Inquisitor (31 page)

Charlotte followed her in. Her seat folded and withdrew into the floor, leaving room for the gurney. Magnets clamped it securely in place.

“Hold on,” Angel said.

Charlotte merely nodded.

Angel’s implants sent a signal to the Genevolve ship, and it detached with a series of clunks and bumps. She couldn’t use its drives, so she gave it a sideways nudge with their hull. Metal creaked and groaned, but it was enough to separate them by a meter or so. As she watched, the gap grew.

“That’s good enough. We need another hiding spot.”

[They’ll know we’re here somewhere… They’ll have access to the Genevolve ship. It’s recorded everything that’s happened. They’ll know we can’t jump.]

“They can search all they want. All we need to do is wait until the Inquisitors arrive.”

Charlotte laughed weakly. [Pop up and say, “Here we are, save us!”? They’ll shoot first and analyze later. And if the Genevolves think they’ll lose us, they’ll try to destroy us as well.]

The
Endurance
lifted off the asteroid. Angel plotted a vector and fired the thrusters. She took them away from the Genevolve ship, which was tumbling lazily, and powered up the primary fusion drives. She accelerated, increasing the g-force as fast as she dared with Charlotte in her condition. There were plenty of other asteroids, but they needed to be far from this one…

Immersed in controlling the ship, she was immediately aware when gravity distorted, twisting,
pinching
. An immense mass registered: a gigantic ship.

Alerts sounded as waves of detectors cascaded over and around them. Angel identified antimatter pulses and fusion bursts as dozens of small ships erupted from the unknown vessel, like flies blown off a corpse.

“The Genevolves,” whispered Charlotte. Her face twisted into a grimace, as if forming two words pained her.

“Yeah. Well, we’re still alive, so far.” Angel wanted to stay that way, though the odds were diminishing.

[The Inquisitors won’t come in time. And when they do appear, they’ll be outgunned. You need to get to the life-pod. You only have a few minutes until they catch us.]

Angel shook her head. She knew where this conversation was going. “No. I’m not leaving you.”

[I’m dying. My mind will… Well, there’s no escape for me now. What matters is that you get away. You can hide. Come out when it’s all over.]

“No.”

[Yes. There’s no other way.]

“Charlotte—”

Charlotte struggled to a sitting position. Her words were weak, through trembling lips. “Do this for me, Angel. Live.”

Angel’s throat was tight. She couldn’t swallow. Almost couldn’t breathe. She could feel Charlotte’s childlike eyes boring into her.

[I’m giving you a choice, Angel. No tricks, no lies, no omissions. Summer was right. I thought I could learn and change. Perhaps it’s too late. But I can still help.]

Data packets squirted into Angel’s implants.

[That’s all the analysis I’ve run on finding the Genevolves. It’ll help you track them down. There will be patterns as well for those I’ve missed. You escape in a life-pod, and I’ll cover your retreat.]

Angel shook her head. “We can make it out of this together.”

[Come,] Charlotte said firmly. Her stretcher unclamped, and she wheeled out of the bridge.

Angel walked behind Charlotte without saying a word, as if breaking the silence would somehow desecrate what Charlotte was doing for her. She followed, barely aware of her surroundings, until she realized they were in the docking bay.

“Why are we here?”

Charlotte moved to a smaller manufactory next to the main one. One side flipped open and a box, not unlike a smaller version of the one Angel had found Charlotte in, emerged.

“Is that you?” Angel asked.

[No. I’m in the main manufactory. I keep improving. I can’t help myself.] Charlotte flashed her a grin, trembling, but reminiscent of the vulnerable young girl who’d appeared in a pile of goo in front of her. [This is for you. A… present.] She scooted rapidly away, the enigmatic box following. [Quickly. We don’t have much time.]

Angel followed. She ran through options and simulations in her mind, but in all of them there was only one outcome. As it stood, Charlotte was right. All she could do was hide. Whatever Charlotte’s plan was, she was sure it would draw attention away from the life-pod. One of them, at least, had a chance. And the information Angel carried was vital.

At the life-pod station, the door to the remaining one hissed open.

[Inside. They’re closing in.]

“Charlotte, I—”

[Angel, please get in.]

The box rolled inside and situated itself against the far wall. Angel checked the pod’s systems and supplies. All in working order, and enough to last her several months, if necessary. She’d go crazy by then.

Charlotte reached up, eyes moist, and grabbed her arm. She spoke, voice weak and trembling. “You must go. I’ve programmed it to secrete itself on a nearby asteroid. There’s a small hole. The pod will fit quite nicely.”

Weeping openly now, tears trickled down Angel’s face. She bent over and hugged Charlotte. “I won’t forget you,” she whispered.

Before she changed her mind, Angel let go and entered the life-pod. The door closed behind her, hissing and clunking as seals locked into place. Through the small window in the door, she watched as Charlotte backed away and another door slid between them. They stared at each other through the windows, just as the ship’s designers had planned.

“Goodbye, Angel,” Charlotte mouthed.

Clamps unclipped, and the life-pod launched away from the ship. Charlotte’s face grew smaller. Angel put a hand to the window. Charlotte did the same. The pod’s thrusters kicked in, and Charlotte’s face receded to an indistinguishable dot.

Angel linked her implants to the
Endurance
. She had limited access, but enough to give her glimpses of what Charlotte was up to. She owed her that. Owed Charlotte a final witness of her actions.

The life-pod sped away from the ship, zipping between asteroid gaps and settling into a crater on a medium-sized rock.

Inside the
Endurance
, Charlotte’s gurney was taking her back to the docking bay. At the main manufactory, she stopped, looking down at her blood-flecked sheet. She grimaced and pulled the tubes from her arm. Warning alarms sounded, only to cease an instant later.

She’s cut them off. She thinks she’s going to die.

Charlotte lay there in silence. Angel tried to contact her, but she refused the communication. Her mind was made up, and they’d said their goodbyes…

Charlotte locked down most of the ship’s systems, and for minutes she lay there in silence, unmoving.

Perhaps she’s making peace with herself.
The Genevolves wouldn’t stop. She couldn’t escape.

The manufactory doors opened. Inside, a miniature version of a starship waited. It was four times Charlotte’s height and ten times that long. It rolled out on a cradle. Charlotte caressed the dark metal, shiny and newly forged.

Charlotte’s story of the shipbuilder, and her words, came to Angel.
I am the ship
, she’d said, what seemed like so long ago.

With a smooth click, a hatch opened in the side. One of the docking-bay loaders approached, carrying a flat metal box, which it deposited in the opening. There was another click and a hum. The hatch closed.

Angel saw Charlotte’s chest rise and fall as if she sighed. The cradle moved to the center of the docking bay. Charlotte’s face held a slight smile as the miniature ship lifted a few meters, and the cradle moved away.

Charlotte levered herself up and swung over the side of the gurney. Her legs wobbled, and she gripped the mattress. Abruptly, she looked up, seeming to stare directly into Angel’s eyes. She smiled sadly.

Charlotte took a few uncertain steps toward the cargo automaton and leaned against it.

Where is she going? She needs to board her ship.

Cold metallic ropes from the automaton wrapped around Charlotte. They tightened, securing her body.

Wait… what’s happening?

Charlotte took a deep breath, then let it out. She faced the cargo doors.

The doors blew outward. A sudden gale whipped her golden hair around her, soft strands brushing against her face. The air inside the cargo bay evacuated within seconds.

Angel turned away and belted herself into one of the seats, eyes burning. She knew the girl was only a part of Charlotte, but she was a living, thinking being. And she’d killed herself. Angel scrubbed her eyes and sniffed, but the tears kept coming. Eventually, she stopped resisting.

Chapter 18

There was a swarm of ships around their crippled vessel. Angel had access to the life-pod’s systems and used them to full advantage. There was so much interference from the horde of ships out there, her scanners and low power usage would go unnoticed, a grain of sand on a beach.

Charlotte had killed herself rather than face the Genevolves. Angel punched her thigh.
It wasn’t fair.

What was left was the
Endurance,
under the control of Charlotte’s mind, but Angel couldn’t work out what its plan was. It should be blasting the Genevolves and pulling as many g’s as it could to lead them away. She immediately felt guilty at the thought. Charlotte had sacrificed her flesh-and-blood self, and she was critiquing her mind.

The
Endurance
lurched.

She watched as the ship’s ion thrusters fired and it picked up speed, accelerating away from the Genevolve ships harassing it.

There was a massive power surge.
What the…

Angel swore, and her fist hammered into her knee. Charlotte had lied to her. It was all a setup, part of her plan to get Angel off the ship. The Pinchier drives weren’t inoperative. Charlotte must have replicated the damage, and the ship had told Angel what Charlotte wanted. And after all the confusion, she hadn’t realized Charlotte had yet to send her the location of the ancient Genevolve system. Angel had no way of finding it, and hence no proof to give to the Inquisitors.

The sentience was in control of the
Endurance
, and it was still fighting for its life. Was it Charlotte? Did a part of her survive, as a fragment of the overpowering intellect that was the AI?

The
Endurance
was coursing a vector straight for the closest Lagrange point, where the gravitational distortion was low enough, the drives would be able to jump her to safety.

Angel’s heart squeezed her chest, and her stomach twisted. Charlotte—it was easier to think of the AI as her—was attempting a breakout. All too soon, though, her hopes were dashed.

The Genevolve ship poured on the g’s and quickly set an intercept course. By Angel’s calculation, it would reach the Lagrange point a full thirty seconds before Charlotte. From there, it could either blast her to atoms or trace where she jumped and follow. There was no victory for Charlotte, only poor options that led to her inevitable capture or death. But she wasn’t going out with a whimper.

Good on you.

Smaller Genevolve ships raced after her like midges. They could have caught her but kept their distance. They knew she had no good options. If they could take Charlotte intact, they would.

Angel’s hands clenched into fists.

The
Endurance
accelerated, approaching ten g’s. Ten g’s became eleven. Eleven became twelve.
What’s she doing?

The acceleration kept increasing.

Angel waited. Charlotte must have had something up her sleeve. A few short jumps, maybe? Had she built more missiles with her manufactory, powerful enough to take out the Genevolve ship? Was she going to alter course and slip around it? Angel waited for something to happen. The miniature starship blasting into space, a last-ditch attempt to escape, doomed to fail.

Nothing did.

As the
Endurance
entered the L-point and was about to pass by the battleship, it veered off course. It plunged toward the Genevolve ship. A barrage of fire erupted from the Genevolves, hammering into the freighter’s shields.

Charlotte held her course and rammed straight into the hull. Light blasted from the hole as steel crumpled like paper under the impact. The sight hit Angel like a physical blow. The air blew out of her lungs, and she collapsed into her seat. For long moments, she sat there, hardly breathing.

That was it. Charlotte had made a final statement of defiance.

Another gravitational distortion made it through her fugue and impinged on her awareness. It was another ship. The Inquisitors. Too late.

Angel laughed hysterically. Too late.

•

Eventually, Angel drew herself together. Her chest ached, and her eyes were sore. There was another dull pain inside her, one she struggled to identify. It took her a while, but she did. Loss. Failure. She pressed it into a tight ball and squeezed with all her might until it shrank and wouldn’t retreat any further. Then she pushed it to the back of her mind with a muted curse.

Gone. Charlotte was dead.

She lay on the hard, textured plascrete floor of the life-pod. She raised her head, tried to sit up. Her face was dry but itchy. She wiped her cheeks, which were as rough as sand from the salt deposited there. There was an ablution station through a folding door, and Angel washed her face, letting the cold water flow over her skin, soothing both it and her mind.

A glow penetrated through her eyelids. Angel paused. Another. She wiped excess water from her face and turned.

On the top of the box Charlotte had left her, a light twinkled. Next to it, a small section of the box had slid away, revealing a concave pad: a thumbprint scanner. Angel hesitated, then placed her thumb down.

“Argh!” She jerked it back when she felt a needle sting. The light turned green, and the entire top area of the box peeled back and to the sides. A tubular canister nestled within, Charlotte’s pink monkey nestled next to it. Angel leaned over just as a new message squirted into her implants.

From Charlotte. The message was from her.

Angel triggered it.

[Angel.] Charlotte sounded mischievous. An image appeared: Charlotte, long blonde hair blowing in a breeze, green eyes sparkling with laughter. Angel swallowed, fighting back emotions she thought she’d quashed long ago. [I want you to know that I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me. You’ve risked your career, injury, your very life to help me escape. But if you’re listening to this, then chances are I’m dead.] Charlotte smiled. Her eyes seemed to look directly at Angel. [I… diverted some resources to make something for you. It was difficult, but… I muddled my way through. I wanted to give you something, a gift you couldn’t obtain yourself. Something you’ve always wanted, though hidden from those close to you. Even from Mikal. I did have to use your genome, though. One last invasion. I hope you don’t mind. Inside the canister is a nanochine hypo. It’ll cure your infertility. I’m ashamed to say I almost administered it to you without you knowing. But I now realize that would have been a violation of your free will. So, it’s your choice now.] Charlotte hesitated and sighed. [I don’t know what else to say. Goodbye. And thank you. Live a good life, and stay out of trouble…]