Blood Impulse

Part 31.4 - WHITE HAIR

Tulope Sector, Battleship Singularity

Montgomery Gaffigan and Don Jazmine sat bathed in the white light of the Rhino's control screens. It splashed onto them, illuminating the crisp lines of their dress shirts. In the back, their suit jackets were hung to stay fresh through the journey ahead of them. Already, the air between them tasted stale and recycled, though heavy with anticipation.

The lift had brought them flush to the landing bay. Its flat, artificial plain yawned out before them, colored by the angle and distance markers the pilots used to help land. They both sat for a minute in silence, contemplating this choice, and then Jazmine reached up to his headset. "This is Jazz. Requesting departure permission."

"Granted, Jazz," came the reply of the flight officer through his headset. "Releasing mag-locks now."

"10-4," Jazmine said, checking over everything one last time. When the mag-lock indicator went dark, he began to ease them up. The movement took more effort than he remembered, as if the mag-locks were still tugging them back, hesitant to let go. But in an instant, that was gone and they were on their way.

Montgomery Gaffigan watched the ribbed structure of the landing bay pass by mournfully. "I'm going to miss her."

No, Jazmine thought, you're going to miss her weapons. That wasn't quite the same thing. "Cheer up, Monty." He said, "This is going to be fun!"

Monty crossed his arms and pushed himself as far into the copilot's seat as the cushions would let him go, "Maybe for you." As far as Jazmine was concerned, he was on the path of reliving his glory days as a smuggler, now with the extra drama of now being a military spy. Monty did not share his enthusiasm. "You didn't get beaten on the Olympia." He was not excited to head out into a place where he could get beaten again.

"Oh, come on." Jazmine rolled his eyes, steering their small craft out into the void. "You've been through worse." Everyone knew that. "I'm quite happy to report that Midwest Station has no Black Box. You won't have to worry about neurofibers there."

The mention of neurofibers made the back of Gaffigan's neck tickle in a most uneasy way, just as it had been after their last few FTL manuevers. "Stop talking."

"I mean, I'd think that would make you more comfortable there than staying on our renegade ship, given that theoretically, Command could, you know, activate the Box at any time."

"Stop," Monty growled at him. "I don't want to talk about it." He never wanted to talk about it.

"Daaamn," Jazmine replied, drawing out the word. "I was just trying to make you feel better. No need to get feisty."

Gaffigan focused on the controls in front of him. The jump coordinates had been precalculated and uploaded to navigations, but he still needed to prepare the drive. "Just get us to the jump point," he told Jazmine. With a shake of his head, he muttered to himself, "Learn some tact." Ordinarily, he and Jazmine got along well, but that was aboard ship. And Gaffigan preferred not to leave the ship unless it was to go drink to excess, numbing the memories he'd spent years trying to forget. As a munitions officer, there was always plenty to do on a battleship, and that kept him from thinking too much, as did the drink when he took leave. But a mission like this, those memories had a way of coming back, and it didn't help that Jazmine liked to poke at them.

Monty knew Jazmine was trying to help. He did mean well. But Jazmine had also lived a carefree life. He'd been a few tight fixes, not the least of which had led to being caught by the Singularity and hauled back to Ariea for trial, but he'd never seen insanity. He'd seen violence, death even, after the nuke, but he'd never seen insanity. He hadn't been on the Matador. The rest of the crew at least knew better than to bring it up, even if they were aware of his history. After all, the Singularity had been the one to rescue what was left of the Matador's crew. It had been before Jazmine's time, but they'd seen that insanity too.