Blood Impulse

Part 7.1

Aragonian Sector, Battleship Singularity

The shale gray curtains surrounding the beds in sickbay looked out of place in a room where nearly everything else was made of dark metal, but they did their job in granting the patients a little bit of privacy. With the doctor nursing a bottle of alcohol in his office and the nurses tending to other patients, no one realized that the Admiral had another visitor. Perhaps more importantly, they never did see who it was.

There was no doubt or denying it now as she lingered near Admiral Gives' comatose form. She was worried. This was not like him. He never would have left his crew on their own in a situation like this if he had any control over it. No, if he had even one ounce of strength left, he would have torn out that IV drip and walked out of the medical bay in his usual fashion, even if that meant he collapsed three minutes later in one of the ship's emptier corridors. The fact he didn't do that – consequently worrying her twice as much – was enough of an indication that something was very, very wrong.

The rest of the worlds absolutely despised him, but, over the years, she had found Admiral Gives to be quite endearing. Oh, he was called a sociopath for a reason. She held no illusions about that, but he was good in ways his predecessors had not been. There were times when he was the entirely unfeeling monster that terrified the worlds, but there was more to him than that.

If anyone else had been patient enough to listen, if anyone else had truly known what happened, they would probably think differently of him. But most people did not know a thing about him, nor did they wish to. They did not know why he had forced himself away from everything and everyone. They did not understand that was the kindness of someone who had lost too much to expose that weakness again to the worlds.

It had taken her years to try and understand, but even now, she found her understanding of him somewhat lacking. Why wasn't he waking up? Why now, of all the times, was he not waking up?

It had been drilled into her. She was accustomed to the harsh fact that the Admiral's command had always been only temporary. He had made sure of it. She had been taught to understand that none of her commanding officers would ever be more than temporary. None of them were permanent.

It had always been bound to happen: someone else taking over – a new ship commander. She did not relish the thought, but she had been through this before. She would move on. She would release this commander as easily as she had the three others that had come before him. She would continue on the way she had always been told to, without emotion, without hesitation and without attachment.

...And yet, she found now that some part of her did not want to let go.

She sighed, spilling some more of her long white hair in front of her shoulders. "I'm not supposed to care," she reminded him. "That's what you always told me." Affection breeds pain. The practice of such an unattached existence had come naturally to her. No one had ever given her a second's thought. They always moved on with their lives, despite the rumors of her presence. She was a ghost, and ghosts were not real. She had grown accustomed to being alone and unaddressed.

But Admiral Gives had changed things. That had been unavoidable, and that had been the point, no matter how many times he reminded her that getting attached was dangerous. He had told her that so, so many times. I was not supposed to get attached. "I'm sure that's why you always did everything I asked you to."

Knowing the Admiral, he would play off this whole condition as some elaborate test to see if she had followed his directions, but she knew better. He had been badly injured by a situation well out of his control, a situation which she should have been able to handle on her own.