Blood Impulse

Part 30.3 - SAINT OF ANGELS

Polaris Sector, Battleship Singularity

It hurt. It hurt a lot, as if a swarm of hornets had lined up to sting her hand. "Is this your idea of a joke?" she cried, nursing her throbbing hand.

Havermeyer stared at the wire in confusion. It was dead where it lay, just as it had been when he held it. If it were carrying any current, it would be crackling and hopping where its conductor contacted metal. That's odd. Confident that he had cut it off from the rest of the grid, he knelt to pick it up. Strangely, it was warm, a sign power had just run through it. Cortana had been shocked, but in his hands, the power line was just as dead as before.

Cortana watched him feel out the ends of the frayed wire, strangely focused upon it. "Are you crazy? I could have you thrown in the bring for that stunt!"

Havermeyer mostly ignored her. "I've never seen that happen before." It was inexplicable. This wire was dead, cut off from the grid. It should have been impossible for it to put out a shock, but it had. He could still feel it growing cold. "I don't think it's a good idea for us to continue, Sergeant."

Something about the way he said it stilled her anger. He looked genuinely perplexed. No, not only that, but concerned. "...Why?"

"Because I have never seen her react that way before." Havermeyer's brows were furrowed, unerring disquietude in his expression.

"What are you talking about?"

"I told you I was a tech-monk, Sergeant." While she seemed to have a poor grasp on what that meant, there was one thing she should know. "Why did you think I was here?"

"I don't know. Training?"

"My people have far more complete training than any program in the fleet. I am here in service." Like all his people, he offered tribute in work.

"We're all here in service." That was part of being in the military. "At least we were. Now we're living on the whims of an arguably unstable psychopath."

Havermeyer elected to ignore the latter half of her statement, though it was now readily clear to him why she was having a hard time integrating with the rest of the crew. "I'm not here because of military service, Sergeant. In general, excusing self-defense and defense of innocents, my people are pacifists. I am here to serve my patron Saint, and thus, I cannot, in good conscience, continue training you."

"And what the hell is so wrong with me?" she demanded. She hadn't done anything wrong!

"I don't know." Still, Havermeyer had an urgent need to obey his instincts. Those instincts that had warned him against this from the start were screaming to stop here, to stop now. "She is ordinarily benign. This is... concerning."

Cortana narrowed her eyes, dark, thin eyebrows furrowing as she tried to make sense of it. "What are you talking about?" she asked again.

"This ship." He gestured to the surrounding bulkheads. "I'm sure you've noticed that she has a bit of a personality."

"That's a load of crap. Just like that bullshit ghost story Alba told me about the bitch with the white hair."

White hair? "You've seen the ghost?"

"Well, it figures you'd believe that," she muttered. Why were there so many superstitious people on this crew?

Havermeyer forcibly ignored her jibe. Carefully, he placed the damaged cable back into the wiring conduit. "I should have known." He should have seen it. "You tried to kill the Admiral." It was obvious. "That has made you unwelcome."