a better angle of the damage, not a scratch, but a raised and bubbled ridge. Heat damage. Instantly, he reached forward and snagged Ripley’s wrist, pulling her two steps back as the lid of the crate slammed closed.
“What are you-?” Ripley turned, finding his expression had taken on the chill of a warning. She quieted and allowed him to pull her further back. His grip was never painful, but it still took her aback. Beyond the occasional handshake, Admiral Gives never touched anyone. If possible, he would avoid it altogether. The fact he’d pulled her back immediately told Ripley that something was very wrong.
With Ripley safely behind him, the Admiral stepped forward. Carefully, he reached toward the bubbled rise on the lid of the crate. It gave under pressure, still warm to the touch. This was recent. Perhaps within the last few minutes.
Instantly, he began looking around for anything else out of place. The wire shelves of the store room were anchored, the other crates securely tied down. None of them had any strange scarring, but none of them had markings of high importance either. The contents of the store room were otherwise ordinary. The surrounding deck tiles and bulkheads showed only the usual wear and tear of human occupancy. The lights above were bright and steady.
Tracing the scar across the top of the container, it curved over the beveled edge of the container, down onto the side. The damage stopped just past the lid, but he followed the trajectory of the line down onto the ground, and to a ventilation grate. There were multiple just like it in every compartment on the ship – channels that allowed the flow of air for temperature and atmospheric control. But this one was loose, and it shouldn’t have been. It was bad practice to leave anything loose on a spacecraft, worse practice to neglect the care of the atmospheric systems. Even a loose, rattling grate could generate debris that might damage a filter, fan or air recycler – all critical for anyone who liked breathing in the depths of space.
Then there was the sound. A plinking clatter, not a noise made by the ship herself, but of something tapping against her metals. At first it faded away, but then picked up in tempo and volume, drawing closer once more.
The Admiral took a step back, altogether certain that something was wrong. He kept himself between Ripley and the ventilation grate. Given the volume of the ship’s ventilation channels, whatever was approaching couldn’t be large, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous.
The pitter-patter of the approaching sound stopped, and then a thin, needle-like protrusion emerged, pushing the grate cover aside. Three more protrusions followed, not needles, but limbs. A round little body emerged from the ventilation duct, attached to eight spindly legs. A small head was attached to its main form, mounting the tip of a plasma cutter, still glowing orange from recent use.
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Ripley stared at it, uncertain she had ever seen anything quite like it. She kept her voice low and quiet, shadowing the Admiral’s movement. “What is that?”
“A cutting drone.” Officially, they were designed for use in the scrap yards. Swarms of these drones could cut down and disassemble machines many times their size. Like ants, they were far stronger than they appeared. Naturally, their efficiency had been put toward militarized use. If any number of these drones were somehow planted on a target, they could cut signal and power lines, or begin taking off armor to weaken a target. The Singularity’s main engines had been subject to that very tactic in the battle of the Wilkerson Sector.
“What’s it doing here?” Ripley asked.
That’s a good question. In fact, it was the exact same the Admiral had. These drones were human tech, nothing exotic. It was not uncommon for salvage crews to carry them. Hell, the Singularity probably had some on board, but they’d never been used. The old ship didn’t possess the capability to control them the way newer ships with centralized computing could.
The drone turned toward them, the lenses on its head twinkling as they found focus. It was the Admiral’s opinion that these drones had more lenses than strictly necessary. They were mounted in a ring around the drone’s head, but the number of them made it a little too spider-like for his tastes.
Even worse, as if drawn by the sound of Ripley’s voice, its head snapped toward them. A sense of wrongness gnawed at the Admiral’s nerves. This drone shouldn’t be active. Not aboard a ship that did not have the means to control it. “Door,” he told Ripley, beginning to slowly back away. Whatever this drone’s purpose, they did not want to be caught in an enclosed space.
Ripley didn’t argue. As much as it pained her to let him place himself between her and the drone’s potential danger, she also knew there was no point in arguing over it. She crept quietly back toward the door, the Admiral mirroring every step as he kept a watchful eye on the drone.
As Ripley ducked through the door, it seemed like the drone wasn’t going to do anything. It just sat there, powered, but still. Then, without a twitch of warning, it charged forward, its sharp little legs plinking across the textured deck tiles. The plasma cutter on its head ignited, spewing forth a rabid froth of blue flame, and it jumped up onto the nearest shelf. It was now at head-height, so as it ran toward him along the edge of the shelf, Admiral Gives could very well assume its next target.
The drone was small and fast, but he had just enough time to leap backward, grab the door and slam it closed as the drone jumped once again. The door shuddered when the drone impacted, the thud disproportionate to its small size.
Admiral Gives turned to Ripley, “Back,” he urged, “That door will not hold it for long.” The focused laser of a plasma torch could cut through the ship’s battle armor in a matter of minutes. A simple door would only hold for a fraction of that. He could already hear the hiss of the cutter delving into the metal.
Ripley took a few steps backward, shoving down her immediate questions. Why was this drone attacking? Who was controlling it? She had enough combat experience to know that survival came first and answers came later. She focused instead on the Admiral as he opened up drawers and dug quickly through their contents. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for a weapon.” That drone had jumped with an intent to kill and near-contact with the edge of a plasma torch guaranteed third-degree burns. There could be no fighting hand-to-hand. He yanked a small, serrated citrus knife from its cover. Better than nothing. That cutting drone was a hell of a lot faster than him or Ripley. Once it escaped the closet, there would be no outrunning it, nor was he willing to let something that dangerous loose on the rest of the crew.
There were times Ripley wondered how this man had become one of the most feared tacticians in the worlds. You’re an idiot. “I know a weapon you can use,” she told him, pointing upwards.
Admiral Gives followed her gesture to the longsword hung above the bar – the very same one he’d admired on his way in. Oh, yeah, “That will work.”
He heaved himself up onto the wooden bar top, yanked the sword from the hooks that held it, and nearly dropped it the minute he took its weight. The damn thing was heavy, but he should have expected that. These ceremonial swords were supposed to be representations of their ships, and the Singularity was not only large, but constructed from a dense alloy. For a spacecraft rated to fly in atmosphere, she was very heavy, but a light structure couldn’t handle the recoil of large-caliber artillery. And, in this case, a bit of weight was just was he needed.
Tightening his grip on the obsidian longsword, he hopped down from the bar. “Stay back,” he commanded, pleased to see the chef oblige by ducking behind the bar. It wouldn’t save her from the cutting drone’s attack, but it would prevent her from being the first target.
Taking position beside the door to the supply room, he could hear the hiss of superheating metal even louder than before. A visible part of the door was beginning to glow near the floor, so he raised the sword up, biding his time as sparks began to spew by his feet.
Cutting drones, like the insects their design had been based off of, could squeeze themselves through incredibly small holes, so the moment he saw even one of its spindly legs emerge, he swung. The main body of the drone popped through the searing hole in the door, and the sword impacted with a solid crunch, denting its round body inward, and splitting the casing as the drone’s internal circuitry was crushed. The drone spasmed once, its little legs convulsing, and then the plasma torch on its head spluttered out.
“I hate spiders,” the Admiral muttered, yanking the sword free. He checked it down its length, impressed. The edge hadn’t been particularly sharp before, and was probably worse for the wear now, but its angling and weight was proper to damage metal. Brief contact with the plasma torch hadn’t deformed it, because it was made of reinforced obsidian. On its own, obsidian was fairly brittle, and would break or scratch easily, a poor choice for a weapon, but it had a very low coefficient of heat transfer – around four percent that of aluminum. It would take a substantial amount of time for a plasma torch to cut this blade, useful given his target.
Peeking up above the edge of the bar, Ripley sighed a breath of relief. “What the hell was that about? Did you finally piss off the ghost?” That shadow-like presence wasn’t lingering anymore, as far as Ripley could tell.
Admiral Gives set the sword carefully upon the bar, reminding himself to come polish it later. “I do not believe so.” He knelt beside the drone, “Do you have tongs here?”
“Of course I have tongs here,” Ripley huffed, opening up one of the drawers, “we’re not handling the cocktail ice by hand.” They were a battleship crew, not heathens.
“Bring them here,” the Admiral said.
Ripley fixed her apron and knelt down on the drone’s other side. “I’m getting too old for this.”
Taking one set of silver tongs, Admiral Gives used them to grab one side of the drone’s ruptured casing. “Take hold of the other side,” he told Ripley. “I need to see its internal circuitry.”
Ripley sighed, displeased by this abuse of her kitchen supplies, but didn’t argue. She pinned the drone’s thin silver skin between the tongs and nodded. Together, they began to pull. The drone’s casing held for a moment, but already damaged, soon peeled open just another inch.
That was enough to let light shine down onto the circuit cards. They were crushed, the drone totally inoperable now, but there something added in. Like a weed growing between two paving stones, a chip had been wired into the layered circuit card assembly.
Circuitry had never been the Admiral’s specialty. He was much more familiar with physical machinery, but judging simply by the way some of the cards were labeled, and the connections to the drone’s central processor and receiver, it appeared to be a control chip. He pushed the tongs into the gap, took hold of the chip and wrenched it free. It was a different make from the rest of the circuitry – a different color, almost transparent, like glass. He could see the connections and components inside were much denser than the drone’s other cards. “This was a recent addition,” he told Ripley.
“You know, one of the Marine teams ripped a control chip out of a loader-bot on Crimson Heart’s base.” She’d overheard them telling that story at the bar like it was the heroic adventure of a lifetime. “Think that’s related?”
“Unfortunately.” This drone had been crawling around the ship since they’d engaged Crimson Heart. The ghost had perceived its disturbances, but it had been much too small, and she much to overwhelmed to isolate the issue. But what end was this drone serving? There had been no reports of injury, nor any reports of damage.
“Who’s controlling them?” Ripley wondered. “The Baron?”
“No,” this was probably much worse than that. “The Baron himself was not controlling anything directly.” Somehow, he’d coerced a Hydrian AI into doing that for him. That’s what these chips were – microcontrollers that allowed Hydrian AI to operate human technology. They were adapters, translating between Hydrian and human tech, and whatever objective this drone had served was over now. Its controller would know that it had been destroyed.
The Admiral grabbed a napkin from the bar and wrapped up the chip. It would surely be useful to dissect later. Then, he stood, and was hit immediately with a pang of exceptional discomfort.
“Admiral?” Ripley asked, immediately concerned.
He steadied himself on the bar. “I’m fine,” this wasn’t pain. It was more like an uncomfortably tight pinch, and it wasn’t his sensation, so to speak. It was the ghost, trying to tell him something, but still not quite healed enough to do it in a way that was understandable to him.
He located the nearest handset, and rushed to grab it off its mount. “Sitrep.”
The voice of the ship’s automated protocols answered him immediately, “Unauthorized access to navigational data.”
Unauthorized access? The crew all had access to that information. They had a right to know where the ship was headed. But, no, that wasn’t the point. In their raw state, the ship’s automated protocols only had a select few phrases they could use. In this case, coupled with that discomfort, they were trying to tell him that the navigations data had been accessed in a way it was not meant to be accessed – by physically jacking into the system. But why?
No, that shouldn’t be the most immediate concern. If the navigations data had been tapped, that meant there were more drones.
There was no way to track drones that small aboard ship. The Singularity’s internal sensors simply weren’t designed for it. They were built and calibrated to monitor atmospheric conditions, to identify fires and decompressions. The ship wasn’t equipped to combat tricks and espionage. She was a brawler, built to fight ship-to-ship.
The handset in the Admiral’s grip crackled, “Warning, imminent FTL power failure.”
Power failure? He turned to glance at the destroyed drone, remembering the plasma torch. The ship’s power lines were redundant, but as internal components, they were unarmored. A cutting drone’s plasma torch could cut them easily. Damn it all.
The voice of the ship’s automated protocols spoke once more, offering a single instruction, “Brace.”
The Admiral didn’t need to be told twice. He dropped the handset, and ran back toward Ripley. “Get down,” he ordered.
Ripley hesitated, clearly confused by the command. She didn’t notice the soft, pulsating hum of the ship’s warp drive dropped out of the background. “Down,” he repeated, grabbing Ripley and dragging her to the ground.
The force of it hit a moment later, the ship careening as it fell out of hyperspace. A wall of force hit everything, knocking the few unsecured items off the shelves, shattering glasses as they jostled in their racks. It crushed Ripley against the Admiral, and him into the rigid metal of the wall. Had they been standing, they would have no doubt been thrown, violently, but as it was, he cushioned her from the worst of it, shielding both their heads from direct impact.
Still, it felt like being hit on the temple with a baseball bat. Ripley lost consciousness for a moment. She came to as her ears rung with deafening tinnitus. Everything in sight was fuzzy and bright. It all came back into focus a moment later, when she realized the Admiral was shaking her shoulder, trying to get her attention. She felt older than she’d felt in a long time, an exhausting weight suddenly pressing down upon her. Warm, runny blood was starting to trickle out of her nose. “What happened?” she asked, voice weak.
“We dropped out of hyperspace.”
Then it was no surprise the Admiral had recovered first. Sailors built tolerance to FTL events, and he had more experience than she did, since she’d served station-side for a large portion of her career. “I don’t remember it being so violent,” she said, trying to stop the blood flowing out of her nose.
“It was not by choice.” With power cut to the FTL drives, they’d lost the stable warp field, and hyperspace had forcefully spat them out.
Warp travel through hyperspace was generally considered safer than the other mode of FTL, jumping through subspace, but warp travel was not without risk. There was a process to it, and that process, while not as demanding as a jump, could be unforgiving if disrupted. Admiral Gives would rather not consider how big of a hit the ship’s structural integrity had just taken. A lesser ship may not have survived at all, but there was no time to consider that now. After tapping the ship’s navigational data, the drones had chosen to drop them out here, wherever here was. “You are injured, stay here,” he told Ripley, “I will get someone.”
“For fuck’s sake, a bloody nose won’t kill me.” True, she felt sore, but after the roughness of that transition, there would be others far worse than she.
“Then gather your staff and get to work. Forcefully decommission any drone you find.” He could hear the faint error sound of disconnection coming from the handset on the wall. After FTL capability was sabotaged to strand a ship, internal communications was always the logical next target, generating confusion and disorganization. With comms down, they would have to operate by word of mouth. “Spread the news,” he instructed. “We are under attack.”