Blood Impulse

Part 35.3 - A WEAPON

Mississippi Sector, Battleship Singularity

Montgomery Gaffigan was surprised when his handcuffs were removed. The metal chain between them clinked as they fell into the Admiral's waiting palm. Calm as ever, he reached over and dropped the silver cuffs onto the low table in front of the couch. Gaffigan stared at them for a long moment, then he studied the room around him.

The wooden bookshelves were full of books and a red candle burned on the corner of the desk, more and more of its wax slowly softening as its warm, smoky scent wafted around the room. Gaffigan had spent a lot of time in this room, even on this old couch. It was familiar to him. He'd had many meetings in the warm lamplight going over mission parameters and discussing the state of the ship's armaments. Back then, Gaffigan had felt welcome here, but now he only felt betrayed.

Still, his gaze fell again to those handcuffs, their removal an anomaly he could not explain. "Why are you releasing me?" It made no sense. "I tried to kill you," and presently, they were alone. Nothing would stop him from trying again.

"Lieutenant, I have never been one to put off the inevitable." He knew reality, and he rarely tried to deny it. "Simply, I am not willing to kill you." Admiral Gives could acknowledge the blood on his hands. He was a killer, but he drew the line at the ship's crew. "You would have your freedom eventually, so I see no reason it should not be now."

Gaffigan wove his fingers into his greasy red hair, just trying to make sense of that. "I tried to kill you," he said again.

"You are not the first," the Admiral said simply. "And to your credit, you are among the more competent of those who have tried." Sergeant Cortana should take notes. In two attempts, she hadn't been able to get half as close as Gaffigan had.

Gaffigan rubbed his head harder. This makes no sense. "I tried to kill you," and yet, the Admiral stood there complementing the attempt? "And the Matador..." Stars, the Matador. "You saved me."

"No, I did not." If there was a truth that could regain Gaffigan's trust, that was it.

"You did. I remember." His memory of the Olympia may have been faulty, but that memory was true. That madness could never have been anything less than reality. Not even the sickest minds could conceive such carnage. Gaffigan's hands began to shake. "You dragged me out of there, past... p-past," what remained of the crew.

Monty remembered that. He tried not to, but he remembered it. In vivid detail, he remembered regaining his senses at the sound of the Admiral's voice. He remembered meeting the Admiral's blue eyes through the bloodied faceplate of his environmental suit. "You were there."

"Yes, I was." There was no denying that. "Yet, you never found it odd that I was there?"

"Why would that be..." the question died in Gaffigan's mouth, because it was odd. Now that it had been pointed out, the strangeness of that fact glittered like a jewel in the cavern of his memory.

The Admiral raised an eyebrow. "I am a flag officer, Lieutenant." He'd had no cause to be galivanting around a hazardous environment like the Matador. He had a Marine contingent at his command to do such things, and the Marines had done so in that case as well. They had retrieved the Matador's other survivors. "But you... You were trapped somewhere the Marines would never have been able to reach." Not in time, anyway.

Hunched over on the couch, Monty tried to shake that memory from his mind. He tried to wipe the image of the blood and sinews from his eyes. The stench of it... Stars, the sounds. The screams.