Blood Impulse

Part 4.2

Aragonian Sector, Battleship Singularity

Admiral Gives stumbled into Compartment 24 on Deck Twelve, panting and weakened. The last two hours had been fiery, smoky, irradiated hell. He had moved constantly, trying to find a way around the fires that consumed Decks Ten and Eleven without going any closer to the radioactive starboard bow. With the damage that had jarred the ship's structure rendering some of the hatches impossible to open, it had taken far longer than it should have, and his efforts had come at a price.

The radiation sickness: dizziness, fatigue and that lingering cough, had set in on him before he'd even left CIC. His constant movement had worsened that into radiation poisoning. That annoying cough had turned more than painful, it had evolved into debilitating fits that had soaked his sleeves with his own blood. The dizziness was now constant, and the fatigue muddled his thoughts. Because of that, he'd forgotten to check the temperature of a hatch before opening it. The flames behind it had been eager to spread, and the mistake had badly burned his left hand and leg.

He'd gently covered his hand with his handkerchief, hiding the oozing wound so he didn't have to be reminded of how much it hurt, but there was nothing he could do for the leg. The burnt fibers of his pants had entangled themselves with the wound, sticking to the blood and puss. No doubt, that wound would likely become infected.

Grunting with exhaustion, the Admiral sealed the door behind him in case the fuel-fed fires continued to spread. He coughed tiredly onto his once white, now crimson and ash colored kerchief. He had waded through the hellish mess with this compartment in mind, but he had taken so long to get here, his condition had badly deteriorated. Leaning against the bulkheads, he was unsure he still had the strength to do what had to be done.

But he didn't have a choice. If he stopped now, if he failed, then his crew was as good as dead. The damage from the Conjoiner Drives' failure would kill many, and the radiation would kill the rest before they woke up. Their only chance was if he succeeded in routing more power to the grid and got the decontamination systems online, which was why he'd come here.

This compartment housed one of the Singularity's four FTL drives. Drive Two was located below him. To give the drive the required unobstructed area to discharge its excess energies, this compartment actually extended across two decks. As a result, the drive itself was technically bolted to the floor of Deck Thirteen.

Three other compartments on the ship were designed in the same way. Two decks tall, the entrance for all of them was on the upper level, leading to an observation platform that lined one wall. Narrow stairs tipped in chipped yellow paint led down to the lower level.

Down below, the cylindrical chrome drive looked surprisingly delicate in the center of the dark, worn floor. Its spindle-like rotors resided in a casing whose colorful wires reached down into the deck plating and beyond like veins. Closer to the stairs, the entire wall was covered with maintenance and monitoring equipment. Every gauge and dial served a purpose to uncover errors within the drive's operation and prevent a crippling FTL failure.

Leaning heavily on the railing of the stairs as he labored down them, Admiral Gives' destination was neither the equipment, nor the odd silver drive. He was headed for the vacant area of the room on the far side.

The floor looked uselessly empty over there, but the one thing with the potential to save the entire ship was hidden there. Stowed beneath the metal deck tiles in the case of an absolute emergency, was the Reserve Power Core.

Officially, even in the battle fleet, ships were only allowed to carry two power cores. Command demanded absolute control over the technology that powered their ships, paranoid that the technology might fall into the wrong hands if it was not so carefully restricted.