Blood Impulse

Part 30.4 - AFFLICTION OF MADNESS

Polaris Sector, Battleship Singularity

And then, as sudden as it had come, it vanished. As if she were opening her eyes to a new reality, Cortana came to with Havermeyer shaking her shoulders. "Sergeant!" he said, a dreadfully serious concern in his expression. "Can you hear me?"

Cortana shook off his grip by instinct, but she could feel that the spot where his hand had been on her shoulder was warm. He'd been trying to rouse her for some time. "I'm fine," she replied, but hated how weak her voice sounded.

Havermeyer shadowed her as she stepped back, seemingly unsure if she'd fall. "What happened, Sergeant?" he said. "I heard you shout, so I came to check on you, but when I found you..." It may well have been the strangest thing he'd ever seen.

"When you found me?" she prompted with a glare, the adrenaline steadily fading from her system.

Havermeyer stiffened his posture to something more proper. Cortana was, after all, his superior. "You were just standing there, ma'am. You never reacted to anything I said or did. And then, all of a sudden, you started choking." Convulsing, more like. Her glazed eyes had rolled into the back of her head and she'd started thrashing as much as continuing to stand allowed. "What happened?"

"Oh," a rueful, joyless chuckle escaped her. "I think I made it mad." It was ridiculous, but at least Havermeyer wouldn't brush it off as insanity.

"It?" he queried, concern darkening his expression. Still, Cortana failed to answer, and he could see her eyes glazing over again. A new, distant look overtook them, not with the unseeing focus they'd had before, but something else. Fear? "Sergeant, what did you see?"

Her answer came from the distance of shellshock, quiet and emotionless. "The ghost."

Dread welled up in Havermeyer's chest. He feared nothing about this ship. He was loyal and his faith told him that gave him nothing to fear. No, that dread wasn't meant for him. He knew the stories as well as any other crewman: the ghost was an omen of death. Only the doomed saw her, and Cortana had now seen her not once, but twice. "Sergeant?" Surely the mere sight of the rumor had not shaken her so badly? He waved his hand, trying to draw the Sergeant's attention back to him. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"It spoke."

"It ...spoke?" he echoed. "I've never heard of that." In all the tales passed from the dead and dying, none ever claimed to hear the spirit speak.

"It spoke with no sound, but its voice... I could still hear it." It was a wicked reminder of the madness, of the insanity that had overtaken her conscious mind. "I could still hear it... Why could I still hear it?" Her voice rose, "Why?" Upset, she reached out to grab Havermeyer and demand an answer, but her hand stopped short of his tunic. If you touch another member of this crew... She had been warned.

Terrified, Cortana dropped her hand. "I didn't touch you." She stepped back. "I didn't touch you!" she cried.

There was a wild look in her eyes. Terror, he recognized it. Absolute terror. But that was anomalous enough. He'd heard how scared crewman became when they saw the ghost. But, they feared her as a beacon of death. They had feared because they had seen her, not because she herself was frightening. "Sergeant," Havermeyer reached out, taking her arm gently. "What did she say to you?" What had exactly happened here?

The careful touch gave her something more than fear to feel. It was calming, but her hands still shook. "...It knew," she realized.

"Knew what, Sergeant?" Havermeyer asked, watching Cortana swallow shaking breaths. "What did it know?"