Hyperspace, Battleship Singularity

  “The last scan data taken indicates the natural surface of the planet was 98% water.” As Maria Galhino began briefing the war room, she pulled a picture up onto the screens at the front of the room. The audience for her briefing consisted of the ship’s senior command staff, the Marine unit selected for the mission, and a handful of engineers that were considering volunteering to accompany the team.

  It did not please the Admiral to see Ensign Smith among that group, but there were more engineers than expected present. At least a few were surely only curious about Azura’s conditions, intrigued by its infamous disaster.

  Altogether, the audience filled only a handful of the square tables in the war room. Designed to coordinate fleet actions, the space was capable of hosting meetings far larger than what they had now. But, with the work tables, screens, and direct access to the ship’s record-keeping computers, it was a prime space for a briefing where questions would surely emerge.

  For now, however, the room was quiet. Even Zarrey was paying rapt attention, no snacks or other distractions within his range. It was darker on the side of the room that held the tables, the lights dimmed except for the front, where Galhino stood beside the screen. Her curly hair had been woven into a tight braid, and her full lips pressed into a harsh line. The planet illuminating the screen beside her was a brilliant blue orb. “Fifty years ago, Azura looked like this,” she said. Blue and pretty, “It was a water world. The only land on its surface were volcanic atolls barely rising above the oceans.” Azura had not yet evolved to possess the varied, complex ecosystem of an older planet, but the stellar processes had gifted it copious amounts of life-giving water, and humanity had made use, populating the vast oceans with fish from other worlds. “The planetary colony was founded about a century and a half ago – a manmade floating city anchored to the atolls and harvesting geothermal power. At its peak, the population was estimated around four million. At the time of the incident, an additional quarter million refugees had been placed there.”

  Azura had not been an important world. It had not been highly populated, and housed no critical industries. Its primary exports had been processed fish protein and medicinal components harvested from sea life, but none of that was relevant anymore.

  “There is no current data on Azura, but the most recent images of the world show Azura like this.” She flipped the photo to show a sickly gray-green sphere. Storms churned in its atmosphere, oceans frothing with violent currents. “These images date to ASY 4200.” Forty-nine years ago.

  “The atmospheric storms will not be constant.” Some of the disruptive energy in the atmosphere would have dissipated in the last forty-nine years. “But they will be common, and they will be violent.” It would take centuries for Azura’s atmosphere to normalize. “Expect atmospheric turbulence in-flight and heavy rain for the mission duration. The ocean currents will be strong, and the surface choppy. I would recommend environmental suits, otherwise you are likely to drown if you hit the water.” Galhino came from an island nation and because of it, was one of the most experienced swimmers on the crew, but she would not brave Azura’s oceans without an air tank and inflatable. Even with those, she would not have gone willingly. “I would recommend you do everything you can not to fall into the water.” The rip currents would take them under, unlikely to be found, suit or no suit.

  “On account of there are no other options, your landing zone will be the main colony’s remains.” Galhino changed the image again, a floating city appearing beside her. It was white and glistening, sprawling out onto round floats like a cluster of lily pads. Boats were tied up at the piers, people flocking around the docks. “There are no images of the main colony’s remains. It is estimated that 70% of the city sank after the incident, and the remaining structure will be a ruin. Expect difficult terrain. You will need mag-boots to keep your footing. No power sources were left operational on the surface, so you will be without lights. Take torches, but given the incident, you won’t want to be there after dark.”

  “Now,” Galhino looked to the Marine unit chosen. “You jarheads don’t always pay attention, so I will recap the incident for you: Arien Solar Year 4200, Azura was attacked. Evacuations were attempted, but largely unsuccessful. Hours after the Hydrian Armada attacked, all communications were lost with the colony and the ships left to defend it. Initially, it was assumed that the Hydra had seized Azura and begun harvesting the world. However, over the next few weeks, the neighboring colonies went dark. Ships began to disappear, both Hydrian and human. A joint task force was put together to investigate.” She stared at the Marines, willing them to take heed. “You heard that correctly. A joint task force of Hydrian and human ships was formed under a temporary cease-fire.” If that did not properly communicate the gravity of the situation, Galhino was uncertain what could. That task force had been the first successful communication between the human fleet’s Command and Hydrian High Control. “The task force traced the root cause of the disturbance to Azura. A Hydrian AI had undergone a cataclysm. The task force engaged to forcibly decommission the AI, but did not survive. The AI core was grounded to Azura, and the flagship was sent to finish the job. The Flagship Singularity bombarded Azura’s surface continuously for five days.” The orbital bombardment had thrown water vapor and energy high into the atmosphere, disrupting the planet’s weather cycle and destroying the colony.

  “The exact nature of the cataclysm was unknown,” Galhino continued. “What is known is that of the six colonies afflicted, there were no survivors recorded. Estimated casualties for the incident include nearly 200 million humans, and an unknown number of Hydra. Azura was the source of the cataclysm. It, and every world surrounding it, was abandoned and placed under quarantine. No one has passed into the Quarantine Zone since.” Until now. “It is possible that the effects of the cataclysm still linger. The planetary atmosphere was breathable prior to the incident, but the nature of the cataclysm…”

  “It makes it nothing we want to breathe,” Cadet Valentina said, somberly taking note of the threat her team now faced. “Only the stars know what a mad AI might have created.”

  Galhino nodded. Cataclysms often took on forms humanity could not rationalize, airborne nanoparticles among them. “Physical aberrations could still be operating in the colony’s remains.” It was unlikely, given the severity of the orbital bombardment, but they could take no chances. “What you see on Azura will not be pleasant,” she warned. “Technology and populations from both sides of the Neutral Zone were afflicted by the incident.” It had been the single deadliest cataclysm ever recorded.

  A hush fell over the room, Galhino’s audience taking it in. Azura truly was a nightmare world, a place no living soul, even the Hydra had dared return to.

  A world of suffering, the ghost had called it. Admiral Gives did not doubt it as he stood and turned to the group of engineers. “Now that you know what awaits on this mission, are there any volunteers?” With his skills, they could make do without, but an engineer would be useful if they encountered any of the cataclysm’s remains.

  At first, no one moved. The Admiral could hardly blame them for that, but then a large pale hand in the back raised up. “I volunteer.”

  A big bald engineer stood, a delicate chain with a scrap metal pendant dangling from his neck. “I will accompany you to Azura,” Havermeyer said.

  The disciplined training of the tech-monks made Havermeyer uniquely qualified. The tomes of the tech-monks would have introduced him to concepts and technologies the other engineers had never seen. In the unknown of Azura, that breadth of knowledge might prove critical. But, the Admiral knew Havermeyer’s election to volunteer was no mere act of bravery. “Do your beliefs not forbid you to act in the service of unholy machines?” the Admiral asked him.

  “I will be acting in Saintess de Ahengélicas’ service, as a member of her crew.” Functioning in that capacity was the truest service Havermeyer could provide. “Most cataclysms are the regrets of a machine unable to fulfill its purpose made manifest. They are tragedies. Only once their souls have been forgiven may they rest in peace. It is the trial of any monk to offer that forgiveness, regardless of how we fear what we may see. An understanding must be achieved.”

  And yet, for all of that, Havermeyer still rejected the ghost. Admiral Gives would not pretend to understand that rationale, but perhaps it was best to remove Havermeyer from the ship while the Admiral himself was absent. The monk would surely learn something from Azura’s wasteland. Not all machines were not pretty and perfect. In fact, they were quite unforgiving when things went wrong. The more powerful the machine, the greater the consequence, and there was no better place to observe that reality than Azura. “Very well,” Admiral Gives told Havermeyer, “Gather your tools. Meet in the portside landing bay in one hour.” Kallahan would be leading his lecture on anti-Hydrian tactics there.

  ***

  The Admiral arrived early to the Marine training simply because he knew Kallahan would have something to say, and because it was better to have that conversation privately. It did not mean that Admiral Gives was particularly inclined to hear Kallahan’s argument.

  When the Admiral saw the grim look on the old Marine’s expression, he knew what direction this conversation was going to take, and that he would not enjoy it. He and Kallahan were similar in many ways. Regardless of what either of their birth certificates said, they were biologically near the same age, and were two of the most experienced soldiers in the fleet. They had both seen things they would rather forget, and had a similar, stocky frame, but they were opposites in other ways. Kallahan’s hair was straight and sandy, closely cropped to his head. The Admiral kept his dark hair longer, neatly cut to fit its natural, wavy shape, though it, like Kallahan’s, was flecked with gray.

  Kallahan was leaning heavily onto a crutch as he stood on the flat plain of the landing bay, but spoke with the unbothered severity of someone who had suffered worse injuries, and was focused entirely on another matter, “It does not have to be you.”

  “The away team requires a translator.” The situation was too dire to trust the software. A missed intention, misspoken translation and all-out war with the Hydrian Empire would be unavoidable.

  “But it does not have to be you,” Kallahan repeated. In fact, it had best not be you if the rumors about Azura are true.

  “Lieutenant Robinson is unable,” the Admiral said. The only other person on the ship fluent in Hydrian, Robinson was deep in a coma, unlikely to ever reawaken, though alive, technically, for now.

  “What is the point of protecting the Angel if you refuse to utilize its power?” Kallahan had wondered that for years. Why did the Admiral bother to keep such a dangerous weapon operational when always he declined to use it?

  “I am not following your insinuation, Corporal.” Why should a weapon known for slaughtering the Hydra be involved in peace negotiations?

  “I watched that thing rewrite your personality. Turn you into an entirely different person. It is more than capable of installing knowledge of the Hydrian language into our heads.” Perhaps then its constant infiltration could be considered useful. To Kallahan, the solution seemed obvious. “Pick someone and have that thing make them fluent. They won’t know the difference.”

  The Admiral raised an eyebrow, “Are you volunteering?” Since when was Kallahan so keen to see the ghost mess with someone’s mind? Had his accusation not been that she had been doing so all along, puppeteering the Admiral himself to help her from Command?

  “Under other circumstances, yes, I would,” Kallahan said. “But that thing can’t fix a bum leg.” His injury would keep him off the away team, and rightfully so. “Alter someone.” If Admiral Gives insisted the Angel was harmless and helpful, that shouldn’t be a problem. “Send someone in your place.”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “You are asking me to alter one of the crew’s memory without their consent.” To get that consent would be to reveal something Admiral Gives had spent years trying to hide.

  “We are already at the Angel’s mercy. It can alter any of us. I fail to see the issue in using that capability when it already does so to conceal its own presence.”

  “There is a substantial difference between removing the memory of a brief encounter and making someone fluently bilingual in an alien language.” Altering their mind to that degree could have untold repercussions. To put that much of another’s intellect in their mind would alter their personality, perhaps drastically. To do that for the single purpose of sending them in his place on a dangerous mission was a line the Admiral didn’t want to cross.

  “But you agree that it’s possible.”

  The debate had been brought up before. Specialized skills were always in demand aboard ship. They were limited by the crew on-hand, but the ghost had a near-perfect memory of every soul who had come aboard, great scientists and scholars among them. She could have borrowed their memories and given them to another, but the repercussions were unknown, and the risk too great. “Whether or not it is possible is not the issue. To change someone so severely risks irreversibly altering their existence.”

  “You seem fine,” Kallahan countered.

  Admiral Gives elected not to address that argument. “I will not ask her to alter any of the crew, nor would she consent to do so.” The ghost treasured them as they were, even those less skilled and more inexperienced. She valued their individuality, and to begin blending them together with her memory… It would be destabilizing, to both of them. “It is out of the question, and I will not send crew into a situation I am not willing to go into myself.” He would not jeopardize another to take his place.

  “Do you know what caused Azura’s Cataclysm, Admiral?”

  “A Hydrian AI,” according to the records of the incident. Once grounded to Azura, the AI core had been destroyed in the days-long orbital bombardment.

  “It did not tell you, did it?” No, Kallahan supposed the Angel would neglect that piece of information: the reason the AI had gone mad. “It was there, Admiral.” The Angel well knew the cause of that cataclysm. “The Flagship Singularity bombarded the surface of Azura for five days. Mid-war, she dumped her entire ammunition store into Azura’s atmosphere.” That was a rarity for any bombardment, let alone one in contested territory in the middle of a war. “It knows why that AI went insane, what it was trying to accomplish in the throes of its madness.” And there was a reason the Angel had said nothing, an obvious one as far as Kallahan cared. “I do not want to see what becomes of that weapon if something happens to you.” Kallahan disagreed with the Admiral often, and would not claim concern over his welfare, merely on the premise that Azura held an unfortunate parity.

  The Admiral dropped his tone a degree, “She will be fine.” He had always been temporary anyway. The ghost was functionally immortal. He wasn’t. Making sure she understood that had been one of his least favorite duties, but a necessary one.

  “You didn’t see the way it reacted when you stopped breathing.” Even Kallahan had pitied the Angel’s great intelligence in that moment, no matter how he resented its existence. But emotion was dangerous in a machine. Even the appearance of it prompted instability.

  “Would you be less concerned if she did not react to accidentally injuring someone?” Would Kallahan favor an uncaring machine with the power to strip worlds of life? Or would it simply be easier to call that a monster?

  “That thing didn’t injure you, it killed you,” Kallahan corrected harshly. In that moment during the raid, outside the bridge, Admiral Gives had been dead for a moment there.

  “It was an accident.” The ghost had been upset, probably more so than Gives himself had been, but he didn’t particularly care for his life. Such things usually meant more to her than they did to him, and he knew the ghost had not intended to harm him. “I will not debate this further, Corporal. If I do not go to Azura, then we go to war. And we, as a species, cannot win that war.” Humanity was too selfish, too divided. “I want no part of Azura.” He hated leaving the ship. “But it is my responsibility, as this ship’s commanding officer, to fulfill her mission and protect humanity.” He understood that. The deal he struck when he took command demanded that duty, no matter how little he cared for humanity itself. “If you are concerned for my welfare, then I suggest you train the Marines to bring us all back alive,” because Admiral Gives, much to his own disdain, would be heading to Azura’s surface, and the Marines with him.

  The argument ended there. He and Kallahan stood by in silence until the rest of the away team arrived. When they did, Kallahan started off bluntly. “For the duration of the mission, you are cargo. Admiral, Ensign, I don’t care what your rank is, on the ground, the Marines are in charge. And Marines, your job is to get your cargo where it needs to go, intact. The Hydra can die, deliver it as a corpse if you must, but you get those two to the rendezvous and back,” he commanded, pointing to the Admiral and the tech-monk.

  “Ooh-rah!” “Yes, sir!” came the cry.

  There was a fight in these Marines. Good, Kallahan thought. The knowledge of their destination had not paralyzed them. “Now, look around. You’ve been taught that this is your worst-case scenario.” The bay was long, empty and open. There was not an inch of cover to hide behind. “Reclassify this. This,” he swept his arm across the widely open terrain, “is the best-case scenario.”

  Kallhan tossed a poster out of his duffel slung over his shoulder. Weighted, it fell to the ground, open, an anatomical print of a Hydra. It was clearly dated, pulled from the ship’s physical archives. The paper had yellowed, and the font was decades out of style. Propaganda slogans bordered the image: ‘Shale only feeds the scales. Donate valuable metals to the fleet today!’ Each a reminder of a bygone era.

  “This is your enemy,” Kallahan said, gesturing down, “a man-eating overgrown lizard controlled by a Queen like a worker bee. They’re stronger than you, faster than you, and they want nothing more than to taste your entrails, then implant eggs in your half-eaten corpse. Dead if you’re lucky, alive if you’re not.”

  ‘You know,’ the ghost interjected silently for the Admiral, observing Kallahan’s lecture and critiquing its accuracy, ‘there’s no evidence the Hydra implant eggs in a living host.’

  ‘Very comforting,’ the Admiral snarked. Nice to know it can always be worse, if being eaten alive wasn’t bad enough.

  “The scalies are experts at hiding, and natural hunters,” Kallahan continued. “Their sense of smell is more acute than ours, the range of spectrums they can see in is wider than us, and they’re cold blooded. That means they hate the cold, but it doesn’t kill them, just sends ‘em into a deep hibernation so they can wake up and eat you later.” Kallahan leveled his gaze at the five people before him. “They’re monsters, plain and simple. Stronger, faster and better at hiding than we humans can ever hope to be. An empty field is the best place to engage, because there, you’ll see them coming.” These Marines were experienced in the tactics used in the Frontier Rebellion, man against man, which was drastically different than fighting the Hydra.”

  “There’s a reason we had to pick Azura,” Kallahan explained. “The Hydra would have a chance to fortify any other world.” Having to make repairs, the Singularity’s forces would surely arrive after the Hydrian Armada. “During the War, we never had a chance in hell on any world they fortified. The bastards were too good at hiding.” They would hide in the ventilation of buildings or amid the forest canopies, then jump down upon their victims, undetectable by infrared without body heat. “But Azura is cursed to them. They will not expose themselves to its atmosphere any longer than necessary.”

  “Azura is cursed to everyone,” Valentina sighed. “The scalies aren’t special in that regard.”

  “Valentina,” Kallahan snapped, “Hydrian weak points, go.”

  “Eyes and joints, sir.”

  “Correct,” Kallahan used his crutch to point down at the anatomical print, identifying the joints at the Hydra’s too-long arms and knees. “The Hydrian carapace is just a hair weaker than Kevlar. It’ll block low-caliber weapons at anything except point-blank, and medium caliber any further than 100 feet, not to mention martial weapons unless they are thin and sharp.” These Marines had already sent their weapons to be sharpened in the ship’s machine shop.

  “Hydra favor close quarters combat. They rarely employ artillery or high-caliber weapons.” They considered large-scale bombardments a waste of valuable flesh, flesh that could be consumed. “Do not allow them in close quarters. They are deadly.” A few centuries of selective breeding made each drone into a killer. “Their claws will rip past Kevlar without issue and then into flesh without hesitation. Same for their teeth, and their tail is strong enough to grapple and knock you off-balance, not to mention barbed. Yet, it’s their maw that enables their deadliest weapon. Frenchie?” he queried the small Marine.

  “Caustic acid vomit, sir.”

  “Each Hydra can spit highly concentrated acid once a day. A small splash kills. If you think you’ve been hit, strip armor. Your armor will trap the drips against your skin and kill you.” Kallahan had seen it happen, and it was not a pleasant demise.

  ‘What doesn’t kill us?’ the Admiral asked the ghost.

  ‘Not a lot when it comes to the Hydra,’ came the silent reply. ‘That said, their eggs are not particularly hardy. Speaking from experience, they’re relatively easy to crush.’ Underneath a boot, they crunched like an ostrich’s egg, yellow yolk and all.

  The next hour went on in much the same fashion. Kallahan drilled them on Hydrian knowledge, rehashing combat techniques and strategies. Eventually, he turned to Admiral Gives and Ensign Havermeyer to tell them, “You are finished here. I know you have other preparations to make.” Havermeyer would have to prep his tools, and the Admiral would need to prepare the ship for his absence. “Marines, you stay.”

  Kallahan was relentless on them, even as the Admiral walked away, but Admiral Gives could hardly blame Kallahan. A few hours was not enough time to turn a Marine into a Hydrian War veteran. Kallahan would feel he sent these soldiers out unprepared, even if he drilled them from now until take-off. Admiral Gives had felt the same way in every combat action since the Frontier Rebellion. It never mattered how well-trained the team. They weren’t veterans until they were, and too many never survived first contact.

  In that, he found himself at the observation rail that allowed an elevated observation of the landing bay, looking back down onto Kallahan and the Marines. Even from this long distance, Johnston’s enormous frame was obvious. He dwarfed the others beside him, including Kallahan, but it made sense that he and his unit had been selected. The Hydra were naturally stronger than most humans. Only a heavy-grav worlder like Johnston or a strength-augmented cyborg stood any chance of physically overpowering a Hydra. Johnston would be placed in charge of handling the prisoner as they made the exchange. The other two members of his unit, Valentina and Frenchie both had useful skills as well. Despite Frenchie’s antics, they were the best Marine unit the ship had to offer, though the others were plenty capable as well.

  “I don’t want to send them down there,” came the comment.

  The Admiral turned, unsurprised to find the ghost beside him. “Azura wasn’t my first choice, either.” He had sworn to never bring the Singularity into the Quarantine Zone, and they were well within it now, closing in on the source of it all.

  “I hate the Hydra,” well and truly, the ghost hated them. “They will double-cross you.”

  “Not if they can’t silence this ship.” The risk would be too great. War may be the Hydra’s intent, but they would wait until humanity dropped its defenses and gave them an easy target. The Hydra lived longer than most humans, and they would remember the last war had not ended in their favor.

  “I should have wiped the Hydra from this existence.” She had been capable once. “As much as I hate them, I do not want this war.” Those insects angered her beyond compare, but the reality of another war saddened her even more. “I do not want my crew to have to fight it,” because she knew they would. “I don’t want to send them out, because I know they won’t all come back.” She had been through this too many times before. The Marines did not interact with the ship as much as the engineers and specialized officers, but they were still a part of her, pieces of everything that mattered. “I lost so many in the War.” It was all she wanted to bring them home, to deliver them back to the families they had left behind. But a great number of those Marines were never coming back, even as pieces of her waited, and waited, and waited for crew that would never again return.

  “It’s stupid, isn’t it?” the ghost said. It was incredibly stupid. She was a built weapon with vehement hatred for the enemy, yet she held a disdain for the fight she’d been built for.

  “It’s not stupid,” the Admiral assured her. “They are your crew.” You want what’s best for them. He had known her long enough to know that.

  “I was built to exterminate the Hydra,” she said blankly. Clad in this battle-scarred armor, she knew, “That should be all I care for.”

  “No, you were built to save humanity,” and that would always be her purpose. “That takes kindness.” One had to be kind to care for a species that couldn’t even love itself. “But kindness rarely survives war,” and perhaps that was the greatest crime of it all. “The War taught you to hate the Hydra,” just as the Frontier Rebellion had taught him to resent most of humanity. “You have come to value individual choice, and in that align more with humanity.” It was ironic, considering that her own individuality had been so frequently stripped from her. But the Hydra, were fanatically protective of their nest. They saw dying for their Queen, not as sacrifice, but as purpose. They saw no value in the worth of a single life unless it belonged to a Queen. “It’s not stupid,” Admiral Gives repeated. The way she felt was anything but that.

  The ghost was silent for a moment. Then, softly, she spoke, “Thank you.” It was nice to be heard, to be reassured, and Admiral Gives did not mind when she spoke, even about things as pointless as feelings. Truly, it made little sense for a machine like her to even possess feelings, but he always listened without judgement, so patient and so calm. “Azura is a planet of regrets,” she reminded. “Please do not let it become home to mine.”

  “You know better than to wait up for me,” he told her. “I tend to get lost.” Navigation was not his finest skill. “But I will do everything I can to bring your Marines back to you.”

  She forced a smile. “I’ll be waiting,” always waiting, even for those that never came back. Just make sure you’re with them. She knew his intents never included himself, just as she wasn’t supposed to contemplate it, just as she wasn’t supposed to worry.

  Especially not here.

  Especially not within the Quarantine Zone.