Homebound Sector, Ariea, Valkar, Eagle’s Talon
How could Command do this to her? General Clarke himself had said that there were no black marks on her record, so why had Alise Cortana been assigned to what was regarded as the worst ship in the entire fleet? To say that she was disappointed did not even begin to cover it.
The Singularity was an aging class of ship, nearly obsolete. Out on patrol, the ship operated without a direct connection to the cortex, humanity’s vast interplanetary data network. It remained completely isolated for weeks, if not months at a time. It meant that the crew had nothing but each other to entertain themselves with. And with a crew populated by criminals, disobedients and other undesirables, Cortana had no doubt that environment would not be one that she would enjoy. Compared to her posting here, it would be nothing short of hell.
Yet, she had no choice but to abide Command’s orders. It was probably a punishment for her failure to protect Secretary Gives. For all she knew, Admiral Gives had requested her new assignment to be on his ship. Perhaps he wanted to evaluate what sort of person had let his brother die on her watch. Her insides twisted at the thought. There was absolutely no way to know what Secretary Gives’ heartless brother would have in store for her.
She tried not to let that scare her, but the Admiral’s reputation far preceded him. When he set out to hurt someone, to break someone, there was no force in the worlds smart enough to stop him. People questioned his loyalty to his old ship, they questioned his choice of crew, and they questioned his sanity, but they did not question his ability. He was one of the deadliest people in human history. There was no one more feared and less understood.
Not even his brother had pretended to know Admiral Gives’ real intentions, if he had any. According to the Secretary, the past that had brought Admiral Gives into power had also transformed him into true sociopath: a logical, antisocial monster without conscience. No rumor or fact about the last thirty years offered any counter-evidence toward that claim, but Cortana supposed she would soon be able to make that judgement for herself.
Her possessions had all been packed away to take to the ship, leaving her small apartment as bare as it had ever been. The plain furniture had come with the place, and would stay to welcome whoever was next assigned to these living quarters. Lodging of some likely-disappointing variety would be waiting for her on the ship. Soldiers like her travelled light, with just a duffel of personal belongings.
Even her uniforms would be replaced once she made it to the ship, since they were specific to her assignment. The basics of the uniform were always the same for the Marines: black cargo pants and a tactical vest with a uniform shirt underneath. It was the shirt and the patch on the vest that changed.
Working for Command directly, the prestigious golden emblem decorated her vest, and was stamped onto all her shirts. Once she arrived to her new assignment, that symbol would be replaced by the Singularity’s own insignia. She had already been given the replacement patch for her vest, but refused to put it on. It felt flimsy in her hands compared to Command’s.
The golden abstract emblem earned a great deal of respect wherever it was worn. The Singularity’s simple red and yellow sun would earn the opposite, since her crew was regarded as one of the worst in the fleet. Once upon a time, this insignia would have earned respect to equal Command’s, but that had been a long time ago.
During the War, it had been a symbol of victory, of sending the Hydrian Armada down in flames. During the Frontier Rebellion, it had become a token of hate, of the central planets’ dominance. In the Dead Years, the decade that had followed, this flaming sun had been a badge to be feared. But that was all history, those had been the years when the ship had been the flagship. The Singularity had lost that position fifteen years ago, and with it had gone the ring of silver stars that had once circled her emblem, leaving it plain and fragile.
Without the glorified position of flagship, the ship and her emblem had become connotated with weakness. It had become the symbol of a ship that should have been decommissioned years ago, and had become a disposal assignment for unwanted personnel.
That’s what I am now, Cortana supposed, unwanted. She had failed a mission, and now no longer met Command’s expectations for success. With several billion members of humanity living in poverty, there was no place for failure within Command’s ranks. She could easily be replaced. It was easy come, easy go for everyone, especially soldiers.
It was remarkably difficult to succeed in the fleet, and even harder everywhere else. At least serving in the military, she was guaranteed housing, food and steady pay, even if it was a shitty assignment.
Provided that Admiral Gives elected not to kill her, she would have to make it work. If she wanted to ever leave that assignment, she had to study her new home and learn to thrive, even if the thought of calling the Singularity home sickened her stomach.
Resting her cheek on her palm, she struggled to focus on the sheets of information in front of her. Command had forwarded the ship schematics in paper because that was how the Singularity primarily operated. It would be laughable if it was not so honest.
The ship was borderline ancient in the realm of technology. It was hard to believe that any ship commissioned in the previous century met Command’s immense modern requirements. But rumor at Command had it the Singularity did not actually qualify for continued service. Allegedly, Admiral Gives’ refusal to move his command elsewhere was the primary reason the ship was still in active service.
The schematics listed were only reinforcing that rumor. A Hydrian War era power core? Non-networked computers? Conjoiner Drives? MA Cannons? It was ridiculous, and in her opinion, it was a crime against modern technology to let the ship fly.
It was a wonder it even did still fly.
Or perhaps, it was a further tribute to the Fleet Admiral’s skill that he managed not to sink the aging ship. Despite the many misgivings about his moral character and history, Admiral Gives was unquestionably one of the most highly respected officers in the fleet. No one could deny him that, no matter which ship he chose to Command, or who he accepted into his crew. His service record, provided within her orientation papers, was a spotless list of commendations and awards. However, none of that meant that he was well-liked.
It was a fact that Admiral Reeter despised Admiral Gives. Reeter made no effort to hide that fact, and Admiral Gives made no effort to address it. The younger Admiral Reeter was nothing short of a celebrity. He was constantly interviewed and used for propaganda in the media. It would have been a high honor to serve on his Flagship Olympia.
On the other hand, Admiral Gives was one of the most feared people in the worlds. His moniker, the Steel Prince, had been earned from a lifetime of cruelty and killing, and was more widely known than his actual name. Where it was possible, the public media preferred to avoid him. Command dispatched his black battleship when failure and mercy were not an option.
The Fleet Admiral had the authority to pick any ship he wished to be his personal command, including the Flagship Olympia. His choice to stay with the fleet’s original flagship had perplexed many over the years, but these days, it only added to his enigma.
Presented with a list of the ship’s weapons systems, Cortana could not deny that it seemed impressive. Fully stocked, the Singularity arsenal would have been more than enough to take out an entire fleet, and during the Hydrian War, she had done just that. However, it was more than likely the better half of those weapon systems no longer functioned. It was all out of date by a matter of decades.
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She crumpled up the equipment roster and tossed it into the recycling bin, moving onto the ship’s overall stats. Over six thousand confirmed battle kills, 6328. A little asterisk hung by the inelegant font, designating that number the fleet high. There was not another ship in the fleet that came anywhere near that total.
It boggled her mind to think so many ships had been sunk by the Singularity, but in truth there were probably hundreds more than had gone down undocumented. Additionally, a total of 518 ships had surrendered to the former flagship on record over the years, 207 of them unconditionally within the last two decades.
An ugly buzz rang out, shaking some of the papers on the table. Cortana dug through the packets, and found that her handheld data pad was vibrating, someone calling her over the network She tapped to answer, putting her friend on speaker. “What do you want?” she asked him, trying to reorganize the mountain of papers on her table. How is it even remotely efficient to operate a ship this way? She felt like she was drowning in the sheets.
“Turn on your vid-screen right now,” came the voice on the other end of the line.
The tension in his words caught her attention immediately. Was he distraught? “What’s wrong, Kevin?” Maybe he broke up with his girlfriend, she thought, figures that would happen right before I leave. No chance for me to step in.
“Just do it!” Kevin shouted.
She reached for the remote that her papers had already pushed to the floor. “Alright, alright.” The screen blinked on to one of the local news stations.
“-just in, Ariean Central Government President Raizenor has been shot.” The news anchor’s voice was trembling, just barely, but the shake was there. “Only blocks from where the Secretary of Defense was killed just days ago, the leader of the unified republic has been shot during his visit to Eagle’s Talon.”
“The attack interrupted his public address, which was being broadcast over the cortex.” The anchor had managed to calm herself, but that same terror and disbelief was just beginning to set in on Cortana. “No announcement has been made about the President’s condition, but the Republic Council chambers in Capitol City have gone into security lockdown.”
The wail of sirens that Cortana had been ignoring outside her window suddenly took on a whole new meaning. That would have been the President’s ambulance and the military police. “Hell fires in heaven.” What was going on?
“It’s a coup, Alise! A coup!” her friend cried, “First the Secretary of Defense, and now this? The New Era is making their move. They have to be.” The tension had been building for years, the movement steadily growing in power and number since its humble origins in the years between the War and the Frontier Rebellion. This moment in the year 4249, had to be the moment they took over.
“Shhh! They’ll be recording all communications in and out of this city. Are you trying to get arrested?” Command had eyes and ears everywhere, and speaking of a coup, any coup, made one a separatist in the eyes of the surveillance state. “Besides, the New Era has great plans for the future. They’re going to minimalize the wealth gap, advance our technology and put an end to internal violence.” They would not initiate a bloody coup. Reeter was a known sympathizer with their cause. “We’re just low-ranking soldiers anyway. What do we care who’s in charge?” As long as the pay continued to come and order was maintained, it did not matter.
“They’re terrorists, Alise! Not saviors!” Kevin shouted into his side of the connection. “The first thing the New Era ever organized was the bomb that blew up the Xin Refinery on the edge of the Neutral Zone!” An act of flat out terrorism that had risked restarting the Hydrian War.
“That was forty years ago, Kevin.” A lot had changed since then. “That was before the Frontier Rebellion.” That Rebellion, and its resultant casualties had changed everything. It had stalled technological advances for sixteen years while the worlds had reeled back in horror of what they had done. Those sixteen years, chaotic and bloody in their own right, had become known as the Dead Years.
“That’s what they want people to believe, but that’s not true! They want power and they’re willing to kill to get it! Their ideals include the acceptance of mass murder!”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cortana told him. “You need to calm down before you get yourself in trouble.” She ended the call before his emotional outbursts could get them both arrested. Command’s surveillance would not miss this little conversation, and that vigilance had never bothered her until now.
Alise huffed. Maybe it’s a good thing I have to leave before I got the chance to date him. Kevin was clearly somewhat delusional. She put the conversation out of her mind. There was absolutely no way that Reeter’s New Era Movement would ever do something like this. Absolutely no way.
The news drew her attention once again, “This video clip is of President Raizenor’s live address earlier tonight.” The anchor disappeared, replaced with the video of an auditorium packed with defense contractors and fleet officers.
President Raizenor stepped onto the stage, waving and smiling easily, to be met with wild applause from the crowd. He was the youngest leader the countries had ever elected. His moderate policies had allowed him to beat out more extreme and experienced candidates in the public elections. His sandy hair lacked grays entirely, resting in a perfect alignment atop his head as he tapped the microphone on the podium.
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen,” he greeted the crowd, “I wish I could bring good news on a night so close to the tragedy that recently struck our government.”
The way Raizenor found the camera amongst the crowd made Alise feel as though he was speaking directly to her, even though the address was long over. “The Republic will mourn the loss of Secretary Gives greatly. He was a true loyalist, a peacemaker, and a friend to all who knew him.” A moment of silence took over the crowd, commemorating the loss of a great public servant.
“Tonight, however, I must address the unrest that had risen again to trouble the tranquility of our great civilization. Nearly two days ago, Ariean standard time, martial law was declared on the planet of Sagittarion. The people of the working class have risen violently up against the standing government.” Raizenor paused again, lowering his head, “The Governor of Sagittarion was reported killed in the rebellion. Another great leader has been lost to us, and the rebels activated Sagittarion’s planetary defense grid. Base Aquair, in orbit, was destroyed at the cost of some seven thousand civilian and UCS Command personnel.”
A planet in open rebellion? Cortana was too taken aback to formulate proper thought. New Terra had been the last planet in open rebellion, having declared complete independence way back during the Frontier Rebellion. But New Terra was gone. The entire planet had been rendered uninhabitable in 4234, ending the lives of all 300 million colonists, due in large part to the actions of her new commanding officer.
But beyond even that, Base Aquair had been destroyed. Thousands of fleet personnel had just been killed. It was a declaration of war against the Republic.
“In an effort to contain the violence, Sagittarion’s connection to the cortex has been cut off. Additionally, three battleships are en route to negotiate, and should that fail, create an orbital blockade. It is my hope that methods as radical as Sagittarion’s be taken nowhere else. A peaceful agreement can be reached. It is as the Hydrian War hero, Admiral Demetrius Washington once said, ‘Together, we stand. Divided, we shall fall.’”
“So, I ask you, men and women of the Frontier and poorer worlds, not to take to violence. Bring your concerns to the Council. We shall address them with the means to make change for the better. There are over five hundred independent nations within our Republic, some on planets, some in asteroid belts and some on sprawling stations that took on a life of their own. Our differences in beliefs, technology and traditions vary as widely as the distance between galaxies.”
“With over three hundred armed national guard and mercenary fleets registered to operate within Republic space, if we were to turn on one another, we may never find peace again. Please, let us not make the same mistakes our predecessors did at the start of the Frontier Rebellion, thirty-seven years ago-“
The burst of gunfire was barely audible on the recording, but the President immediately collapsed where he stood, quickly surrounded by figures in black: his personal security detail. The live recording was cut off seconds later, Command eager to control the flow of information. The wound that had struck down the President was never seen.
The news woman took back over the screen. “An update on the governmental emergency, it has been confirmed by the hospital in Eagle’s Talon that President Raizenor lost his life in that attack. An official announcement will be made tonight from Capitol City. As for Eagle’s Talon, military police will institute a curfew of 10pm for off-duty personnel, effective immediately.”
But why? Why would anyone want to do this? Who could benefit from killing the Secretary and the President? The worlds had been at peace, finally, truly at peace. Command had been able to dedicate the entire battle fleet to peace keeping, to passive patrols. Why should anyone wish to start a war? No one could benefit from that.
Down on the street below her window, she could hear the clatter of treads on the pavement. An armored ground patrol vehicle crept by, detailed in the black, white and yellow of the military police. Its listening arrays swiveled like ears, trying to pick up the sound of anyone lurking past curfew.
Confronted with the armored vehicle’s mounted water cannons, Cortana was suddenly starting to think that getting off-world was not such a bad idea.