Blood Impulse

Part 13.3 - ASSISTANT

Homebound Sector, Haven System, Battleship Singularity

The Admiral's quarters were almost cozy. Almost. There was a small sofa and a set of old antique lounge chairs in a seating area in front of an old wooden desk. But the furniture wasn't the problem, in fact it took Amelia nearly an hour to place a finger on what made the room feel so off.

There was nothing truly personal anywhere: no photographs and no letters. There were a few trinkets on the bookshelves, but there was nothing truly personal – no indication of friends or family. The room did not feel empty, but it did not feel truly personal either.

The frames on the walls held paintings of landscapes or photographs of the ship they stood aboard. It was strange. Maybe in place of friends, she had expected to see pictures of crew, but there were none of those either. A snow globe and a conch shell were evidence of a life lived here, but not a life fully lived.

Chief Ty had left them here some time ago. Harrison had been lulled to sleep on the couch by the steady hum of the ship's engines, but Amelia was not so easily relaxed. That constant noise was preferable to Reeter's presence, but it remained a burdensome reminder that she had no control over her fate here. She had absolutely no idea what the Admiral intended to do with her or her son.

Maybe that was why she was drawn to the desk. It was the least tidy part of the office, piled high with folders of papers. An old lamp had been attached to one corner, left on, as were the others illuminating the room. Only one square of the wooden desktop was visible, atop it sat an empty tin mug.

It was a dinted old thing, the handle slightly misshapen, but Amelia didn't bother with it, moving onto the workspace in front of the black leather chair. Rather than a pile, only one folder sat there, stamped with a red confidential watermark. The label on the tab simply read, 'New Era.'

Amelia picked it up, careful not to let the papers spill. Inside, the pages were sorted by Assets, Leaders and Objectives. A few were out of order, clipped together and marked up in pen by a neat, concise handwriting she assumed to be the Admiral's. Amelia was awed for a moment, realizing she held all the information on the enemy in her hands: who they were, what they wanted and what they were capable of.

Still, she couldn't move past the fleet personnel file on top. A thumbnail photograph of Charleston Reeter smiled up at her from where it had been clipped to the corner of the page. Even a photograph of that knowing gaze made her want to vomit. She could just see that charismatic smile curling into a triumphant smirk. Reeter was evil, but the note scrawled on the opposite corner of the page did not renew her faith in her apparent rescuer.

It was scrawled in black by that same, methodical handwriting, "Trade for Amelia?" What was that supposed to mean?

A part of her insisted it was not something she really wanted to know.

She had been warned not to trust the Admiral. Her own father had promised that trusting him would be a mistake, but never specified why. Similarly, her husband, when he'd been alive, had never said much on Admiral Gives, avoiding the subject like it was taboo. None of that encouraged her to think well of the man. In fact, it encouraged her to assume the worst.

In this game of kings, she was a pawn – something to be traded on a whim. She was a commodity, one that Reeter wanted, but one that Admiral Gives now had. What am I worth? She wondered. What would Admiral Gives stand to earn by turning her back over to Reeter? A spot in the New Era's coup? A pact of non-aggression between Reeter's forces and his own? Perhaps it would even be something as small as a favor.

The hatch creaked open, someone new stepping into the compartment. Amelia watched the young woman seal the door behind her, not pleased to find herself in the presence of yet another stranger. "Where is my uncle?"