by E. R. Torre
The replacement battery had suffered a crippling overload.
Inquisitor Cer checked its readout to see if there was any charge left in the unit.
The readout indicated there was none.
“Dammit!” Inquisitor Cer yelled.
She threw the battery at the back of the cockpit. It slammed against the wall and fell apart. Its internal mechanisms were charred to dust.
She looked to the side, at the empty seat beside hers.
She felt very much alone.
Hours passed.
Inquisitor Cer sat in her seat, motionless.
After a while, she checked the charge left in her suit’s battery.
Six hours.
Inquisitor Cer leaned back and stared out the front window of the Xendos.
The view before her remained frustratingly stagnant. The Medusa Constellation, ten stars arranged in a roughly spherical pattern, stared back at her. A few asteroids drifted by, their motion elegantly silent.
Inquisitor Cer thought about her life to this moment, of her successes and failures.
She prayed.
Not for a miracle but for forgiveness for any sins committed, whether purposely or not. She prayed for the Gods to grant her peace in her passage from the world of flesh and blood. She took stock of her life. There were blemishes but that was to be expected.
None can walk perfectly in the footsteps of the Gods.
She also had one major regret. One—
She felt the first nibble of cold intrude in her suit. She felt it in her toes and at the tips of her fingers.
It was a small variation in temperature and almost welcome given the stagnant, warm air flowing in her suit. It was a sign of the bad things to come.
Soon, that cold would turn into a life threatening freeze.
Dying slowly is the very worst way to die.
She shook her head.
No, not the worst.
Inquisitor Cer looked to her side, at the Navigator’s chair.
She thought of the times B’taav sat beside her. She didn’t feel like praying anymore.
More hours passed.
After a while, it was difficult to move.
The air within her suit grew increasingly foul. The purification systems were dying and the cold of outer space was becoming more and more pronounced.
Inquisitor Cer’s breath fogged up the glass in her helmet until she could barely make out anything in front of her. She felt so very tired and it was hard to keep her eyes open.
She looked down and at the readout within the helmet. Her battery was at five percent. Four.
She thought of her training and her service to the Phaecian Empire. She thought of her mother and her very few friends…
She thought of B’taav.
She felt the electricity of her touch upon his cheek.
She would never see him again.
Never.
Her one regret.
Inquisitor Cer could no longer focus on her surroundings. The spacesuit’s power supply was all but exhausted and her limbs were numb. At least she felt no pain.
She had a vision of childhood and her long lost father.
She forced her eyes open and saw a blinding light coming from somewhere outside.
Dying slowly is the very worst way to die.
No.
Dying alone was the worst way to die.
“I’m sorry father,” she said.
Take me. I’m ready to go.
23
Inquisitor Cer slowly, painfully, opened her eyes.
She was still in her seat before the Xendos’ cockpit. Everything around her was the same.
Only… different.
Instead of gasping at stagnant air, she breathed easy. She no longer felt the awful ache of cold. She was warm.
I’m dreaming.
She looked down at the information display within her suit’s helmet. It indicated her battery charge was ten percent.
Ten? It was down to—
Eleven.
Moments later, it was at twelve.
Somehow, her suit’s battery was charging.
Impossible.
Thirteen percent.
Fifteen.
She closed her eyes.
You’re hallucinating.
She opened her eyes and gazed at the Xendos’ controls and monitors. They showed fragile signs of life. A light flickered here, another there. The central computer’s monitor abruptly turned on, its light blinding in the darkness.
Inquisitor Cer forced herself up. She looked around the cockpit, almost expecting to see someone –her saviors– standing there.
She was alone.
What’s happened? What’s changed?
The door leading out of the cockpit was closed. A light next to it indicated it was sealed. Inquisitor Cer again checked the suit’s readout. There was a very low level of atmosphere in the cockpit. Like the charge in her battery, it grew. Another impossibility.
She stared out the front window, to see if there were any vessels alongside the Xendos. All she saw was darkness.
Inquisitor Cer fell back in her chair.
The harder she tried to think, the foggier her mind.
“You’re tired. Rest.”
Inquisitor Cer’s eyes shot open. The words were whispered into her ear.
“Sergeant Delmont?” she said. “Whe… where are you?”
She waited for an answer. None came.
Though she tried, she could no longer stay awake.
“Thank you,” she managed before closing her eyes and falling back to sleep.
When she awoke, Inquisitor Cer was still in her space suit sitting before the Xendos’ cockpit.
Only now, almost every one of the ship’s controls were illuminated. All the monitors were alive and glowed with information. The digital readout within her helmet indicated her battery was at 100 percent. The cockpit temperature was a cool but bearable 44 degrees Fahrenheit. It had a breathable atmosphere.
Inquisitor Cer was saved.
How?
The cockpit door was still closed and sealed from the rest of the vessel. Inquisitor Cer leaned to her right, to the computer system that regulated the ship’s life support. She pressed several buttons. The readings within the cockpit were nominal.
She pressed several more buttons and the atmospheric and life support readouts from the rest of the ship appeared. While the cockpit was relatively warm and habitable, the rest of the Xendos, beginning with the corridor beyond the cockpit door, remained an icy vacuum.
Inquisitor Cer shifted to her left and accessed the ship’s energy levels. They were a marked improvement from before but remained very low.
Going from non-existent to very low is a hell of a difference, but these things don’t just fix themselves.
Inquisitor Cer clicked on her communicator. Someone had to be doing this. She was about to speak but stopped.
From somewhere deep within, she knew sending a radio communique would be a mistake.
Inquisitor Cer shut the radio off.
She took another step to her left and accessed the navigation station while running a check of the Xendos’ engines. They were online but seriously underperforming. In combination with the very low levels of energy, the Xendos could do little more than crawl. It was doing so and headed in the general direction of the Longshore Shipping Lanes. She would reach the space lanes after passing the Norman Asteroid field. Though not as dense as the Erebus field, it offered cover.
Will I need it?
She had no answer to that question.
Inquisitor Cer activated the security monitors and did a sweep of the compartments and rooms within the ship. She stopped at Overlord Octo’s suite. The damage from the explosive remained, but the shattered door leading into his room was almost fully sealed.
Inquisitor Cer stared at the footage. Incredibly, she spotted movement.
Millimeter by millimeter, broken pieces of the door welded themselves together,
as if guided by invisible repair techs. At the rate the door repaired itself, it would take no more than another hour or two before it was completely sealed. Once it was, the rest of the Xendos would again be able to sustain atmosphere.
Inquisitor Cer switched the monitor’s image to that of the engine room and made a quick check of the energy lines. Those that were severed in the explosion for the most part remained that way. Yet a few primary energy feeds were rerouted. Enough mass energy was present to allow the Xendos its very slow movement. She found the same mysterious –and invisible– patchwork was being done there as well. A pair of fractured wires slowly converged, as if magnets drawn together. Once the wires touched, they merged.
Inquisitor Cer cycled through each of the security cameras in every one of the compartments. There had to be someone on board doing this. Yet she could find no other living person aboard. Finally, she switched to the external monitors, going through them one at a time, looking for any ship parked near the Xendos. There were none.
It’s as if the ship were a living being and in the process of healing its wounds.
"Living being?” she muttered.
Years before she heard whispers of research into biological augmentations to machinery. In theory, the biological elements acted as if part of a living system, one that would eventually possess the capacity of self-repair. The research was far from yielding any positive results but even if it had, how would such high tech, state of the art equipment make its way onto a two hundred plus year old vessel?
“Fortune favors fools,” Cer muttered. “I’m beyond favor and much more than a fool.”
A low electronic beep drew her attention back to the pilot’s chair.
Inquisitor Cer sat down.
The navigational system was operational. She could pilot the craft.
Did you make a deal with the devil? She thought before chiding herself for such blasphemy.
No. You did nothing of the kind. Time to assess this situation fully.
Inquisitor Cer bit her upper lip and reached for the security clasps on her helmet. She pushed them down, springing the locks that held the device in place. She twisted the helmet until it was freed.
She then paused, unsure if this was a wise thing to do.
Get it over with.
She braced and, with a quick pull, removed her helmet. The cool air from the cockpit surrounded her. She took a deep breath and was pleasantly surprised –and more than a little relieved– that the atmosphere was exactly as the instruments said it was: breathable.
Inquisitor Cer laid her helmet aside. She removed the rest of her suit and examined her fingers and toes. They were small patches of ugly black bruises on her left hand and foot, the very early stages of frostbite.
Inquisitor Cer grabbed a Medi-Kit and, from within, pulled out several containers of crème and wraps. She applied them to her fingers and toes. The bruises would last several days but the medication would cure her.
Once done, Inquisitor Cer took out the medi-sensor and checked her status. Her body temperature and blood pressure were both elevated. A recommendation to apply medi-patches was offered. Cer did so, placing patches on the side of her neck.
You’ll be good as new. Eventually.
Inquisitor Cer put the Medi-Kit away and put her space suit back on. She left the helmet where it lay, using the warmth from the suit to keep her comfortable. As she did, the Xendos drew still closer to the Norman Asteroid field. It would arrive at her outer fringes in only a few minutes.
Inquisitor Cer reached for the communicator.
I have to send out a distress signal.
Her deep unease returned. Sending a distress signal was the logical thing to do.
So why do you feel you shouldn’t?
Inquisitor Cer’s fingers hovered over the communicator buttons. All she had to do was press a couple of buttons and the emergency signal would be sent out. She could then sit back, relax, and wait for her saviors…
She withdrew her hand.
An electronic beep come from the far side of the navigation controls. It indicated there were files loaded and waiting for her attention.
She pulled them up on her central monitor.
She was familiar with these files. At least some of them.
They were from the microchip given to her by Sergeant Delmont on the Dakota.
Inquisitor Cer reluctantly pressed another button and the list was refreshed. There were thousands of files and videos, some dating back hundreds, even thousands, of years. She found the one file that was flagged for her to read first. It was the information Overlord Octo was willing to murder –and commit suicide– for.
Inquisitor Cer hesitated a moment before pressing another button.
Once she read that first file, there was no turning back.
Several hours later she stopped.
There were still so many more files to go through but, for now, she was overwhelmed and exhausted.
The files presented a familiar yet very different history of the Phaecian and Epsillon Empires. It was a dark picture of the heroes of the Church and the leaders of Empire. Of corruption, vanity and struggle. Of sins and filth and…
Inquisitor Cer felt her stomach twist.
…decadence and power struggles never revealed…
Power.
Of shadowy and not so shadowy individuals who used the Holy Words for political gain… and worse.
She was familiar with many of the stories, but if this information was to be believed, her knowledge was incomplete or, worse, cleaned up for the purpose of offering moral lessons and teachable moments.
Not all the heroes of the Holy Texts were exposed as villains but almost none proved immune to at least some form of sin. All faced temptations. More than a few succumbed. Some sank into the depths of despair only to rebound and reaffirm their faith. Too many preached the Holy Word by day and gave in to cravings by night.
There was a history of the early days of settlement following the Exodus and how the Church turned a blind eye to their own corruption, a practice that continued to this day. In the Holy Texts the early days were presented as a struggle between good versus evil when in reality the borders between the two were –are– blurry. The Church and the religion Inquisitor Cer had devoted her life to was a shining, impossibly beautiful coin on one side and marred, scratched, and weathered one on the other.
Tears fell down her cheeks and Cer prayed for guidance. But her prayer, so helpful in times of need, rang hollow.
How do you ignore this? How do you keep your direction… your faith?
“The Gods help me.”
In her mind she stood before a precipice and stared into a great darkness. Years of devotion to the Holy Texts… were they a lie? Had she and so many others like her wasted time on a system that was just as corrupt as the one in Epsillon?
Though these people are not divine, are they not human?
“Human.”
Like your father.
How she hated him for so many years for abandoning her mother. Her mother died alone and unloved while Cer was in the academy. Once an Inquisitor, Cer searched for information on her father, determined to prove he was just as bad as she suspected.
Instead, she found a man who was devoted to science and whose worst sin was his strict allegiance to the church. When she tracked down and heard his final transmissions from his last, doomed expedition, she cried.
It was the first time in her adult life she did so.
He was no saint and, yes, he abandoned Cer and her mother. Yet he was also a caring man who thought of her even as he knew his end was near.
Inquisitor Cer recalled Maddox and the crew of the Dakota and, especially, B’taav. All were citizens of the Epsillon Empire and none devoted to the Church. Yet they fought to make this vast yet small universe a place where people can live in peace.
B’taav.
“I’ll see you again,” she swore.
Her right hand moved to the communication sy
stems. Instead of sending a distress signal, she checked the Phaecian news traffic. By then, the Xendos was inside the Norman Asteroid Field and close enough to the Longshore Space Lanes to get real time news. Hundreds of official news sites and several hundred more pirate stations fueled with paranoia and fringe beliefs were available to see and hear.
Yet Inquisitor Cer was surprised when it took several minutes for the Xendos to receive only a handful of very weak transmissions. On these sites, news of Overlord Octo’s disgrace was the central topic. One channel was devoted to an endless video loop of his startling confessions. Overlord Octo, more solemn than Inquisitor Cer had ever seen him, sent out a testimonial taking sole blame for the sex slave trade. He concluded this devastating admission with the announcement that he would do the honorable thing and rid the Universe of his presence.
“My sins are unforgiveable,” Overlord Octo said. “The Empire remains strong. The Empire breathes and lives. It will survive without us.”
Us.
It was assumed by the news stations Overlord Octo sacrificed himself and the crew of the Xendos to atone for his sins. The stations minimized the involvement of the other Overlords, and many others in the Phaecian Empire’s power structure, in the sex slave trade.
Inquisitor searched the feeds for information on the ships sent to her area. One of the news stations reported a fleet of battleships, hardly the standard search and rescue crafts, were on their way to find the Xendos’ remains.
They’re not here to find survivors, Inquisitor Cer realized. They’re here to retrieve corpses.
With Overlord Octo and the files given to Inquisitor Cer gone, the remaining Overlords could quietly bury, along with the remains of the Xendos, this entire sordid affair.
But Sergeant Delmont’s information screamed for action.
For a moment Inquisitor Cer considered broadcasting it and informing everyone within earshot of the realities of the sex trade along with the real history of the Church and her Empire.
She couldn’t.
The reason only a few newscasts were available to her was because those same “rescue” ships were jamming the Comm signals. The signals the Xendos received, weak though they were, came from the largest, most powerful broadcasters. The Xendos’ Comm system stood no chance of breaking through the jam. Worse, any signal sent out would immediately alert the fleet of her location.