Aragonian Sector, Battleship Singularity
Alone at last, the first thing Colonel Zarrey did was punch the nearest bulkhead, hard. The noise was less than satisfying, and he could feel the bones in his hand fracture, but it was worth it. For a moment, that pain cleared his awful headache and his frustrations were spent.
Usually, he vented his emotions on a punching bag in the gym during his personal time, but he was quickly learning that commanding officers did not get personal time, especially in situations like this. “I blame you,” he told the ship, cradling his painfully bruised hand. “He’s your Admiral.” He held the machine mostly accountable for the Admiral Gives’ actions, since the man never did anything that did not pertain to his duties as the ship’s commanding officer. Therefore, the Admiral putting himself into a coma to activate that power core was also her fault.
Zarrey turned and leaned his back against the bulkheads, speaking to the ship exhaustedly, “To be entirely honest, you’re usually a temperamental bitch when he’s not around, so I really hope he recovers.” Zarrey really did not want to deal with the ship’s odd quirks. He simply did not have the patience, “But play nice, and I might consider taking over and keeping you from getting melted down as scrap.”
The ship creaked. As the structural damage settled, that was a common noise, but he read more out of it than he probably should have. “Fuck you too.”
Colonel Zarrey pulled himself off the wall and started to make his way through the blackened hallways of the ship, feeling like a dead man walking.
Repairs were going slow, but they were going. In the corridors at least, the ship was starting to look more and more like her usual self.
The regular lights had been turned back on, following repairs to the main and secondary power grids. The fallen mountings and other hazards had been removed from the ground, but some of the light mountings had yet to be rehung, leaving the illumination of the corridors strangely uneven. Some of the loose wires had been reconnected and buried back beneath the bulkheads, but others still ran exposed along the edges of the hallway, bypassing the unrepaired regions of the ship.
The artificial gravity field remained lopsided, since the starboard bow had yet to be repaired, and it was playing hell with Zarrey’s inner ear. He knew he was walking level to the deck, but he had to consciously resist the urge to lean against the unbalanced pull. He was certain it was going to drive him slowly insane.
The ship had been stabilized, due to the gravity field and the engineering teams’ tireless efforts, but the demolished starboard bow required more than being stabilized. The collapsed support had taken five others down with it. Repairs on the other five would be easy, and had already begun, because the overarching superstructure, while strained, had survived.
But cracks and fissures spider-webbed the collapsed support. They could repair it and hope that the fractures did not split open again, or they could try to rebuild the support entirely, an action that normally would require the assistance of a shipyard.
Alone in the empty Aragonian Sector, they did not have the resources of a shipyard and they did not have the capability to get there without repairs. It would take months to limp to the nearest fleet facility without using any method of faster than light travel. Even their maximum acceleration with the main engines was limited by the damage, and that nearest facility was not equipped to help repair a ship of the Singularity’s size.
And all of those issues completely ignored the fact that the fleet had tried to kill them.
With that, there was almost no point in returning to a shipyard or calling for help. If the ship that had nearly crippled their own heard the call and arrived first, there was no telling what would become of the wounded Singularity and her crew. Beyond that, there was no way to know who was allied with who. For all they knew, the entire fleet was set on killing them, not just one ship.
It was a righteous mess, one that was so far out of Zarrey’s league, he didn’t even know where to begin. He supposed trying to heal the wounded and using that time to make repairs was a halfway-decent plan. It beat calling for help or flying to a potentially hostile military base. Even with the structural damage, they had a halfway functional ship. They had life support, food, water and at least some hope of defending themselves – even if not a very good one.
They had lost several defensive turrets to the collapse, and the main battery was too risky to fire with the ship’s structural integrity in question. The recoil of the guns might well tear her apart, and as a result, the ship lost one of her biggest assets.
Zarrey struggled to find any real good in their situation. The damage to the engines was reparable, so the Singularity would eventually be able to move under her own power, but with the structural damage, accelerating too hard would also tear the ship apart.
It was quite the predicament. Ship structure was one of the most underrated aspects of tactical analysis, but it affected everything else: weapons, maneuverability and FTL capability. Without a viable structure, a ship became little more than a habitable clamshell.
Just thinking about it all, Colonel Zarrey knew his pounding headache would never subside. The same went for his exhaustion. Both would follow him straight to the grave. Zarrey refused to admit it to the crew, but the truth was they were in deep shit.
The ship’s entire normal state of existence had been blown up by that nuke, and Zarrey was not convinced that repairs could to fix everything. They certainly could not fix the crew that they were missing. Those pieces of normality just weren’t there, and they were never coming back.
Zarrey picked up his pace, heading toward the medical bay. The ship’s cantankerous medical officer would certainly throw him out once he noticed Zarrey loitering, but it was a risk the XO was willing to take. He simply had to know.
Walking in, various crew glanced at him from where they sat around a table in the center of the bay. They made no effort to hide the deck of cards distributed between the table and their hands, and the Colonel made no effort to stop their game.
They were wounded. Some had arms in slings or leg casts that were propped up on nearby chairs. Others only sported small cuts or bruises, but had dark rings under their eyes, and an IV fluids bag lingering on a stand behind them. Those were the crewmen with severe radiation sickness. They would recover in time, but it had been a close call. Under normal circumstances, Zarrey would have ordered this group to deal him in, trying to raise morale, but these were not normal circumstances. He had no time for games.
Along the edges of the room, there were beds with the curtains drawn, the patients most likely either burn victims or asleep. Silent equipment surrounded two of the occupied beds. The patients were covered in a plain white sheet, drawn up over the face. The Colonel turned away, knowing full well what lay there: recent fatalities who had yet to be moved to cold storage.
The official numbers were not in yet, but their losses had been severe. There were unaccounted crew members, mostly those assigned to the starboard bow, so the casualty report had yet to be written. Colonel Zarrey did not rush them, knowing the medical department had their hands full caring for those that were still alive.
Truth be told, he was afraid to know how many they had lost, how many members of their weird little family had died in that attack.
The XO made his way without comment to the curtained off area in the corner. Parting the wall of fabric, he found Doctor Macintosh tending to the Admiral. Zarrey kept his voice down, knowing the long gray curtains did nothing to muffle the noise, “How is he?”
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“Not good,” the doctor grunted, focused on pulling the soiled bandages off of Admiral Gives’ hand. They came off with a wet squelch and the unique odor of puss and burn ointment.
Zarrey averted his eyes, not wanting to see the gory mess. “Well, that’s better than ‘bad,’ right?”
Macintosh pulled on some sterile gloves and began cleaning the wound, swabbing out the inflamed layers of skin and welts. “Not necessarily. He stopped breathing on his own twelve hours ago.” The life support machines had taken over, stimulating his body to keep breathing, but it was not a good sign.
Panic nipped at the Colonel’s mind. He really did not want to inherit command at all, especially not like this. “What’s wrong? Why is he getting worse?”
It took Macintosh just a few seconds to rebandage the ship commander’s injured hand once the wound was clean. “I told you when you brought him in, he was already dead.” Death was just slowly setting in. “I can treat his physical wounds, but I can’t do anything about his head.” It was pointless, but Macintosh went ahead and injected the next dose of medicine into the IV flow. “I managed to treat most of the blood poisoning with a blood filter and some blood bags. It was crude, but effective, and the remaining fever from the leg infection broke about an hour ago, but I’m telling you, that’s not the problem.”
The medical officer sighed, deadbeat, “Despite those improvements, he’s no more reactive now than he was when you brought him in. He’s in a coma, and I’m not seeing any signs that he’s coming out of it.”
“If that’s the case, then he could come out of it at any time,” Zarrey reminded the doctor. It was not unknown for coma patients to spontaneously wake up like a switch had been thrown.
“Maybe.” Macintosh shrugged. It was more likely that help for the Admiral had simply come too late. “If he is going to wake up, he needs to do it in the next six days. I have orders to pull the plug after one week.”
“Fuck that!” Zarrey exclaimed, “Like hell we’re going to take him off life support!” That stupid bastard was going to wake up. He did not get to quit like this. “Whose orders?”
Doctor Macintosh nodded over his shoulder to the Admiral, “His. So, unless you can find someone who can rescind that order, or he miraculously wakes up, you’ll be Commander Zarrey.” Zarrey could not avoid his field promotion for much longer.
The Colonel cracked his fingers nervously. “What about the Admiral’s hand? Will he be able to use it?” he asked, trying to change the subject.
“Yes. It’ll be scarred and probably painful, but it should be useable.” Macintosh was well aware that Admiral Gives was no stranger to pain. He doubted it would slow the man down, if he woke.
Zarrey snorted, “Good thing he’s not a lefty.”
Macintosh frowned at the jibe. “Dennis, you need to take this seriously. This ship is effectively yours.” In everything but documentation, he was now the Singularity’s commanding officer.
“Try telling her that,” Zarrey answered sourly. It was impossible, but on some level, Zarrey was convinced that the ship didn’t actually like him, or at least liked Admiral Gives better.
“The ship doesn’t get a vote, and we both know this is the end of the line.”
Zarrey turned away, “No, it’s not. I’ll find someone to revoke that stupid order.” One week was too soon.
“The only person with the authority to rescind the Admiral’s medical order would have been his brother, and Secretary Gives was shot and killed earlier this week.” It was over. “I very much doubt that Johnathan Gives would have lifted a finger to help his older brother anyway.” The two had been on bad terms for a very long time, but then, Admiral Gives was on good terms with very, very few people in general.
“There’s got to be someone else!” Despite their heated argument, the two officers kept their voices down as little more than whispers.
“Who are you going to look for? His family?” Macintosh asked. “His parents are long dead. His brother’s been killed, and he’s not married.” These days, the Singularity was the closest thing Admiral Gives had to a friend or family.
“What about his fiancée?” Zarrey demanded, regretting the words as soon as they came out.
A heavy silence fell. This argument had just trodden onto an unspoken subject. Macintosh cast a look at the silver ring still on the Admiral’s finger. “You know as well as I do that she’s dead, whether or not the records show it.”
“Does it matter?” Zarrey fired back. “You know that she,” he took a deep breath, “Samantha,” he corrected, “wouldn’t have wanted this. He’s practically killing himself, and you’re helping him!”
“Samantha is gone. She’s been gone for thirty years.” Nothing would ever change that. “All I’m doing is following orders, and that’s what the Admiral would want.” It might be a stupid order, but it was still an order. Macintosh could see Zarrey turning redder and redder, angrier and angrier with his calm. “This is not going to be easy.”
That nuke had put them in a near-impossible situation with Command, an institution they already had not been on good terms with. “We’re fighting alone. These kids want to fight to keep their home, but they don’t stand a chance in hell of winning without the Admiral. You won’t find a single person on this ship who does not respect the Old Man’s abilities, but pull yourself together.” There was no easy way to go through this. “He’s not going to wake up. And Admiral Gives did not spend thirty years gathering this crew aboard this ship, so that it would all fall apart the moment he wasn’t here to protect us.”
“Then what the hell was he doing?” Zarrey challenged, “You cannot look me in the eyes and tell me that you understood what he was trying to do. You cannot look me in the eyes and tell me that you truly believe the great Steel Prince did not have plans for us.” No one would center his command on a ship like this without a reason, and no one formed a crew this close, this loyal to each other, without a good reason.
“None of that matters now, Colonel,” Macintosh said, pulling a mangled, but unlit cigarette from his coat pocket. He twirled it between his steady, surgeon’s hands. “The best laid plans went out the airlock with that nuke. You have to do what you feel is best.”
He popped the cigarette between his teeth and walked over to stab Zarrey roughly in the arm with a needle. “Ow!” Zarrey said as the doctor injected the contents of a syringe. “What the fuck, Doc?”
“I know for a fact you haven’t taken your anti-radiation meds yet.” It was a miracle Zarrey hadn’t collapsed from the lingering effects of the radiation sickness.
“There aren’t enough for everyone. Others need it more.” There were cases far more severe then his own. It was all Zarrey could do not to drain their dwindling supply.
“Great,” Macintosh grunted, tossing the syringe violently into the wastebasket. “I see that you’re stupid too.” He gnawed on his unlit cigarette. “Just what we need: two commanders who are completely irresponsible with their health.” That was sure to make his duties as difficult as possible. “I hate my job.” It was nothing but misery.
Macintosh started to leave, “I’ll give you a minute, then I’m ordering you to leave, Colonel.” The crew should not see their new commander moping around like a stray dog.
Zarrey did not dignify that with a response. Most of him wanted to curse the medical officer out, but the rest of him knew Macintosh was right. If they wanted to survive this mess, they would have to move on, no matter who they had lost.
But Admiral Gives… that would be a difficult loss to take. His skills made him invaluable in this situation, no matter what intentions he withheld.
Zarrey found it odd to look at him on the hospital bed. It was rare to see Admiral Gives look even the slightest bit weak. He was normally a bastion of strength, if not physical, then mental, but that was gone now. He lay limp under the sterile sheets in a hospital gown. Its light colors were opposite the black uniform he normally wore, revealing a slight natural tan that had been mostly lost after too many years in deep space.
Just how tan the Admiral had once been was a mystery. He looked the same now as he had the day Zarrey had first met him. His hair grayed a little more as the years passed, but beyond that, it was difficult to estimate his age. His personnel file would put a number to it, but Zarrey had never bothered to check. He had decided to respect the man’s privacy the day the Admiral had greeted him on the hangar deck with death threat and a gun, fifteen years ago. Zarrey snorted at the memory. That had been a very interesting first day.
“I owe you one, Old Man.” The fleet had been set on discharging him before Admiral Gives had transferred him here. “So what do you want me to do? I can’t protect these people.” He couldn’t keep this ship flying. “You were always the brains of this operation.”
Zarrey sighed. What was he supposed to do? He was inheriting a crippled ship and a wounded crew that someone had just tried to murder. It felt hopeless.
Macintosh stepped up beside him once again, pulling the unlit cigarette out of his mouth. “You’re not like him, Dennis. That’s why he brought you aboard.” Zarrey was the Admiral’s opposite. “You listen to your feelings. It might be irrational, but it also makes you kind. Admiral Gives was smart, hell, he was brilliant, but because logic demanded it, he ended up being cruel. He knew you wouldn’t make the same mistakes.”
“That would be difficult,” the Colonel replied. Events like New Terra, events with the potential to go so wrong were few and far between. It would take great effort on Zarrey’s part to be held accountable for more than 300 million deaths in the span of one battle. It would be impossibly difficult to replicate the Admiral’s tarnished career, considering the fleet action at New Terra was just one battle out of dozens.
“He always knew how to win,” Zarrey said, “No matter how far outnumbered he was, he always found a way to win, no matter the cost.” At times, the cost had been great, but, “Does that really make him a monster?”
“He thought so.” The worlds had blamed him for the deaths of 300 million people and the destruction of a habitable world. They had labeled him a monster, and Macintosh would not argue that definition. “But it still doesn’t matter. What happens next is on you.”