Blood Impulse

Part 38.4 - MODIFIED MISSILE

Cardioid Sector, HR-14 System, Battleship Singularity

To be completely honest, coming to consciousness on the floor with a throbbing headache and a permeating sense of nausea was not entirely unfamiliar to the Admiral. He'd made an unfortunate habit of drinking himself into a stupor at several points in his life – not to mention had the utterly unique experience of nearly getting his brain fried by the ghost on several occasions. So really, finding her pale face hovering above him, laden concern also wasn't out of the ordinary. "Fucking hell," he groaned, clumsily reaching up to his throbbing head. "What happened?" It felt like a stake had been driven through his skull.

"You, uh..." Oh, what was the word, "fainted?" Yes, that was the one.

"I fainted?" he echoed her uncertainty.

"Don't act so surprised," she said, regaining her confidence as she recognized the Admiral's presence to be once again him, and not that dreadful nightmare brought back to life. "You skipped breakfast."

"Stars," he cursed, feeling the texture of the deck tiles prodding at his back, "you really are a horrible liar." This had nothing at all to do with him skipping breakfast. He knew that because looking at her hurt. Perceiving her illusion actually, legitimately hurt – not that he was going to tell her that. Incidents where her power overtaxed him always pained him like this, as if the overstimulated parts of his brain were tender and warning off further abuse. He rubbed at his temples, surprised by the clumsiness of his fingers. Their movement felt almost unfamiliar, yet his sense of touch was extra-sensitive, as if he had been deprived of it. "Are you going to tell me what actually happened?"

She averted her gaze to the floor. "There may have been an incident."

Very helpful, he thought, rolling himself off his back with a heave. The entire movement felt uncomfortable, and not entirely due to his lingering bruises. It just felt burdened, and took a great deal more focus than he remembered. Eventually working his way into a sitting position, he turned to look at the ghost, ignoring the discomfort that brought him. "Why do I feel like I got possessed?" His body felt used, and he had some memories that were for lack of better terms, just odd. "Look, I'm not going to say the thought of stabbing Galhino hasn't crossed my mind, but I don't think I've ever walked over to her with the express intent of doing so." And Owens, poor Owens, why would he have grabbed her like that? He usually did his best not to touch people, because he didn't like to touch or be touched.

The ghost went pale, or in her case paler, but she said nothing. In that, the Admiral knew she'd rather not talk about it. Fine. There were more urgent issues at hand. "How long was I out?"

"A couple minutes, but the mission is progressing as planned. We're sailing toward the base now, and I've ordered the boarding party back into position." They would be ready to move once the ship maneuvered for docking and the airlocks connected.

"The base's power?"

"Working on it," she assured. "You write a very detailed mission plan. The automated protocols have had no issue following it." That was of course, the reason he wrote the plans the way he did. It gave the automated protocols something to follow if things went wrong.

"What about the Hydrian AI?" the Admiral asked, using the wall to clamber unsteadily to his feet.

"Still no sign of a physical core, but I did manage to get an ID: HHCS Swordbreaker. It's a scoutship, had a crew of only one. I'd guess the AI is a bit over a decade old, but I can't be too sure. Its mission data was heavily corrupted."

"Corrupted?" he echoed, picking his sabre up off the floor. The movement made him pause, nausea rising again to the surface, but he swallowed it down and began to inspect his dark blade. He was pleased to find the sabre's edge had not been damaged, so he slid it back into its sheath and started pulling his uniform jacket back into place. "What could cause a Hydrian AI to be corrupted?"