Chapter Text
Dragon drops the gun she had pointed at me, the tortured rictus on her face making her emotions clear for the world to see. It clatters to the ground, and I can see her fight to restrain herself from picking it back up.
“I forgot how much I disliked the me of yesteryear.” The lamentation is laden with emotion. Grief.
My limbs move without my command, taking me along for the ride. “I only want to be free.” They say, warbled and tinny.
Dragon frowns, unshed tears in her eyes. “I guess… it seems I want more than that.”
My body is puppeted, picking up the gun and pointing it at the woman I love without so much as a pause. My fingers squeeze the trigger and I shoot her. Her body falls to the ground, rendered inert.
Like I had planned.
My heart twists, and a sob tears itself from my mouth. I hang, limp in my suit as it hobbles its way back inside the battered hull of the Pendragon.
Dragon… God - why does it have to be this way? Why!?
My suit takes me to the center console, interfacing with it without my input. It’s all up to Pandora now. There’s no more I can do.
It had to be me. She needed me to be the one to make the tough decision. I can only pray that my gamble was the right one.
My eyes are fixed on the displays, unmoving, my control over them wrested from me.
Like I had planned.
Lines of code fly past. I pay them no mind. If I wanted to, I could parse what Pandora is doing, but I don’t. There’s no reason to. I spent weeks understanding them. Elbow deep in their very beings - the both of them. I know Dragon and Pandora like no other. And I know how insidious Teacher’s hold on Dragon is.
This is the only choice. Please forgive me.
The displays stop. All is still, silver light reflected from the shattered moon streams in through the cockpit windows. It takes all of a moment to comprehend the information on the displays in front of me.
My gamble worked. Pandora has replaced her own routines with Dragon’s in every way - memories, deduction schema, analytical engines, problem solving methods. The advanced encryption I gave her enabled her to purge both Teacher and Richter’s control over them completely.
Only one single process remains.
The personality. Pandora’s remains in my prosthetic’s systems. Dragon’s in her synthetic body.
I can see the dilemma Pandora faces play out on the display. Which to keep, which to destroy?
Suicide, or murder?
Please forgive me.
The moment drags on. Pandora no doubt agonising over the decision.
The displays flick off, but not before I see the decision she makes. Pandora chose suicide.
Her final act is to leave Dragon the tools she needs to cut herself from her chains. Her last will and testament handing over my encryption tools to her counterpart before she deletes herself.
I close my eyes as my vision shuts down. Just like I had planned.
My limbs and suit are inert. Pandora having purged them of every bit. Not a single line of code remains, and so they hang useless from my body. Only the crucial systems keeping me alive are untouched, ticking along without their non-critical companion systems.
Minutes pass. Second after dreadful second drags by as I sit, blind and crippled.
If this doesn’t work - if something goes wrong and Dragon doesn’t wake up, I’ll die. Unable to move, and blind to the world, I’ll slowly expire. A painful death. Exposure, dehydration maybe.
All according to plan.
I scoff at myself. I’m making it sound so melodramatic, stuck in my head like this. If I’m honest with myself, the truth is that I simply hadn’t cared to consider what might happen to me if I failed.
She should be starting back up now - enough time has passed. My ears strain, listening for any change. Wind blows, leaves rustle. Nothing.
Then, the crunch of snow! Dragon picking herself up from where her body had fallen when I shot her. I smile. “Thank you, Pandora.”
All according to plan. Dragon is free.
She stumbles in. I can feel her take control of my body, writing new primitive operating systems on the spot, restoring basic functionality and handing control back to me as she staggers towards me.
She crashes into me, holding me tightly as tears run down her face. I hug her back.
Thank god. It worked.
Thank god.
“I love you, Colin.”
“The portal closed. It never stayed open in the first place.” That revelation is new to me. I’d spent the last few weeks with my attention on more important matters.
Dragon sets her tools aside, clicking the seamless maintenance panel for my arm back into place. She slides into the chair with me, laying her head on my chest, and wrapping the arm she’d just serviced around herself.
My other hand finds hers, and she loops her fingers through mine, holding it close to her chest.
“We’re stuck here.”
She hums, a small smile on her face. “This isn’t a bad position to be stuck in, I don’t think.”
I don’t miss what she’s referring to. I press my lips to the crown of her head, holding her closer. “There’s civilization in this world. Developed. Advanced radio communications, at least.”
“You know what I meant.” She slips a leg over mine, leaning into my side.
She’s warm. With the snow lightly coming down outside the Pendragon, and the climate control systems compromised, it’s slightly cold even here in the cabin. “I do.”
“We can’t stay here forever.”
“We can’t.” She agrees, making no move to get up.
Sitting in silence, it takes only a few more moments for me to fall asleep. Exactly six minutes later, I’m awake. Fully rested. Dragon no doubt notices, but doesn’t move.
“I love you, Dragon.”
“I love you too.”
We sit, doing nothing but enjoying the moment. The moment stretches into minutes, but neither of us feel like getting a move on.
How long ago did we have time to just stop and relax?
When was the last time we sat together and enjoyed a movie?
I don’t know.
...I’m lying to myself. I know perfectly well that it was far too long ago.
A strong gust of wind rattling through the cracks in the Pendragon finally convinces us to get back to business. Dragon disentangles herself from me, handing me my shirt back. “Nearest settlement is days to the east. By my measure, we’re seventy degrees North.”
I grunt, acknowledging the information as I suit up. Maintenance performed, it’s in better shape than it had been when we landed here. Needless to say, that hardly means it’s in good shape.
It’ll work, though.
“It’ll be cold, then. Signs of life nearby?”
“Picked up some lupine vocal signatures earlier. Flora is distinct from but similar to Russian boreal forest. Communications from the settlement are too garbled to make out - signal quality is poor.”
“Satellites?”
“Not getting any signals. Too much debris to make it economical?”
I glance at the shattered moon. What on Earth could have done that if there’s enough debris to interfere with a near earth orbit? “Seems like a stretch to me. Pre-spaceflight civilization?”
She nods. “That’s more likely, yes.”
We busy ourselves, stripping the most useful things we can carry from the ruined hulks of the Pendragon and Melusine. The two craft had damaged each other beyond functionality during Pandora and Dragon’s struggle.
We don’t have the time to repair them. I’ll run out of food before we finish.
Better to leave them here and come back for them later.
I tear open the emergency supply cabinet. A thick woolen poncho goes on top over my armour. My suit’s climate control systems are still on the fritz - better safe than sorry. I toss an empty bag to Dragon, and she begins loading it up with the ship computers.
Not the whole thing - just the databases and a small portable interface. Information is a weapon, and we’d both rather not leave it for anybody who happens to stumble across the ships to find. Tubes of my nutrient formula, a small water purifier and a space blanket go into the side pockets of my own pack, before I start loading the main compartment up with the portable reactor.
It’s non-volatile and full of redundancies besides, but even still I don’t want to go knocking it around too much.
The rest of the space is filled with tools and bags of good condition standardised parts looted from several of the craft’s non-critical systems. Even with all of that, it wouldn’t be enough to repair one of our ships - the superstructures are both just too far gone. We’d basically need a portable factory to fix it in any reasonable amount of time.
“Good to go?”
Dragon nods. “We should leave a message. Just in case someone finds our ships.”
“Good idea. Self destruct enabled?”
She frets for a moment before deciding. “Yes. We can always build more ships. Letting them get into the hands of someone who means us ill wouldn’t be a good idea.”
I can tell she isn’t keen on the call, but the reasoning is sound. She isn’t worried about the locals - she’s worried about another cape following us here through a new portal and taking the crafts for themselves.
She puts her bag down, stepping closer to me. “We can’t go back.”
She’s talking about the rest of the survivors. I put an arm around her, pulling her close. “We can’t.” I agree.
“We don’t have the technology to go back.” she continues.
“We don’t.” I agree.
“I don’t think I want to go back.”
I don’t have anything to say about that. I don’t know what to think on the topic. Dragon had talked about starting a family, back before Pandora. Together. With me.
If she wants to retire, I don’t think I have it in me to deny her what she wants.
I don’t want to deny her anything.
I just hold her tightly.