Aragonian Sector, Battleship Singularity

  Doctor Macintosh heard the heart monitor’s alarm from across sickbay, but he took his time in going to it. He had no desire to look at the Admiral’s corpse. If he never saw it, it somehow became less real.

  Nevertheless, the dismayed looks of the remaining patients sent him to silence the reminder of their loss. Macintosh parted the gray curtain, but kept his gaze locked on where his shoes met the floor. He was not ready to see the Admiral’s dead body. He would need to drink himself far past tipsy before he was ready for that.

  The doctor shut the heartrate monitor off with a sigh of defeat. It was time to go call CIC and deliver the news. He turned to leave, only to have his jaw drop open. “Bullshit.” This was bullshit. No way in hell.

  The Admiral paused for a moment, midway through buttoning his black uniform jacket over his uniform shirt. “Good afternoon, Doctor,” he greeted simply.

  “You were dead,” Macintosh told him. “Dead.” But now, not only was he awake, but he was walking around? Not possible. Still, the bed was empty, and the white sheets were stained with a fresh splatter of blood from the Admiral messily ripping his IV out. His arm was likely bleeding, but underneath the long, black sleeves of his uniform, no one would ever know.

  Buttoning up the silver buttons on his jacket left his injured hand aching painfully, but Admiral Gives did not let a sliver of that discomfort show. He had suffered worse. “It seems that diagnosis was somewhat in error, Doctor.” He was not feeling particularly dead at the moment.

  Doctor Macintosh opened and closed his mouth as he searched for an adequate response. It was a special type of disconcerting to be confronted by a patient who had been effectively dead for a week.

  Admiral Gives bent to pick up a garment that had fallen to the floor. It was a black glove thoughtfully provided to cover the ugly burns on his left hand. He pulled it on and held up the covered hand, “Your idea?”

  “N-no.” Macintosh was still too surprised to act like his normal, irritable self. He shook his head, trying to clear it, “Feather must’ve dropped it off when she brought your uniform.” At the time, it had seemed a futile gesture.

  The Admiral made a note to thank Ensign Feather for her consideration, but found it odd that Macintosh was being so polite. The man had only cussed once during this conversation. “Is there something wrong, Doctor?” It was strange to find Macintosh with a tolerable attitude, especially when he was sober.

  “You’re supposed to be dead, but clearly you’re not.” At the moment, the man seemed perfectly fine, even if logically speaking, Macintosh should be prepping his corpse for cold storage right now.

  “Is that a problem?”

  “No?” Macintosh answered, uncertain why he was being asked that question.

  “Then I do not see an issue,” the Admiral said placidly. “Thank you for your services, but I am needed on the bridge.” He pushed the curtain aside and strode through the medical bay with purpose.

  The crew in the room, patients and staff alike, had all sunk into the lounge chairs in the center of the room, their heads bowed at a low angle. They looked up as someone walked by, expecting to find Doctor Macintosh, and then did a double-take. Many of them blinked or rubbed their eyes and looked again in disbelief.

  Macintosh stepped out past the curtain a moment later, unsurprised to find that everyone in sickbay was looking at him, waiting for an explanation. “He just got up and walked out,” the doctor told them, “I didn’t have anything to do with it.” He had no real explanation to offer. It was a damned miracle.

  Out in the corridor, Admiral Gives managed to keep his brisk pace until he rounded the next corner, but then had to slow. His days in the coma, not eating and not technically sleeping had sapped his physical strength. He paused to lean up against the bulkheads, heaving for air, but in the empty corridor, he was not alone for long.

  The ghost appeared in front of him, her steel gray eyes gone soft. “You woke up.” He had answered her cries the way he always did.

  “Yes,” he confirmed, electing not to address the obvious emotion in her expression. He didn’t have it in him to lecture her at the moment. “It was my understanding that you still possessed some misguided desire for me to stay here. Did I act in error?”

  No. Still, she could not help but stare, and the question went unanswered. It surprised her to realize he was still keeping his word, even now. He was still staying… because she had asked.

  “Besides,” he said, “I was just taking a little nap.”

  Nap? “You were comatose, near brain dead for a week.” He had been on the brink of death.

  “It was a good nap,” he said stoically.

  She rolled her eyes, but was amused nonetheless. It seemed his exceptionally dry sense of humor, which only she saw, had remained untouched by this ordeal.

  The Admiral said nothing more to it and took note of his surroundings. The corridors were evenly lit and the air was clean. Overall, the ship looked substantially better than the last time he had seen it. “Status?” he queried.

  She folded her arms behind her back, feeling their interaction shift toward business. She took the change effortlessly, the result of years of practice. “Awaiting departure commands,” she replied, a tint of pride in her voice.

  He simply accepted her word as fact. If she said they were ready to leave this sector, then the Singularity was back at full strength. Good. He pushed himself off the wall, ignoring his exhaustion. “Time?”

  She fell into step beside him. “1221 hours, ship’s time.”

  “We’re late.” They had been ordered to return to Base Oceana in the Haven System by noon on the tenth day of their Kalahari Sector patrol. Command would not take that well. General Clarke would certainly blame it on the aging ship in some roundabout method of convincing Admiral Gives to take over his position.

  “Colonel Zarrey delayed taking action until word of your condition was final.” It was for that same reason that the corridors were so empty at the moment. The crew had habitually gathered in public spaces: the mess, library and observation deck, to await word on their commander’s death.

  “That could have been a long wait,” the Admiral said absently, simultaneously contemplating the best method of forcing Clarke to back off that didn’t involve a gun.

  “Your orders said to take you off life support after one week,” she reminded him. “That date coincided with the day we were due back.”

  He stopped in the middle of the corridor so suddenly she took another step past him. “My orders say two weeks.”

  The words were true. She knew that simply because Admiral Gives did not lie, and it brought her, not even a second later, to a troubling realization. “The computer records have been altered.” But how? The Singularity’s design should have made it impossible for the computers to be compromised.

  Dammit, she should have realized. The Admiral’s standing medical orders had been altered ten days ago, before they had embarked on this patrol, but they had been altered at a time when he had been standing watch on the bridge. It should have been obvious. He had not been the one to alter them. She should have checked. But she had been too distracted, too emotional.

  He had almost died because of it.

  “I need you to focus,” the Admiral said, his tone sharp. “Navigations may be compromised. We cannot jump with faulty records.” It would be a disaster. They could hit something coming out of the jump or never make it out at all, and he had not saved the entire ship to let her sink now.

  He set off toward the bridge, his purposeful steps near-silent on the deck. “Get me a diagnostic of every computer and memory server on board. I need to know what’s been tampered with, and that should expose whatever gap was exploited in our security.” They would need to ensure that the computers were not breached in that way again. “Then we will need to… purge... the…” he coughed, “tampered… data.”

  The cough worsened. He staggered over to rest his back against the bulkheads, but the shuddering cough did not ease until he had hacked up a splatter of chunky red slime. Blood. It was lingering in his lungs from when the radiation had started to mutate the tissues. At least, he hoped that it was only lingering as he leaned up against the bulkheads, struggling to catch his breath.

  The ghost watched him wipe the blood onto his black pants, not giving it another thought. The black fabric rendered the stain invisible, but it was fairly obvious that he was not faring well, despite miraculously walking off his coma. “Admiral…” He was still sick. He should go rest and recover.

  “I’m fine.” Fine enough. He could do his job.

  But… This wasn’t right. She knew this wasn’t right. Had he not earned the chance to rest? She caught his stern look and quickly buried her concern. That was not her place. She was not supposed to care.

  It would figure the moment he laid down for a little nap, everyone would leave him for dead. Commanding officers never got any meaningful sleep. There was just too much to do. He would probably be up for the next twenty-four hours continuously. “Can you ensure the ship’s safety through a jump to the Homebound Sector?”

  “Of course.” Such things were second-nature to her. It would be a simple, instantaneous override of the navigations controls, if the data proved faulty. “What do you intend to do?”

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  “First priority is a resupply.” General Clarke was still alive, so the Homebound Sector was not hostile territory yet. Reeter would not be bold enough to attack there. There were too many watchful eyes and too many civilians to risk an all-out brawl between two capital ships. In a way, the high civilian density would act as a sort of human shield, and someone who cared might have called that morally wrong. Admiral Gives was unconcerned with such ethics. All that mattered was that the tactic would probably work.

  “Second priority is dealing with Admiral Reeter.” Most of Command was now under Reeter’s control. Returning anywhere but the Homebound Sector would lead to an instant confrontation.

  “And how do you intend to deal with him?” What could be done at this point? Command had fallen too far under his control.

  “Murder.”

  “Admiral.” Now was not the time for jokes.

  Admiral Gives’ expression remained unchanged: stoic and cold. “That was not a joke.” He would be perfectly content to kill Reeter. “How many of our crew just died? How many of them did he needlessly kill in the Kalahari Sector?” And that was just the beginning. “How many people will die if he brings his plans to fruition?” Millions, likely billions. “This needs to end now.” And if that meant that Admiral Gives had to shoot another allied officer in the head, he was fine with that.

  “He has partners. The New Era will find another leader. If you kill him, he will become a martyr.” There was no ending this now. “And if you kill him, they will kill you.” And that, to the ghost, was not acceptable. “There must be another way.” There had to be. “I’m asking you to find it.” Violence only brought about more violence. It would never bring an end to anything

  The Admiral pushed himself off the wall and headed again for CIC, this time at a cautious pace. She was right. Another death would not pause the things that had been set in motion. The values and beliefs of the New Era had been brewing for years, decades even, in the perfectionist lives of the richer nations. “I will try to think of something,” he assured, “but you know where my priorities lie.”

  She nodded. “Yes, I know.” He did not care for the worlds. He was obligated to do his part, but he was not the hero that adored the existence of the worlds and sought to protect it. He had seen far too much of their ugliness to be that.

  They were nearing CIC now. In truth, it was not that far from the medical bay, but there was one more matter to discuss. “There is something else you ought to know, Admiral.” He paused again, turning to the ghost, sensing her hesitation.

  While he had asked her to keep an eye on Amelia, even the ghost was not truly sure that he cared. Still, she was obligated to tell him, “Reeter has taken Amelia. He is holding her and Harrison against their will.”

  Harrison’s call for help had made it all the way out here. The handheld radio at the cabin had been modified with a subspace transmitter that would cross even this distance. The other half of the set, the old radio that matched it, was in the Admiral’s desk, useless at this range. The ship’s arrays had received the transmission, as intended.

  “I will take care of it,” Admiral Gives told her. “Thank you for keeping an eye on them.” Comatose, he had obviously missed the call when it came. He left the ghost in the corridor and rounded the last corner to CIC.

  This departure of theirs was practiced, normal. The ghost hid her presence from the rest of the crew. They considered her a murderer and monster, and on top of that, little more than a rumor. Only a select few knew the truth.

  It was unusual for her to do so, but she lingered, looking after the Admiral. “It was… good to see you,” she said quietly, but he was long gone. Now was not the time for her to take up his attention. She knew that, but she wished for a moment that she had said something.

  The bridge had been mostly silent for some time as the crew wallowed in tangible sorrow. They waited for the Colonel to give an order, or for the phone to ring, but both were stubbornly silent. Their eyes were glazed over, the events of the week taking their toll. Tired and sad was not a combination that created a group of readily alert people.

  The crew hardly even noticed when another person strode into their midst. Most did not even glance up until the newcomer spoke. “Ladies and gentlemen, does anyone care to explain why we are not in the Homebound Sector?”

  “Oh good,” Zarrey greeted lamely, reverting to his old habits, “you’re alive.” Joking aside, Colonel Zarrey soon could not help the smile that spread across his face. Thank the stars. No longer would he have to impersonate an underqualified commanding officer. He could go back to cracking jokes and harassing other ships’ officers. That was exactly how he preferred it.

  The Admiral stepped over to his normal spot, wholly aware of the crew’s genuine confusion. He elected not to address it. It should prove simple enough to comprehend that he was not, in fact, dead, though everyone seemed to be struggling with it. “Try not to sound too excited, Colonel,” he told his XO quietly. “I know how much you want to command this ship.”

  Zarrey swallowed, immediately uncomfortable. He knew exactly what that comment was referring to. “That really wasn’t a mutiny, sir.” Yes, he had performed an act of insubordination during the cascade collapse, a week ago, but he’d been acting irrationally.

  “Yours was not, no.” Zarrey held absolutely no desire to command this ship, let alone any other. The man did everything he could to avoid being put up for promotion and despised responsibility. It made him loyal. “However…” Admiral Gives turned to find Maria Galhino was still sitting at the sensor station, her face now completely drained of color.

  Clearly, no one had bothered to inform Zarrey of that event while he’d been in a coma. Naturally, the crew had protected one another. And that was fine, he had trained them to do so, but that did not excuse Galhino’s actions.

  Zarrey scratched his head. “Did I miss something?” What the hell had Galhino done now?

  Nobody answered him. The bridge crew shifted uncomfortably, wholly aware of the impending reprimand. Any trace of relief they had shown with the Admiral’s apparent revival was quickly gone, replaced by unease.

  It had been a little over a year since Admiral Gives had killed anyone with his own two hands. By his standards, that was a very long streak, and it was high time to break it. “This will be quick,” he told his XO. “Lieutenant, with me.”

  Lieutenant Galhino rose from her station with shaky knees. A look to Lieutenant Robinson earned her no reassurance. Keifer looked petrified, but not as scared as Galhino felt. She took a deep breath, bowed her head, and went to face her reckoning.

  He was waiting in the corridor outside CIC, his expression perfectly detached. But then, no one ever saw Admiral Gives be anything other than stone cold. Looking a mutineer in the eyes was not an exception. He was calm, but Galhino knew he was capable of exceptional violence, calm or not.

  Here it was. This was it. Oh dear stars. Please don’t let me end up like Colonel Belle. The mere thought of the ship’s previous XO made her tremble. Anything but that. Well, maybe not anything. This is awful.

  “I am certain you know why you are here,” the Admiral said, folding his arms calmly behind his back. “Need I recall the events of the Kalahari Sector?”

  “No, sir.” Her voice came out small. She remembered her poorly executed mutiny fairly well. This moment of reckoning had given her nightmares ever since.

  There was silence. He did not seem angry, nor disappointed, nor malicious. His perfect neutral made it so much harder to cope. She had no idea what he would say or do.

  Fact was, while he did not always seem it, quiet and emotionally mute, the Admiral was flatly brilliant when and where he chose to be. And yes, his repertoire of talents did include grotesque, sadistic punishments, as demonstrated in the case of Colonel Belle’s death.

  It would be so much easier for him to be angry. It was so much worse like this. She could feel the shake building in her knees. Should she start screaming for mercy now?

  Lieutenant Galhino was terrified of him. She always had been, much more so than the rest of the crew. It was odd. Admiral Gives had no recollection of doing anything particularly nasty to her home world. To his knowledge, he had done nothing that should have earned such fear from her. Her actions in the Kalahari Sector had been a result of that fear. But, mutineer or not, he had neither the time to nor the intention of finding a new sensor officer. “Do not do it again.”

  The order was cold enough to make her physically shiver.

  “You will sit on my bridge, and you will do your job. Hold no doubts, if you make that mistake again, there is no chance of it happening a third time.” Not on his ship. “Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” Galhino replied before the realization had fully hit her. She was getting off with a verbal warning. It was traumatizing enough, but that was it? Coming from Admiral Gives, it may as well have been a pat on the back.

  “Then ensure I do not need to further address the matter.” He had no time and no patience for such things. He had opposing Admirals to murder and political movements to tear down. “Return to your station.”

  Galhino tensed for the inevitable bullet when she turned to walk into CIC. Usually he shot mutineers in the back. It was her surprise that she made it all the way back to her seat on the bridge without being shot or stabbed.

  What an overreaction, the Admiral thought, easily reading that mortal fear, I’m not even armed. It seemed Galhino and the rest of the crew had expected him to execute her on the spot. Naturally, their thoughts were on the rumored fate of last person to mutiny on his ship: Colonel Belle. He could not fault them for that. It had been a particularly nasty occurrence, but somewhere along the way, those rumors had neglected the context of why he had shot Belle in the back, marooned her on an asteroid and left her to drown in her own blood. Typical.

  He looked to the ship around him, exasperated. ‘This crew of ours seems to be forgetting what exactly my job is here.’ He was not here to murder, kill and maim. He was here to protect. He served his ship, and that meant protecting her crew was a part of his job. They would all realize that… eventually.

  He walked quietly back onto the bridge, to be greeted with Colonel Zarrey’s lingering confusion. “Did something happen?” It was not like Galhino to be so pale or quiet.

  “It has been taken care of.” Admiral Gives said simply. If Galhino did not prompt him to take action on the matter again, then as far as he was concerned, it was irrelevant.

  End of conversation. The XO recognized that and did not press the matter.

  Zarrey looked up to Keifer Robinson, who looked exceptionally relieved on her lover’s behalf. Galhino on the other hand looked like she had been turned to stone. She stared somewhat blankly at the readouts of the sensors, her shaking hands resting on her keyboard. Just what the hell had the Admiral said to her?

  Admiral Gives took a moment, reading the working noises of the ship and the mood of the crew. The ship was fine. She was loyally awaiting his next commands. The crew on the other hand, was unsettled. His initial arrival had been greeted with relief, but his distance the last few months would not be so easily forgiven.

  “Colonel, recall the teams from the hull.” It was clean enough to allow navigation and radar to be unhindered, even if the other sensors were still saturated by the lingering radiation.

  “They’re not done yet, sir.” If they jumped back without the ship in pristine condition, then Reeter would not need to sink them, he could just wait for Command to decommission the ship.

  “I am aware. Call them back.” Admiral Gives fully intended to let everyone in the Haven System know that the Singularity had survived a nuke. “Admiral Reeter deserves to know he hit us.” It would likely antagonize the man into taking action. That would make him easily distractible, and that was exactly what Admiral Gives wanted.

  “Yes, sir.” Zarrey answered, stalking over to relay the proper orders.

  “Ensign Walters,” the Admiral looked toward the young officer in the back, “get FTL coordinates for the Homebound Sector. Ensure that we come out of the jump with our starboard bow in full view of the Olympia.” Reeter would forced to see that blemish every time he looked out the window.

  Naturally, that served a tactical purpose. The radiation on the hull would render the flagship’s sensor arrays blind. And with the Singularity large enough to generate a radar shadow, ships could take off and land without being observed by the Olympia. That radiation had just given Admiral Gives the freedom to do absolutely whatever he needed to with Reeter none the wiser.

  Poetic justice. Since Reeter had tarnished the Singularity’s hull with that nuclear fallout, turning the radiation against him would quickly make Reeter regret it. As he should. Nobody fucked with the Singularity and got away with it. Admiral Gives had a bad habit of being overprotective.

  “Ensign Alba,” the engineering technician looked up from his readouts when Admiral Gives called to him, “when all of the teams report secure, begin jump prep.”

  A part of Ensign Alba really wanted to protest, concerned about the repairs made on the starboard bow, but close observation of those repairs had so far revealed nothing incriminating. The engineering teams appeared to have restored the starboard bow’s strength.

  Beyond that, Admiral Gives seemed to think the ship was ready, and he knew her better than anyone. He could make an instant structural analysis by listening to the ship’s creaks, and it was usually more accurate than any report the engineers could write up. So, taking that all into account, Alba nodded, “Aye, sir.”