Blood Impulse

Part 34.4 - SMALL TALK

Mississippi Sector, Battleship Singularity

"It won't matter if I find the damn thing and rip it out of the ship first."

Perhaps that was not the first thing Admiral Gives wanted to hear when he finally stepped onto the bridge. It was strange how out of control things could get in five minutes. He had not been here to misdirect the conversation, so now the ship's crew was on a witch hunt. That wasn't so surprising, of course. The day's events had been far from subtle and the Admiral expected that to cause problems, but that did not mean he was willing to let anybody rip anything out of his ship. "XO," he said lowly, "would you care to repeat that?"

"Ooh," Zarrey declared, "When I find that Box, I'm going to rip it out and smash it to bits with the biggest damn hammer I can find." He cracked his knuckles in anticipation. "That damn thing always pissed me off." Its very existence had been conceived to spy on and betray the crew.

"You will do no such thing," the Admiral said, crossing the semicircular room with a gait that still felt awkward. He only hoped it looked normal enough as his body continued to recover.

A bit of Zarrey's rage stalled as he registered the Admiral's return. "You don't want us to go after the Black Box?"

"Locating the Black Box would be a waste of time. It would be near impossible to fully disable." There were millions of neurofibers running through the ship. Every single one would have to be found, cut, and removed from whatever system it was attached to in order to completely disable the Black Box. "The Boxes are designed to be unremovable."

In that moment, Zarrey remembered why he hated the Admiral's emotionless composure. "How can you be so fucking calm about this?" It was clear he knew. It was so clear. He had known all along about the Box being exempt from the Zero Strike override.

"Colonel, the Black Box is not a threat." That should be obvious by now. "If it was going to betray us, it would have done so already."

"And what if it's intent is not to betray us?" Zarrey demanded, towering over the ship commander. "What if its intent is to protect you?"

"Why would it do that?" he asked, aware that every single set of eyes and ears in the ship's command center was following this debate.

"Because Command wants you alive, and I think you are well aware of that." As innovative as the Admiral could be, he remained a very logical tactician. "That's why you left isn't it? Why you insisted on meeting the Jayhawker alone?" Zarrey hated it, but Alba's theory about the Black Box made a lot of sense. "I offered to go in your stead, but you refused because it wouldn't work. If I had gone in your place, this ship – the Box – would know, because it hears everything." Aboard ship, there was no hiding from it. "And you somehow used the Box to bring the ship here, didn't you?"

"I fail to see how that would be possible," Admiral Gives told him, not bothering to lower his voice. Whatever he told the Colonel would be relayed to the rest of the crew anyway, so it was best they hear it from him directly. Zarrey had clearly not come up with this theory alone. From the attentiveness of the other crew, every person seated behind the rings of consoles or standing on the edges of the room was invested in this witch hunt. They expected answers from him, but the Admiral had none to give them.

Zarrey rubbed at the old, pinkish scar on his jaw. "Look, I don't care how you did it, Admiral, I'll admit it worked in our favor this time." He was not above that as he took a deep breath and heard a soft ping that signaled the end of the radar's sweep. "But if the Box has been activated, if it has been modified in any way by you or anyone else, that is an incredible risk."