Sneak Peek: The Last Angel, Ascension Chapter 41 (Patreon)

I've been working on this chapter, aiming for the usual end-of-month upload date. Hopefully it will be actually chapter-sized as well (ha... suuuuure it will), but I have a pretty clear idea of what I want for it... mostly.

In the interim, here's a look at part of the opening scene from this chapter. Enjoy!

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The auxiliary hangar on Eisheth was over a hundred meters wide, with more than enough room to hold a single courier. The vessel looked like a battered and weathered Sgina-class courier, but beneath the century-old chassis was a machine much faster and more capable than almost any other civilian-rated courier vessel. Like all others in its class, this ship was almost entirely sublight engines and shock systems, built specifically to pass messages between the stars as fast as possible. Couriers were expensive to operate, needed heavy maintenance or replacement after only a handful of FTL jumps. The Red Hand relied largely on its existing fleet to relay information, but they did maintain and build a small number of these vessels for emergencies.

Landing struts extended and the courier eased itself down onto the pocket battleship’s deck, steam venting. A gangway extended, pairing with the starboard airlock. A solid seal was made and the door opened. The courier’s pilot emerged, the Harrimun carrying a single case in his long-fingered, gloved hands as if were a live explosives. “Majesty,” the courier said with a salute, lifting the case up to Adrianna. His ship would be downloading its database to Eisheth even now, but some items were never entered in any computer. The warship’s crew had gotten used to their queen’s occasionally unexplained comings and goings, and the messages she received from unknown sources. They might gossip and whisper theories to each other, but they trusted Leblanc. She’d spent more than half a century forging that loyalty.

Men and women had died – often in ugly ways – rather than betray her or the cause because of their faith in her and what they were doing, but even if that devotion seemed unbreakable, it was also unspeakably fragile. Her correspondence, her alliance with Nemesis was as close to blasphemy as it was possible to get within the Compact. Even the extent of her enhancements marked her as too far from organic to be a real person. More than one trusted advisor had been unable the handle the truth of her existence. None of them knew of Red One. Some might still follow her even if they did, but many would not. Red One had helped the Red Hand more than almost any other person or faction had, but the intelligence she’d provided, the strategic weaknesses she’d created, the aid she’d directly given to and via Leblanc… all of that paled in comparison to what she was. A machine. An artificial intelligence. Synthetic. Soulless. Inscrutable. Corrupted. Rampant. Murderous.

Even Adrianna had been afraid of her. At first.