Osee Sector, Battleship Singularity

  When Zarrey arrived back to the Singularity’s semicircular bridge, he found a peculiar group waiting for him in the center: Callie, Chief Ty and Cadet Santino. Together, they made for two of the Singularity’s youngest crew members and the ship’s chief engineer. Trouble, almost assuredly, but the good kind. The kind Zarrey really wanted to get involved in. “Let me guess,” he said to the group, “you’ve got a bright idea that might get us into trouble.”

  Ty mulled it over for a moment, thinking those weren’t the words he would have chosen, but accepted them nonetheless. “Yessir.”

  Zarrey grinned, clapped Ty on the back and pulled the group over to the flat top of the console in the center of the room. “Excellent. Tell me all about it.” Santino, Callie and Ty looked between each other, perplexed by Zarrey’s reaction, but didn’t hesitate for long.

  “Well, sir,” Ty began softly for a man of his large size, as if trying to break the news gently, “we aren’t learning much from disassembling the drones.”

  Zarrey shrugged. “Fantastic. Learning sucks anyway.” He’d never liked studying.

  Ty made a face, as if uncertain how to react, then continued, “We don’t want to waste materials and parts, sir, especially given our current situation, but there’s not much useful in the drones. I know it’s regulation to decommission them, but it’s going to take hours to finish for very little gain.”

  Zarrey turned to consider the crew working quietly at their stations, tapping away at keyboards and controls, speaking in hushed tones to teams elsewhere on the ship as they tried to get everything back in order after the drones’ chaos. “Fuck the regulations,” Zarrey said, not bothering to lower his voice. “We’re naddlethworfing renegade and most of them are stupid anyway.” Ah, the freedom of being in charge. Moments, like this, Zarrey loved it as he saw the slightly appalled look of the more inexperienced crew. “We still need those drones taken care of, Chief. What’s the plan?”

  “The ensign here,” Ty patted Callie proudly on the shoulder, “suggested we might bust out an old trick and toss them into the sun.”

  Zarrey looked to Callie. She smiled shyly, as if uncertain her idea should have been presented to the ship’s command staff. She was young, and compared to the rest of the crew, inexperienced. She looked for Ty’s reassurance, and spoke, “I just thought… That since we safely destroyed the bug that way, that it could work for the drones too...”

  Zarrey felt his grin widen. “I love it.” They’d wasted enough time here. Callie’s solution was simple, and would free up all the personnel working on the drones to move to repairs. It would eliminate any potential threat from the drones quicker than properly decommissioning them could. That would enable the ship to move to a newer, guaranteed-secure location. Really, beyond some fuel consumption, structural strain and the loss of whatever material could be harvested from the drones, this plan cost nothing. “Jazz,” he called to the ship’s helmsman, “how fast can you get us to the sun?” The sun in this case being the nearest star.

  Lieutenant Jazmine turned in his seat behind the helm controls, hand hovering above the throttle. “How fast do you wanna get there?”

  Zarrey contemplated it for a moment, then remembered how little time was left on the deadline Swordbreaker had given. Initially, they’d had twelve hours and now, nearly eleven had already passed. The away team would be reaching the rendezvous soon to begin negotiations. And if those negotiations went south… Well, the drones needed to be off the ship before then. “Get us there in less than an hour,” he told Jazmine.

  “Then you’re looking at the wrong guy, boss,” Jazmine replied. “I’m a damn fast pilot, but we’re hours outside the system, and I can’t break the rules of relativity.” He, at the helm, controlled the ship’s main engines and maneuvering thrusters. The main engines were vastly powerful, capable of approaching lightspeed, but they couldn’t break the FTL barrier. Jazmine pointed across the bridge to Ensign Alba’s lanky figure. “He can get you there in fifteen minutes.”

  The ship had been drifting in the void between solar systems for some time now. It was easy to let the ship rest there, hundreds of thousands of miles from the nearest obstacle. They hadn’t done any maneuvering except to test that the command lines between the helm and engines were intact as repairs were made. There had been no point in burning the fuel to thrust anywhere with the main engines, since they’d had no particular destination in mind. That was normal operation. The vast majority of space was empty, but ships like the Singularity didn’t usually bother sailing the ‘long way’. They were certainly capable of crossing the void between systems, just as the light-hugging colony ships humanity had built before them were, but they had faster methods of travel available to them.

  Zarrey turned to Alba at the engineering controls. “Can we jump?”

  The boyish engineer took a moment to study the reports of the sensors installed all over the ship’s structure. The Singularity’s structure had strained to bring them out of a failed FTL maneuver intact, absorbing a large percentage of the stress it was designed to take. However, since then, they’d been drifting for a few hours, allowing the ship’s structure to rest and realign itself. “Structural integrity is at 50%, Colonel. We’re still making final checks on the sabotaged FTL drive, but the other three are operational. We can jump.”

  “Then begin jump prep,” Zarrey ordered. Just as Mama Ripley had egged him to do, it was time to test control. “I want to be kissing the corona of the sun within the next half-hour. Ty, Santino,” he looked to the two men beside him, “get those drones boxed up and put them in an airlock. Let’s vent those bastards into the sun.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ty said before he and the Marine turned and left the room.

  Callie looked after them, uncertain, “What about me, Colonel?”

  “Well, this is your idea. I figured you might want to stick around and see how it works out.” Zarrey swept his hand to some of the empty seats on the bridge. A few of the consoles didn’t get staffed outside extended combat, or large fleet operations. “Have a seat.”

  “Oh, thank you, Colonel!” she said excitedly. “Can I shadow Ensign Alba?” Many of the ship’s engineers were trained on the bridge controls, but Callie was the newest engineer on the ship, and hadn’t had much practice.

  “Sure,” Zarrey shrugged. They weren’t in a combat situation, and it wasn’t as if Callie was going to be a problem. She was harmless.

  Callie scampered over to watch Ensign Alba as chatter picked up across the bridge. Navigations laid out a course and Jazmine gave his input, as he’d be flying them briefly into the outermost edges of a sun’s corona once they jumped into the system.

  Zarrey let them work. Flight and navigation were not his expertise and they did not need to be micromanaged. Perhaps that had been the most difficult lesson to learn in ship command: to let the skills of the ship’s officers take over. They were trained experts in FTL telemetry and stellar flight paths, Zarrey wasn’t. He simply needed to let them do their jobs, which gave him time to think about the larger problems at hand. Like the potential of war with the fleet and the Hydrian armada. That had to be the priority. Ripley was right about that, but it was growing more difficult to ignore the potential threat lingering beside them.

  Kallahan said the ship was possessed. Zarrey didn’t doubt it. Rumor said the ship had been haunted since her construction, and cursed by everything that happened since. The question then became: possessed by what? What made this curse so real, so dangerous? And what did that mean for the crew? It did not comfort Zarrey to be caught between powers he didn’t know.

  He didn’t know the AI that had aligned itself with Reeter. Manhattan was technology incarnate, and Zarrey was awful with most machines and most software. Admittedly, the Singularity, cursed she might be, tolerated him better than most of the computer systems he’d interacted with. But, his ineptitude on maintenance was known ship-wide, so Manhattan might as well have been an eldritch horror to him – something that had no real face, no real body, and could not be killed.

  The Hydra were another matter. Utterly alien, any assumption made for their intentions would be only that: a guess – an attempt to rationalize alien behavior through the human lens. They were an old enemy, known to humanity as a whole, but unknown to Zarrey personally. He could imagine the Hydra’s end goal – the harvesting of humanity and their worlds, but he couldn’t guess the steps the Hydra would take to achieve that end.

  And then, out of the blue, there was this third faction. This third power being hunted by Manhattan, and it was vague in the kindest of terms. What might be its intention? Zarrey wished he knew, but he didn’t. The only thing he did know was that Reeter’s faction of Command wanted this thing desperately, and that made it dangerous. But then, he supposed it had been dangerous since the moment it sank the Yokohoma, dooming hundreds of civilian lives. For what reason had it done that? For what reason had it remained since?

  Stars, Zarrey wished he knew. The situation felt like a convoluted mess. He had no idea where to look for the next threat. It could come from any of those powers. It could come from none of them. The best he could do was follow Ripley’s challenge: act like he had control, until something proved him otherwise.

  ***

  ‘Mama’ Eudora Ripley returned to the mess after scolding Kallahan and busied herself washing dishes. The rest of the chefs were working the line, prepping food on the opposite side of the kitchens, but Ripley purposefully distanced herself because she knew the ghost might want to talk and would surely read that as an invitation.

  Sure enough, when she pulled a pot out of its final rinse and began to dry it, she found the ghost sitting at the end of the counter, just watching the movement. Someone else might have been uninterested in the act of dishwashing, but to an entity that had no hands, and had never done so, it remained something novel. Ripley could see the interest in her eyes, watching, trying to learn and understand the movement. “You look lovely, dear,” she told the white-haired apparition. “Armor suits you.” The dark black armor fit her tall figure perfectly, turning an unassuming form into a projection of strength.

  The ghost smiled. “Thank you. The Admiral wouldn’t admit it.”

  Ripley reached over and turned on the faucet, rinsing the lather of dish soap from her hands as she helped herself to a chuckle. “He’s an idiot.” Yet, there was a kindness in his reaction too. “You know he doesn’t care what you look like, as long as you’re happy.” Still, there was a flicker of something else in the ghost’s expression. It lasted only a moment, before it was replaced with a tentative smile. “Are you all right, my dear? I don’t imagine Kallahan was pleasant to you.” Rumor travelled fast on ships, and the mess was a prime spot for gossip. The moment Ripley overheard that Zarrey planned to confront Kallahan, she had rushed to intervene.

  “Yes, Mama,” the ghost answered. It was nice of the cook to ask, but, “I can handle Corporal Kallahan.”

  “I know.” The ghost was quite capable. “But it doesn’t make the way he treats you any less cruel.” Kallahan surely had his reasons for being so harsh, but nothing Ripley had seen in the ghost indicated she deserved that treatment.

  “He tells the truth.” The ghost knew Kallahan had not lied about anything. “I present a danger to everyone here.”

  Ripley dried her hands on a dishcloth and hung it up to air out. “That doesn’t mean he can’t support you.” Perhaps, with a bit more support, that danger could be mitigated, even eliminated altogether. “We work on a battleship dear. Danger comes with the territory.” Every member of the crew was a combat veteran. “You don’t want to hurt us. I know that. The Admiral knows that too.” And still the ghost’s expression dimmed again. This time, she did a worse job hiding it. “Do you miss him?” But the ghost turned away. “Oh, dear,” Ripley dragged a stool over to sit with her. “That’s alright.”

  The ghost lowered her gaze to the worn decking of the kitchens. “I’m not supposed to get attached.”

  “Maybe not,” Ripley said, “but sometimes things happen. And the Admiral’s been here a long time.” For years, he’d been the first in line to support the ghost. “It’s okay to care.” It was okay to miss someone in their absence.

  “He didn’t want to go.”

  No, Ripley thought not. The Admiral had his own problems. “I saw you sitting with him last night.” Ripley had gone to fetch some cooking wine from the bar, and seen them there, sitting together. That was as close as Ripley had ever seen anyone get to the Admiral. Usually, he kept people more than an arm’s distance away, but he had let the ghost sit right next to him. Ripley had recognized the fragility of that moment and elected not to interrupt.

  “It was a mistake,” the ghost said. Too many pieces of her rattled with what she supposed was anxiety, longing for the one they trusted, the one they knew to rely on to come back. “I thought it would keep him safe,” that he’d be able to countermand Reeter’s orders when he returned, “but what if he doesn’t come back?” She resented Kallahan for planting that seed of doubt, cursed the old Marine’s very existence, but Kallahan was right. Azura was a death world. Even with the Cataclysm’s primary source destroyed, it was a dangerous, corrupted wasteland. Perhaps allowing the Admiral’s departure had been an act of cowardice, a foolish gesture made to ensure that she was not the one that hurt him. Something meant to spare her, not him.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  All of Kallahan’s accusations had been justified. If the ghost had been truly desperate to stop the Admiral from leaving, she could have molded someone else to the task. She could have forged another mind to act as translator, no matter how awful it felt to twist those around her.

  Ripley studied the too-still stature of the ghost. Her focus was clearly not on maintaining this illusion. Her great intelligence was being consumed by other contemplations. “The Admiral went willingly, my dear. He knew what he was getting into.” Azura was known to be treacherous, and the man, as most men did, had moments of idiocy, but he was still one of the finest tacticians in fleet history. “But you know that I have to ask, dear. How long do you intend to let the worlds push you around?”

  The ghost lifted her head to stare at Ripley’s dark brown eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “My dear, you have a gentle soul.” The ghost looked after those around her with a genuine sincerity. “But your strength could rend the heavens.” Given how protective the Admiral was, the assumption was that she was weak. But the Admiral’s protection was a gift of loyalty, not pity.

  “I can no longer wield my full capability,” the ghost stated with the factual inflexibility of a machine.

  “And we do not need to rend the heavens, my dear.”

  “I am bound to obey Command,” the ghost reminded. “I cannot disobey the orders I receive.” Her strength in this matter was not only irrelevant, but damning. That very strength would be turned against those she endeavored to protect.

  “And what if those orders never come?” Ripley asked over the distant clang of pots and pans from the other side of the kitchen. “Do you plan to live in fear of a possible reality? There are people who need you now, regardless of what your future holds. You tell me that Manhattan will identify you. But what is it that Manhattan seeks in doing so?”

  “Control.”

  “Yet for you to receive orders, Manhattan would have to cede control to Reeter, and allow him to do it, yes?” Slowly the ghost nodded, and Ripley continued, “Do you truly believe that Manhattan will trust him with that information? With the operational capability of the one weapon that has the potential to kill her?” No. Ripley had served in Command’s political charades for far too long and that wasn’t how the game was played. “If Manhattan wants control, she will hold this information above Reeter’s head and command him to her bidding, with your power as promise. There is no guarantee that Manhattan will reveal your identity, so stop letting these worlds push you around. Seize control of what you can, while you can. In truth, that’s all any of us do.” That was the human way. There were always factors outside their direct control, and they always pushed on ahead. “I know you see a terrible future ahead of you, my dear. But you are forgetting the present.” The ghost was certain in her future. There was a dread in her gray eyes, a mourning. “The help you can offer now, of your own volition, will always mean more than any harm you might be commanded to do tomorrow.”

  A sad smile graced the ghost’s pale face. That was a nice thought. If only she had some help to give. “There is nothing I can do.” The away team had gone far beyond her reach.

  “My dear, you are one of the most capable machines in the worlds, and Azura is a machine graveyard.” A machine could understand and take advantage of an environment like that. “I think that you’ve spent so long living in fear of what you are that you yourself have forgotten what you are capable of.” Ripley did not envy her for that. The old cook had never been told exactly what the ghost’s capability was, or what she’d been built to do, but there were rumors. Aboard ship, there were always rumors. “Even if you are not what you once were, your capability can and has altered the fate of those around you.” There was no reason it could not do so again. “You’re hiding. Afraid of what happens if you reveal yourself.” That fear was very real. Justified, even. “But is staying hidden worth it?”

  “People have given their lives to keep me hidden. The Admiral… He has-”

  “He has done everything except die for you.” And Ripley had no question that he would. He’d do it without a second thought. “So, I’m asking. Is staying hidden worth that?”

  “He thought so.”

  “But is it worth that to you?” Ripley pressed.

  The ghost clenched one of her gauntleted hands. “It does not matter.” It had never mattered. “My voice was not meant to be heard.” Not in those matters. “All I have ever wanted was to be me. And that’s the one thing that I can never be. Not for any of you.” It was the one thing she’d never been allowed. “Because if I am not hidden, I am dangerous to you.” That was the very danger that Manhattan’s knowledge presented. “It’s a paradox.” She could adore these people and protect them, but only by hiding. If she revealed herself by helping them, then she could be turned against them. “I want to help you. But I don’t want to hurt you.” That thought terrified her more than anything. Ripley was so wise and so kind, but she didn’t understand. “You’re so fragile.” Humanity was so incredibly frail. Their minds were incredibly complex, individuality and personality so strong, but their bodies were small. They were weak. On the scale of the ghost’s existence, they were one slight miscalculation away from death. “You are not meant to be here. Not designed for it.” The slightest exposure to the true elements of space was deadly to them. “And yet I serve no purpose here without you.” It was maddening.

  Ripley wanted nothing more than to do what she did with many of the crew: lay a hand on their shoulder, or wrap them in a blanket and offer them a cookie. But that was impossible for the ghost, the black and red armor she donned was a reminder of that. “I don’t envy you,” Ripley said gently. “I wish I knew how to comfort you… But I don’t.”

  The ghost stared at Ripley, searching the old woman’s presence. There was nothing but a gentle warmth within it, a sincere desire to help, and that in itself was comforting. “I’m grateful to you.” Ripley had always looked at her with kindness and the old cook had turned the mess into a safe refuge for the crew. “You’ve tried to help turn this ship into a home. Thank you for looking after my crew.” The ghost’s silver gaze slipped over to the others in the kitchen, working hard on their duties, kept oblivious to this conversation. “I hope you never see me for what I am.” It was painful enough for Kallahan to see her that way.

  “My dear, that would change nothing. What you are cannot be so terrible.” That identity could not be so evil.

  “I am a weapon, and for you to see that would mean the end.” The ghost stood; the movement silent despite her armor-clad figure. “Thank you for thinking of me.” Not many did. “But I must make the final calculations alone,” as always.

  There was an aching sadness in her, something that her power could not conceal. “You’re not alone, love,” Ripley reminded. “We’re here. And the Admiral will be back. I know you’re friends.”

  “He has always been a good friend to me,” the ghost said, “but I could never be his.” Her processes were too rigid, her mind too unstable. Her machine took more than it could ever give, its very design promising disloyalty and she would not, could not forgive it for that.

  Above, the intercom speakers sounded a harsh klaxon. “All hands, prepare for imminent FTL maneuvers.”

  Ripley sighed and reached over to the nearest counter. It was fixed to the floor, sturdy enough to steady herself on. “Are we jumping?”

  “Yes,” the ghost told her. “It will not be gentle.” Jumping into a system was always more difficult than jumping into void space. The closer one emerged to a planet or gravity well, the worse the effects of the jump. Zarrey, of course, had plotted the jump close to the sun, trading the ship’s structural integrity for proximity. That was his prerogative, as the one in command. “Brace,” she advised Ripley, then vanished.

  ***

  The force of the jump felt something like a brief, harsh squeeze to the temples. It was unexpectedly physical and unpleasant. Usually, single jumps were not so brutal, but the act of jumping deeper into the system’s gravity well wasn’t normal operation, even for the Singularity. It was stressful for her and the crew, so when the ship tore her way back out of subspace, violently depositing herself deep within the gravity slope of the solar system’s primary star, Zarrey could hardly blame her for the long, low creak that emanated from the ship’s structure.

  “We good?” Zarrey turned to the engineers monitoring the ship’s structure.

  Alba signaled a thumbs up without taking his eyes off his console’s display, but Callie reported with considerably more enthusiasm, “Structural integrity holding at 35% sir, only a 15% loss. For a jump under these conditions, that’s incredible.”

  I’ll take your word for it, Zarrey thought before turning his attention to Jazmine’s perfectly parted hair. “Jazz, take us in, but try not to singe the paint.”

  “No promises, sir,” Jazmine replied. “We’d already be cooking if we were standing outside.”

  “Fair point,” Zarrey agreed. “Watch the hull temperature,” he reminded the engineers. “Slag the hull and I’m pointing fingers.” The Admiral would be beyond angry. Granted, for the crew that probably meant a few minutes of interrogation about what they’d done wrong with his icy countenance, but that was terrifying enough.

  “Hey, this wasn’t my idea,” Jazmine said, pushing the throttle forward. The Singularity’s main engines answered with a slight rise in the volume of their throaty hum.

  Zarrey felt the slightest push as the thrust took hold before the inertial dampeners compensated, nothing more than the promise they were moving. He reconsidered Callie, increasingly more pleased that this had been her idea. Sure, it showed initiative on a bright young crew man’s part and all that, but the Admiral seemed to like her, so if it all went poorly, she wouldn’t be in too much trouble.

  Perfect, but naturally, that meant Zarrey needed to make trouble elsewhere. “How long until closest approach?”

  “Ten minutes,” Jazz answered, rotating the ship’s helm with a practiced hand and adjusting their course by a few degrees.

  “Great, we’ll vent the drones there.” From that point, the damn things would be pulled in to the sun’s gravity and crushed as the heat radiating from the star melted them. “Wilder,” he called to the replacement communications officer filling in for Robinson. “I’d like to talk to Butterfly.” Lieutenant Anasari, better known as Butterfly, was the Singularity’s best Warhawk pilot, notorious for difficult insertions in hostile airspace. “I have a job for him.”

  In the next few minutes, the Singularity drew ever closer to the system’s sun, close enough now for the star to nearly swallow the view captured by the telescopes on the ship’s bow. It glowered an ominous red, sunspots creeping slowly across its surface. “To be clear,” Zarrey said, “this star isn’t going to eat us, right?”

  “Eat us?” Maria Galhino echoed from sensors. “How could it eat us?”

  “You know,” Zarrey explained, “expand and swallow us, or collapse into a black hole.” It was not common practice to sail this close to a star. Most ships wouldn’t dare. “Death by spaghettification sounds food-related.”

  Jazmine made a face of contemplation, deeply mulling it over before he nodded. “Agreed.”

  “Once again, thank the stars you’re not our navigator,” Gaffigan muttered.

  “Colonel, I can say with confidence this star is not going to eat us,” Galhino said matter-of-factly. “We’ve had eyes on it for the last few hours. It’s relatively average in mass, temperature and luminosity. Class-M, the most common type of star in the galaxy.” It was a red dwarf, burning low and slow, it would outlast all of them. “It appears very stable. No notable coronal ejections. We wouldn’t be able to get this close to a hotter, or higher-mass star. I’d warn you if I saw anything out of the ordinary.” That was her job, sitting at the sensor station.

  “Good enough for me,” Zarrey said, trusting that. The technical aspects of ship command: sensor reports, engineering details, and flight telemetry was admittedly lost on him. But he trusted the crew to know their expertise. His job was the big picture.

  “You called, sir?” Lieutenant Anasari stepped onto the bridge with neatly combed hair and a freshly trimmed mustache waxed to perfection.

  Anasari didn’t look or act like a hotshot pilot, nor did his callsign ‘Butterfly’ give that impression, but looks could be deceiving. He wasn’t the best interceptor pilot, nor the best dogfighter, but he was an incredible shuttle pilot. The Marines praised him for grace under fire, and that recognition was hard-earned. A former Marine himself, Zarrey knew what that accolade was worth. “I have a sortie for you, Butterfly. We’re about to be rid of these drones and the Admiral orders were to leave a scout behind so that he’d be able to find us once we jump to a secure location.”

  Anasari shrugged. “I can wait here.” Not here exactly, per se. There was no reason to hug the corona of the sun. Likely, he’d just wait out in the edge of the system for a friendly ID to jump in. “No problem.”

  “Well, about that,” Zarrey said. “The Admiral wasn’t too careful with his words. He said to leave a scout. He didn’t say where.” Loopholes. Zarrey had found a great way to creatively interpret his orders. “We’ll give you our coordinates. But I want you to wait at Azura. Edge of the system. Real quiet-like. Passive observation on the situation.”

  Anasari slowly nodded in understanding. “A stealth op.”

  “Bingo,” Zarrey agreed. “A set of eyes for us. Watch the Hydra, see what you can learn and if something goes wrong, you’ll be able to report in, even if the away team can’t.” The away team had been equipped with a subspace transmitter. That equipment alone could reach the Singularity, even from another solar system, but if it were lost or damaged, the away team would be on their own. “Do you understand the consequences of getting caught?”

  “Best not to,” Anasari surmised. “I can linger on the edge of the system. Minimal power.” No lights, no ID beacon, no engines. “They won’t see me even if they start looking.” It would be harder than finding one specific snowflake in the tundra. Space was vast, and the Warhawk he flew was small, so small it couldn’t be this far from port on its own. Such craft had to be carried by larger, more capable ships, but they were perfect for scouting where their carrier would be too easily seen.

  “That the sound of a volunteer?” Zarrey asked.

  “Yessir,” Anasari said.

  “Can you be ready in fifteen minutes?”

  “Sir, I could be ready in five.” Combat launches didn’t allot much time for preparedness. “But, given this might be an extended stay, ten more minutes to gather supplies would be appreciated.”

  Anasari made a fair point. The Singularity’s support craft were regularly called upon to launch within minutes with no warning. That was life on a deployed ship. Weeks of mundane waiting, and mere seconds to respond to danger. “Go,” Zarrey told him, “get ready. We’ll carry you further out system before you head off.” From here, they were within easy range of Azura, even for a smaller ship like a Warhawk.

  “Aye,” Anasari said.

  The pilot didn’t ask any further questions, he simply headed off and Zarrey admired that. A younger Zarrey would definitely have accompanied Butterfly on that mission. But, he knew he knew better now. He had to stay with the ship, giving the crew some semblance of a command structure. At times like this, he dearly missed the days when the ship had possessed a second officer. Within the United Countries Space Command, second officer was ranked as a Major. Below the commander and executive officer, they would be third in the line of command, but the Singularity had not had a Major on the crew since the departure of Gregory Fairlocke, later Commander Fairlocke of the Gargantia. The position had gone unfilled since then, which meant in the extremely rare situation where the Admiral was gone, Zarrey didn’t have anyone to pawn command off to. There was nowhere to hide, and there would be no one to blame.

  Zarrey tried not to let that realization concern him as he watched the nearby sun glow brighter and brighter. Instinct told him he should feel warmer, as if standing near a campfire, but he didn’t. The Singularity’s environmental controls labored to keep everything a steady temperature for her crew, heating and cooling as required. This far into the ship’s depths, something would have to go drastically wrong before Zarrey felt any change. This close to the sun, cooling would be a priority, but the Singularity’s armored outer hull would block any harmful radiation, and act as a massive heat sink. The armor heated slowly, but also cooled slowly. The ship’s hull would be noticeably warm for a while, but that was hardly a concern until it came to combat. The infrared seekers on missiles loved a warm target. Of course, Zarrey was going to hope it didn’t come to that.

  “Closest approach in T-minus thirty seconds,” Jazmine announced.

  Alba checked a few indicators on his controls, then turned. “Standing by to vent.”

  Zarrey nodded appreciatively, and counted down the seconds on the display of the ship’s chronometer. At the proper time he signaled Alba, “Dump them.”

  Alba punched the controls and on the starboard amidships, the outer airlock opened. A pile of loose drones was pulled forth into the void, unsecured and carried by the air. The sun’s gravity pulled them closer and closer, like iron flakes to a magnet, and within seconds they were untraceable, melting and compressing. “Clear,” the engineer announced.

  Zarrey clapped his hands together. Perfect. Now the real work could begin. “Jazz, turn and burn. Take us out system. Navigation, get me a new spot to camp. Keep us within one jump of Azura. With our luck, this ‘negotiation’ is going to end in crime.” A war crime to be precise.