Heretic: Archangel Project. Book Three

by C. Gockel

  “Heave ho!” James ordered.

  Ryan, Ashley, the premier, and James sent the coffin hurtling into the darkness. There was the wicked sound of metal and poly cracking. “Now!” James shouted, crouching low and charging forward into the dark.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Within seconds of falling behind James and Ashley, Noa saw how the agents had managed to fight off the 'bots on their race to the tarmac. The scene was lit by phaser fire, much of it completely random from Eight's 'bots. Noa couldn't see everything her comrades were doing, but by the way bits of machinery flew past her, and the fact that she wasn't chopped to bits or hit within seconds, she got the feeling the agents were unerring in their aim.

  She trudged forward into the onslaught. Noa felt heat around her and smelled the burnt dust scent of phaser fire. Beside her, Ashley screamed. Spinning, rifle raised, Noa saw Ashley kick back a tall, cylindrical 'bot with a circular saw blade through its mid-section while clutching her forearm, blood or a damn good imitation of blood welling between her fingers. Firing at the 'bot, Noa managed to hit the saw blade with enough heat to fuse it in place. Lunging, Ashley grabbed a head-like protrusion on its top, bent it down, and put the flat of her injured forearm against the 'bot's plasma-molten body, fusing herself to the machine with cry of pain and anger. The thing tried to bend and flip Ashley over and away from the team, but Noa blew off its legs with another phaser strike. With super-augmented strength, Ashley used the lizzar-blasted legless 'bot as a shield from incoming fire, roaring as she swung it, and Noa fired around its bulk.

  Noa heard James shout at the boy and saw that both had managed to find similar shields. They fought against the machines like machines.

  A terrible groaning noise came from behind them, and Noa turned to see the door they'd emerged from shut on a large spider-like 'bot as Chen darted away from a panel of loose wiring in the wall. The premier was emptying two hacked-off phaser rifles into the door. The airlock glowed like a small sun. Then Noa felt something slash at her ankles, and had to look away. Tiny 'bots were slipping through the fray. One had torn through her suit, and into her leg—fortunately Eight hadn't depressurized or de-oxygenated the tarmac—probably because machinery had to be specially built to handle vacuums. Hoping that their tiny knife-like parts weren't tipped with poison, Noa used her feet and rifle butt to crack and dismember them even as some of them burst into flames at her feet. Somewhere, she heard Carl Sagan hissing in fury. A 'bot latched onto her visor, and cracked it before she tore it away. But moments later, she was too busy tearing a 'bot from the boy's back, then turning her pistol on one that was fused to Ashley's metal leg to even pull up her visor.

  Forty-three point eight seconds after they left the airlock, the girl screamed, “Mom, we're there! Where is the panel?” And Noa looked up to see the shadow of the ship above them. Flipping up her cracked visor, she found the panel that concealed the ether override code, twisted the handle that gave her access, and punched the thankfully over-sized keys with clumsy gloved hands. A moment later, the hatch began to open. Before it had reached the ground, hands had hoisted her up and pushed her inside the cutter's aft airlock. The interior had been completely stripped of weapons, the inner door was open, and she saw her S-rations scattered about, and a few phaser cartridge refills, as though Eight had decided that they would have been of no immediate use and tossed them aside.

  “Go, Mom!” shouted the young girl, scrambling up behind her a moment later. Carl Sagan squeaked and Noa heard the little boy roar and fire his rifle. She felt a short-lived sense of relief. Throwing herself into the pilot chair, she saw that the ship's basic systems were online—she shut off its ether, and began working the controls manually. Flying the Ark for over a month had made it almost second nature. She turned on the engines and laughed aloud at their steady purr, but the sound of her voice was drowned by the sound of the firefight still going on behind her. She heard metal and poly cracking, James grunting in exertion, and Ashley's shouts of rage. A chronometer went off in her mind. James had told her Eight would have his fission reactors weaponized and deployed in six more minutes. Starting the charging cycle for the phaser cannons and lifting the ship three meters above the tarmac, Noa turned her head and shouted, “We have to close the hatch!” Her eyes went wide. The team had been beaten back to the inner door of the aft airlock. There were 'bots inside the airlock. 'Bots with saw blades that could cut metal, welding torches, and who knew what else. They had to get them completely out of the cutter or this would be a short trip.

  She heard a muttered curse, and saw the Premier Leetier agent kneeling on the floor, using abandoned cartridges to refill two phaser pistols. He looked up, met Noa's eyes, and demanded, “Save Luddeccea, it is my purpose, Mother!” Leaping up, he shouted, “As soon as I'm out, close the inner door!” and charged into the fray in the aft airlock. James shut the door before Noa could think about it. Spinning to her, he said, “Execute your plan or his death is in vain.” His face was expressionless, like she was used to.

  Turning back to the controls, Noa maneuvered the ship so that the aft engine was just meters from the inner ring of the gate, the bow at a forty-five degree angle to the tarmac floor. “You don't have enough fire power in your cannons to destroy the airlock doors, Mom!” Chen shouted in Noa's ear, misunderstanding Noa's target.

  Noa was too busy working the control panel with eight fingers to respond, but she winced in pain at the sound.

  Pulling Chen away from the seat, James snapped, “She knows that!”

  “Someone turn on the time bands!” Noa commanded, still busy entering her own commands. Ashley was at her side an instant later. “Downloaded manual via Qcomm … what am I doing, exactly?”

  “Using the time bands to resist impact from ...” Noa looked out the window and gave her coordinates, at the same time noticing some 'bots that had been fused with cannons. The ship's phasers were hot. Making sure the recoil dampener was online, Noa blew the 'bots apart, and then hit the heat dump control. The engines roared but the ship did not jolt forward.

  She saw another phaser cannon start to light on the tarmac. Eight had apparently wanted the cutter too much to destroy it before—but now the gate had decided their deaths were more useful than the ship being in one piece. This time Noa ignored the threat of the cannons.

  A beeping sounded on the dash. A monitor flashed somewhere. “Why did you do a heat dump?” Ashley asked.

  Ignoring her, Noa said to James, “Turn on the comm. Use standard Luddeccean channels and brace yourselves!” She felt James and Ashley wrap their hands around the seat's headrest. Setting her sights on the anti-incendiary crates, Noa turned off the recoil dampeners and fired. The anti-incendiary crates were meant to withstand high heat and impact from phaser pistols or rifles—but not the onslaught of two phaser cannons at once. The ship hurtled backward from the lack of dampeners, and there was a flare of light from the crates as Noa flew forward in her seat. She heard the agents shout and cry in surprise. Before anyone could recover, they were shaken again as flame and impact waves Noa was sure she could see flowed around the cutter's bow.

  … And then they were twisting over and over in the black. Pieces of the inner ring that had been behind them hit the opposite side of the ring. Noa barely had time to find the controls to right the ship, before the Jachtwerft collided, too. The area from which they emerged was blooming in flame and debris. The engine lights were blinking, and another alarm was telling her that the Jachtwerft's wings were damaged. The time bands were largely offline too, but the Jachtwerft had a lot of time bands—they had a jump or two at lightspeed left. The agents floated in zero G around her. “Fire all we got at the area adjacent to our exit point!” she ordered, throwing up an arm to pull James down to the controls. He'd seen her fire once; she was sure he could do it. “Ashley, get our bands ready for lightspeed.”

  James fired at the area adjacent to the spot they'd just emerged, and Ashley tugged herself down to the time band controls. The
cockpit was cramped with the three of them, which gave the two floating agents more leverage in zero G.

  Turning her attention to the comm, Noa gritted out, “This is Commander Noa Sato of the Galactic Fleet and citizen of Luddeccea. Luddeccean Guard ships, you have two minutes to destroy the gate before Luddeccea experiences another nuclear strike. Attack where its defenses are down. Spread out from there.” And then she took evasive maneuvers, just before phaser fire streaked from the gate toward the cutter.

  “The cannons are exhausted and the recoil dampeners just went offline,” James said.

  Her little boat couldn't do more here. Noa saw the phaser cannons on the nearest cruiser realign, and knew soon it wouldn't just be Gate 8 she had to worry about. Coaxing the last bit of life from the engines, she aimed the cutter for a gap in the Luddeccean ships. In the monitor, she saw streaks of fire from Eight streaking toward them—fire that would have been better spent on the Luddeccean vessels, but Eight was apparently vindictive. The gravity had come on so gradually she hadn't noticed it, which meant they had lightspeed too. “I need a course,” Noa muttered. And her little cutter's computer wasn't fast enough.

  “I have one already entered,” Ashley said.

  Eight was erupting in flames behind them now, and Ashley's words were all she needed to hear. Noa pulled back on the steering bars, and around them space became a blur. Cries of protest arose from the main cabin, but James's hand came down on her shoulder, and Ashley touched her arm. Noa swallowed, her adrenaline high starting to crash.

  “Well done,” murmured James, and then he walked away. Maybe it was all the links flashing on the monitors telling her that their engines weren't going to last, and that the time bands were going, but Noa felt suddenly exhausted and numb.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Why didn't we immediately go to our purposes on Luddeccea?” Dimitri moaned, sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall. The only furniture in the space was a mattress.

  James glanced over to the cockpit. Noa was sitting at the helm, looking through the windows at the green gas giant S6O9. They weren't at lightspeed—the time bands had gone out shortly before the engines died. They were adrift.

  He turned back to Dimitri. “Because our wings would have come off in re-entry and we've lost too many time bands to land without them.”

  “Not to mention we lost our starboard engine,” Chen added. She was sitting on the floor next to them.

  “I'm so sad that I won't be able to see my purpose until after I'm rescued, Dad,” said the girl whose name he should know, considering she thought she was his daughter. Her brow furrowed. “But I'm also curious how we even managed to get out of Eight.”

  Ryan, sitting on the other side of the cabin, responded. “Mom had the ship in neutral, and was using the heat generated by the engine and time band chargers to heat the wall behind the ship. When the explosion happened, it was already weakened. The time band sent most of the force of the blast around us, easily blowing the wall out. What didn't go around us pushed us out after it … that's why we were spinning in space for a bit there.”

  Ashley, sitting by the duffel bag, and among a pile of S-rations said, “James, there's barely enough for Noa and the werfle, let alone us.”

  James had feared that. He ran a nervous hand through his hair. “Isn't there enough power in this ship for us to survive on?”

  Ashley's brow furrowed. “Maybe one of us …”

  James gulped.

  Ashley tilted her head. “But we could just shut down.”

  James blinked. “We could?” All of the other agents nodded, eyeing him carefully. He gave a tight smile. “I, ah, sustained some damage during Noa's and my adventures.”

  “All the agents are complaining about it,” said Dimitri. “You should really fix yourself.”

  He glared at the boy. “Shut down.”

  “Awww, Dad,” Dimitri whined, but he leaned back and closed his eyes. His feigned breathing stopped.

  James's eyes slid to the girl. Before he said a word, she said, “All right, but I'm doing this for Mom.”

  In the cockpit, he heard Noa start, but the girl's eyes were already closed, and her breathing had paused.

  Chen and Ryan looked up at him through narrowed eyes. “You and Mom aren't really our parents, are you?” Chen said.

  “No, but I didn't have time to explain and I needed to save your purpose, Chen,” James replied.

  She nodded. “I figured.” Leaning back against the wall, she shut herself down, too.

  “What about my purpose?” asked Ryan.

  “She is in Sol System,” James supplied, wondering how much he should warn the other agent about the good doctor. “She should be safe.”

  “And Zoe, our daughter?” Ryan asked. His mouth twisted in a sharp smile. “You know, your granddaughter.”

  “She should be safe as well,” James replied.

  Ryan sighed. Leaning back, he said, “Well, I guess I was going to have to wait anyway.” His eyes slipped shut and his breathing stopped.

  Noa's footsteps made James turn. She was holding Carl Sagan close, not meeting James's eyes. The werfle was nervously sniffling below her chin. Once again, James was struck by that sensation of emptiness when he looked at her.

  Ashley spoke. “Noa, I'm really glad I met you.”

  Noa smiled down at her, a little sadly, James thought. “I'm glad I met you, too,” Noa responded softly.

  Ashley glared at James. “James has to be the one to stay powered on because he doesn't know how to shut down.”

  “Oh,” murmured Noa, sounding decidedly not like the commander of men and cyborgs that she was. She nervously smoothed the fur between Carl Sagan's ears and shifted on her feet. Over the ship's ether, James's channel pinged. He answered, and Ashley's thoughts roared in his mind. “So help me, if you hurt her, I will fry your Qcomm and extrude your bio-nutrient extractors through your navel.”

  James held up his hands, and privately over the ether, said, “She is not good to me dead, either.”

  Ashley's eyes narrowed briefly, but then she turned and smiled sunnily at Noa. “Maybe James will find a way for you to join us in the agent Qcomm …” Ashley blinked and her lips pursed. “Well, it is like a channel, but more like a party line. They don't really let us know how it works. I'm not sure if we all tap into one particular gate's CPU or if we are all in many gates at once. I've never actually done it, to be honest, because I wasn't turned on at all before.”

  Noa was looking quickly between Ashley and James. She gave a nervous little smile to Ashley. “I'm sure that would be … nice,” she said weakly.

  Ashley gave her an adoring smile and leaned against the wall. “Goodnight, Noa.” She closed her eyes and her breathing stopped.

  Noa's eyes roved over the agents that had shut down. James heard her gulp, and then she looked up at him. “Are they all asleep? I mean … can they hear us?”

  James tilted his head. “They can't hear us,” he said, and he knew it was true.

  “I'm sorry,” Noa blurted out.

  James could only stare at her dumbly for a moment. “What for?”

  Noa's eyes went to a point on the floor. “As I understand it, your … affection for me was something forced. Something you had no choice in. I … if you have resentment, that would be very human, and well, I'm sorry.”

  “I have no resentment.” He smiled and winked to “lighten the mood,” as she always said. “I am not human.”

  Noa nodded, still not looking at him. “Ah, yes, right.”

  Noa's focus on the floor seemed to intensify.

  “But it wasn't your fault, and I don't blame you at all,” he murmured.

  Noa lifted her chin but didn't look at him. “Well, that's good.”

  James's brow furrowed. It didn't sound like she felt good about it.

  “You were supposed to ask me why all the agents were calling us Mom and Dad,” James said, trying to sound upbeat. He'd enjoyed her witty banter before.


  “I thought it was because it was a way to quickly integrate us with their existing programming?” Noa's eyes were wide and inquisitive. Even if he didn't love her, he could still admire their openness and warmth, and how symmetrical her features were.

  “You figured that out,” James said, slightly disappointed. That was exactly why he'd done it. He'd thought of making Noa all the agents' purpose, but had worried that might lead to jealousy issues. Based on the vehemence of Ashley's warning, he had probably been correct. Still, trying to keep things light, he sighed somewhat theatrically. “I had a joke planned. When you asked, I was going to say, 'Well, I knew you wanted to adopt, darling.'”

  “That would have been funny.” Noa frowned and looked at the floor.

  “But it wasn't, for some reason.” James felt his circuits darken. Not with failure, just confusion. “What's wrong? You hardly meet my gaze and …” And he felt so empty when he looked at her.

  Noa took a deep breath and met his eyes. “I'm really all right. I just … I can't turn off my feelings like a switch, and I just need a little time to adjust.”

  She still felt for him. James had a memory of the professor in a similar situation after he and a woman had called it quits. Or he had called it quits. The professor had glided over to her, put his arms around her, comforted her … and one thing had led to another. Their relationship had dragged on for months more. James had been given a body that enjoyed stimulation, and even though he no longer felt like he needed Noa, the idea of contact was tempting. The memory of their bodies flowing together was very tempting. He wanted that … he took a step forward, and, looking at Noa, was struck by that empty feeling. She looked tired—beautiful, but tired. She needed sleep, and he didn't need that emptiness. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he said, “I … well … why don't you rest? Take the mattress. I really don't need it.”