Aragonian Sector, Battleship Singularity
The shale gray curtains surrounding the beds in sickbay looked out of place in a room where nearly everything else was made of dark metal, but they did their job in granting the patients a little bit of privacy. With the doctor nursing a bottle of alcohol in his office and the nurses tending to other patients, no one realized that the Admiral had another visitor. Perhaps more importantly, they never did see who it was.
There was no doubt or denying it now as she lingered near Admiral Gives’ comatose form. She was worried. This was not like him. He never would have left his crew on their own in a situation like this if he had any control over it. No, if he had even one ounce of strength left, he would have torn out that IV drip and walked out of the medical bay in his usual fashion, even if that meant he collapsed three minutes later in one of the ship’s emptier corridors. The fact he didn’t do that – consequently worrying her twice as much – was enough of an indication that something was very, very wrong.
The rest of the worlds absolutely despised him, but, over the years, she had found Admiral Gives to be quite endearing. Oh, he was called a sociopath for a reason. She held no illusions about that, but he was good in ways his predecessors had not been. There were times when he was the entirely unfeeling monster that terrified the worlds, but there was more to him than that.
If anyone else had been patient enough to listen, if anyone else had truly known what happened, they would probably think differently of him. But most people did not know a thing about him, nor did they wish to. They did not know why he had forced himself away from everything and everyone. They did not understand that was the kindness of someone who had lost too much to expose that weakness again to the worlds.
It had taken her years to try and understand, but even now, she found her understanding of him somewhat lacking. Why wasn’t he waking up? Why now, of all the times, was he not waking up?
It had been drilled into her. She was accustomed to the harsh fact that the Admiral’s command had always been only temporary. He had made sure of it. She had been taught to understand that none of her commanding officers would ever be more than temporary. None of them were permanent.
It had always been bound to happen: someone else taking over – a new ship commander. She did not relish the thought, but she had been through this before. She would move on. She would release this commander as easily as she had the three others that had come before him. She would continue on the way she had always been told to, without emotion, without hesitation and without attachment.
…And yet, she found now that some part of her did not want to let go.
She sighed, spilling some more of her long white hair in front of her shoulders. “I’m not supposed to care,” she reminded him. “That’s what you always told me.” Affection breeds pain. The practice of such an unattached existence had come naturally to her. No one had ever given her a second’s thought. They always moved on with their lives, despite the rumors of her presence. She was a ghost, and ghosts were not real. She had grown accustomed to being alone and unaddressed.
But Admiral Gives had changed things. That had been unavoidable, and that had been the point, no matter how many times he reminded her that getting attached was dangerous. He had told her that so, so many times. I was not supposed to get attached. “I’m sure that’s why you always did everything I asked you to.”
Knowing the Admiral, he would play off this whole condition as some elaborate test to see if she had followed his directions, but she knew better. He had been badly injured by a situation well out of his control, a situation which she should have been able to handle on her own.
He had understood that activating the Kansas’ power core would worsen his condition tenfold. He had recognized the fact it might kill him. But he had also known that it would save the entire ship and every life aboard her, excluding his own.
He had not even hesitated. To him, it was simple math. One life weighed against one thousand others, it had not even occurred to him that the single, sacrificed life was his own. It did not alter the math one bit. The survival of the many always outweighed the survival of the one.
“I will never understand why the worlds hated someone like you so much.” Those mathematics of his could be cruel sometimes, but they were not hateful. Admiral Gives had never acted out of spite. He took the lesser of two evils, ever so rational when it came to tactics, but humanity still would never forgive him for it. His own species had completely disowned him.
She could understand why. The numbers spoke for themselves. At New Terra alone, he’d been blamed for 300 million collateral deaths. At Tantalus Rift, he was held accountable for the loss of unknown thousands of soldiers and militia personnel, as well as an untold number of miners and colonists. Then there was Icarus Gap, the Anti-Corporation Control Rebellion, the Jackal Uprising and a dozen other massacres that he’d been ordered to commit. On top of all of that, he’d shot and killed more than twenty people with his personal side arm, including several allied officers.
So yes, she understood why the worlds hated him, but she still could not agree with it. She had met far worse people: nearsighted, nihilistic, selfish pigs. She had met real demons, and despite his sullied reputation, Admiral Gives was not one of them.
Everyone else thought of the killings, of his brutally curt replies, but when she thought of him, she did not think of the emotionless soldier that had mercilessly enforced the Dead Years. She thought of the lonely soul who used to sit in his quarters and read books aloud to her, helping her slowly learn to speak and understand. So, maybe that was why, while most of what the worlds said about him was true, she could not bring herself to hate him the way everyone else did.
Lieutenant Galhino had said that no one would care when he died. “That’s not true,” she told him. “I would miss you.” She might be the only one, but it was still true.
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These last few months had been difficult, not just for the crew, but for her and him too. He had been working so hard trying to keep them safe, that even she felt like she had barely seen him. She had come to miss their conversations, but had simultaneously known that if she had truly needed to speak with him, he would have made time at the cost of the little hours he had to sleep.
No one else had ever given her such consideration. No one else had ever really tried to speak with her. So how could she have forgotten what it was like to have no one to talk to? How could she have forgotten how much she hated the deafening silence? It ground against her thoughts like nails on a chalkboard, needing to be broken, but lingering indefinitely. There was no one to break it now.
She could almost hear the ensuing lecture these thoughts would have earned her. Don’t get attached. I will not always be here. Do not rely on me. Do not rely on anyone. She could not count how many of their conversations had ended in Admiral Gives giving her that very scolding.
He would be so annoyed to find her here, ignoring that repeated lecture. She knew that, and it partially amused her. While he insisted that she not become attached to his presence, he was still the best commanding officer she had served under. “It doesn’t count as caring to respect your talents, does it?” She smirked. Loopholes.
The clicks and beeps of the life support machine were her only answer. Her expression fractured. She wanted to tease, but there was no longer anyone listening. She was terribly, dreadfully alone. A thousand living souls aboard this ship, and she was still alone.
Did that mean the one who usually kept her company was now alone as well? She hoped not, but the worlds had never been so kind to either of them.
The only person in the worlds who could dissuade humanity from the dark path they were straying down was lying limply on a hospital bed, far beyond the reach of conscious thought. He’d given everything to save his ship, without a single thought for the worlds. His efforts had spared the lives of the crew, and her existence as well. But the struggle was far from over. It had only begun.
Come on, Admiral, she thought, they need you. The crew went back and forth on their opinions of him, but he was still the best hope they had at staying alive.
Zarrey was in far, far over his head. He did not yet understand the true extent of their situation with Command. She was not sure such a thing could even be explained, even if the XO would listen to her: the creature he’d vehemently called a ‘witch.’
No, this wasn’t over. It couldn’t be. Admiral Gives had to wake up. No matter how bad his condition was, it was not over until his heart stopped beating.
But she struggled to really believe that. Doctor Macintosh was right. Admiral Gives had never particularly desired to remain alive. He had no reason to wake up from this coma. She, of all, ought to understand. She, of all, should be able to accept that. It was her fault.
But the situation was dire on so many accounts: the crew, the worlds, and even her own. It was desperate. That was why Doctor Macintosh and Colonel Zarrey had brought that name up, that horrible, horrible name.
Samantha.
It had been so long since she had heard it. There were not many that dared to speak that name aboard these decks. Even the ghost would not bring it up willingly. It was stained by the memory of a horrible, horrible tragedy.
Samantha Scarlett, the fiancée of a young Captain Gives, had been a Lieutenant in the UCSC fleet. She had been nice, beautiful, and even hailed from a wealthy family. They should have lived happy lives. There was just one problem: Lieutenant Scarlett had been the communications officer of the doomed Battleship Kansas.
Admiral Gives had lived on to become one of the most hated members of the human race, feared by the very government that employed him, but Samantha Scarlett was dead.
And not one single living soul knew why.
But ghosts, ghosts were not alive, were they? And the reason tore her to shreds.
“You asked me to find her,” she reminded him. “Telling you it could not be done was easier than telling you the truth.” It brought her so much shame. She simply could not bring herself tell him, using the words that he had taught her, what had really happened when the Kansas went missing. His fiancée had died five years before he had asked that question, killed by the very ship that he would dedicate the rest of his life to.
It was wrong to lie. She knew that. But she had been scared. She was still scared.
Because Colonel Zarrey was right. No one centered their command on a ship like this without a very good reason.
Nearby, Doctor Macintosh stepped out of his office with a tiny hiccup, letting the door slam behind him as he pocketed his silver flask. His thinning hair was carelessly plastered atop his head and his staff would be able to smell the alcohol on him from two feet away, but they wouldn’t question it. He had not drunk himself into a stupor, rather just inebriated himself enough to be numb to his surroundings. Watching kids a third of his age die had never been an easy past time, and being a trauma surgeon who actually cared had been a stupid career choice.
Still, he took inventory of the room with another little hiccup. The card game in the middle of the room had broken up, the patients retreating to rest. But then, more interesting, there was a visitor in with Admiral Gives.
He began shuffling in that direction with a grunt, ready to physically shove Colonel Zarrey out of sickbay. The man ought to know better. Lingering would only worry the crew. He prepared a savage lecture as he parted the curtain, but it was immediately obvious that the one he saw standing beside the bed was not Colonel Zarrey.
Her long white hair spilled over the shoulders of her lanky form. Her flawless skin was pale, not sickly, but as if untouched by a terrestrial sun.
There was only one who fit that description. They called her the Singularity’s Ghost, the spiteful reaper of the wounded, a forlorn passenger aboard the deadliest warship in mankind’s history.
The stories of her were bloody and violent, but Doctor Macintosh had never let rumors govern his work ethic. He doubted the ghost was who she was made out to be, especially not with the concern he saw dominating her features. That was not the look of someone who was worried about their commanding officer. The expression was a little too raw for that.
Her face was pretty, but it was not the siren-like angel of death he had expected. Her lips were parted, as if he had interrupted her while she spoke to a man who was blind to her presence and deaf to her words.
She wore the uniform of one of the ship’s officers, and if it had not been for the way his instincts screamed ‘Danger!’ at the feel of her presence, he could have mistaken her for one of the crew. But that incomprehensible power, combined with the unnatural color of her hair and the steel gray of her eyes, it marked her as somehow inhuman, or at least as a creature who was inhuman now, if she had ever been human at all.
Macintosh crossed his arms, just observing. He could tell that she was aware of his presence. She had gone perfectly still and wiped the emotion from her expression, but she had not turned to face him. For the moment, she seemed passive, despite how the rumors depicted her, but that explained nothing.
Why had she chosen to appear here, if not to end the Admiral’s life?
Macintosh thought the answer was obvious, so he attempted what no one else had dared – he guessed her name. “I had a feeling you would be here, Miss Scarlett.”