Caretakers (Stag Privateers Book 2)

by Nathan Jones

  In spite of the situation, Aiden couldn't help but pay attention to that; his former crew member had never shown any sign of that as far as he remembered. “What? You did?” he blurted.

  “My love, don't get distracted by this,” Ali said sharply. “I can-”

  He raised his hand curtly for her to wait. He wanted to hear the facilitator's answer, so he turned up the volume again; this could be a crack in her frigid shell, possibly a chance to talk her out of her vengeance.

  Because at the moment, her letting them go seemed like the only way out of this situation. The ship shuddered as they finally took some hits past the shields, and hull breach klaxons joined the others, a profile of the Last Stand on his workstation's display showing damage to the cargo bay and lounge.

  “I really did,” Elyssa agreed, almost sadly. “Aiden Thorne, hope of the universe. Tucking one daring victory after another under your belt, wanted by the Deeks even before you turned to piracy. Everyone hoped for a chance to crew your ship, and those of us lucky enough to be chosen for the honor were the envy of the fleet.”

  “I take it you don't harbor those sentiments anymore?” he said, struggling to keep the strain of his desperate evasions out of his tone.

  “I did, for a long time,” Elyssa replied, sounding almost wistful. “I swallowed the nonsense you told us about how turning to “privateering” was keeping up the fight, even when everyone else had given up. And I tried to ignore how as the years went by, you picked less and less targets based on military value, and more and more based on how many chits we'd score from them.”

  Her voice grew cold again. “Then you picked up the twins as new crew. I listened to them talk about the wealth to be made in piracy, saw their mercenary and utterly self-serving worldview. And I realized that they fit in perfectly on the Last Stand. That somehow, in the years since I'd received the honor of being transferred aboard, this ship I loved had become a place where I no longer fit in.”

  Aiden would've been more blown away by this revelation if another series of hits hadn't just slagged two of the crew cabins, opening the corridor beyond to vacuum until emergency doors could slam shut. Even in the bridge, he felt the sudden rush of air before it quickly stilled again.

  Talking his way out of this was sounding better by the moment. “You never so much as expressed your concerns to me,” he said.

  The facilitator's sadness morphed back to bitterness. “I was a military brat, Thorne. I saw the obsession for destroying the Movement in my parents. How nothing, not even their own daughter, would sway them from the fight, until it finally took them away from me.” She snorted. “I saw that same obsession in you. What hope did your humble, overlooked shields and repairs officer have in the face of that?”

  “I failed you, then,” he said quietly, slewing his ship down and left to avoid the final atomic as it blazed past and began to curve back around at them.

  “No more than anyone else,” Elyssa replied, not sounding as nonchalant as she likely hoped for. “And as you can see, I ended up a criminal in any case. Probably one less ideologically pure than you've remained, if you still balk at slavery. But it doesn't matter now, since your ship is about to be blown to pieces.”

  “No,” Ali abruptly said, voice heavy with inexorable certainty. There was a slight crackle as she finally kicked the facilitator off their comms.

  That was all she said, and for a moment Aiden was confused. Not to mention annoyed, at her taking it upon herself to cut off his attempt at negotiations. Apparently the captain didn't need to be kept in the loop about things like that.

  Before he could get on her case about it, to his shock the last atomic, which had been getting dangerously close to the ten mile range that would put it near enough to damage his ship when detonated, abruptly winked out of existence on the display.

  Radiation warnings joined the others as the Last Stand rode the tail end of the explosion, the breached rooms glowing red with this new threat. But the blast wasn't enough to seriously damage the ship, especially as a layer of shields finally came up that wasn't immediately overloaded by incoming fire.

  Of which, he noticed, there seemed to be a lot less: the fighters had stopped shooting, so only the laser bursts from the transports were still incoming.

  “Um, one of the fighters just shot down the last atomic,” Barix said, sounding baffled. “A missed shot at us with the luckiest possible result?”

  Aiden somehow doubted it; as he continued evasive maneuvers he shot a quick glance at Ali. She was staring straight ahead at nothing, limbs locked with inhuman rigidity so she didn't so much as sway with the maneuvers he was putting the ship through.

  She spoke, voice so flat she could've been mimicking the gunner or one of the Fixes. “The Caretakers are making you an offer, my love. Name yourself their ally, swear yourself to the cause, and they'll aid you.”

  “Wait, what?” he demanded. “Ali, if you can save my ship then do it! This is the worst time to bargain!”

  “If I have sufficient cause, I can compel the Pilot AIs to override their core priorities on your behalf,” she replied calmly. “But If I do so, it must be for the benefit of humanity, not just this ship. Otherwise the Caretakers would be taking sides in a fight between humans, killing some thinking beings for the sake of others. Not to mention asking AIs to betray their masters without sufficient cause. Neither of which we are willing to do.”

  “Wait, you can take over the fighters?” Barix demanded. “Why didn't you offer to do that in the first place, you stupid machine? Before my cabin got blown to the void again!”

  Ali ignored the man, waiting patiently for Aiden's answer. He grit his teeth. “I don't want to die, but I'm not going to make myself a slave to artificial intelligences that want to conquer humanity.”

  “Screw that, I will!” Barix called frantically. “I'll shoot this idiot in the head and take over the ship right now if he's going to get us killed!”

  At his station the gunner tensed, although he continued to focus on returning fire at the transports. But Aiden got the sense he was ready to act if the Ishivi did more than make threats. Which was reassuring, until he realized he wasn't sure which side the young man would take in that fight.

  “I'm not asking you to commit to doing anything right now,” Ali said, tone urgent. “Just name yourself an ally, say you share our cause of aiding humanity, and once I have your word we'll work out the details later. That shouldn't be too hard.” When he still hesitated, she continued. “The Pilots are working around my lockout, and only the Caretaker overrides will stop them from resuming fire on us. You have ten seconds.”

  That stank suspiciously of a strong-arm tactic to him, but at the moment his options were getting awfully slim. Especially with the display warning him that the transports had launched more atomics.

  “Five,” she said calmly.

  “Spend eternity in an event horizon,” Aiden snarled. “Fine, I promise! As long as you don't turn into insane genocidal monsters and try to wipe out or enslave humanity because of some glitch in your programming, I'm with the Caretakers!”

  As one, the fighters turned and made for the transports, shooting at the approaching atomics on the way.

  Barix cheered and leaned back from his controls, grinning. “Thank you, Captain! I for one am fully on board with letting the soulless AIs fight and die for us.”

  “Hate to bust your bubble,” Ali said wryly, “but those eight unshielded fighters can't take on two heavy transports. At least, not without considerable luck and incompetence on the enemy's part, which they haven't shown. We're going to need to turn around and join the fight.”

  Aiden frowned. “Wait. If you're all about preventing intelligent life from dying, what's the problem with letting the fighters distract those ships long enough for us to get away? Everyone wins, or at least nobody loses.”

  The Caretaker shot him an impatient look. “They somehow found us in the middle of nowhere, my love. Chances are good they'll be able to fol
low us if we run now, probably bring in reinforcements as well.”

  Well, shoot. Aiden supposed they were going to have to solve the problem of how they'd been trailed. Which meant they needed breathing room, and those transports had to go; they only had one real choice. One he couldn't feel too bad about, considering those SOBs had tried to kill him and his friends and the odds were in his favor now.

  He leaned on the controls again, sending his ship in a sharp bank back towards the pursuing transports. At his station the gunner leaned over his weapons systems, preparing to fight. Aiden mentally built himself up to the same challenge.

  Barix groaned. “So now we're fighting after all? And since we're doing it solely to evade pursuit, we don't even have the option to disable those ugly behemoths and strip them for profits. You're risking my neck for no benefit!”

  “You're right, you living through this is of no benefit,” Aiden shot back. “At least not to anyone but you.” He turned to the gunner. “Shifting tactics to the paradigm of engaging multiple foes.” He suited his words by gunning the engines and taking them towards one of the transports.

  “Understood,” the gunner said in his maddeningly calm voice. And the guy probably did.

  The best option in this situation was to use the Last Stand's better speed and maneuverability to keep one pirate hunter between them and the other one. Ironically, the same thing the transports themselves had been doing to keep the gunner from breaking through one ship's shields.

  That would make the fight effectively one on one, but would severely limit Aiden's options for evasive maneuvers as he struggled to keep in the middle cruiser's shadow. Which meant a good old-fashioned slugfest, exchanging fire with a ship with about equivalent weapons but more layers of shielding and better buffers than them, hoping to take it out before it could take them out. Assuming they managed that, they could then go toe to toe with the remaining one in a more conventional fight.

  He would've liked that option a lot less without the fighters, which changed everything; if even one transport focused fire on his ship, those fighters would be free to rip the distracted vessel apart. The only other option for the enemy was to focus on taking down the more vulnerable unshielded craft as quickly as possible, so they could then focus their attention on the Last Stand.

  They wouldn't have that much time. Not with the gunner on one side and eight railguns aimed by Pilots on the other. He hoped.

  The good news was, with the chaos of the fighters suddenly turning on them, the transports had temporarily broken off their sustained barrage on his ship, giving the shields time to recharge. The bad news was, only five layers came back up; at best the sixth buffer was overloaded, at worst the emitter was damaged. Fingers crossed it was the first.

  “Lana, what's the story on the shields?” he demanded.

  “Working on it,” the young woman replied in his ear.

  He hoped that meant his newest, most inexperienced crew member was actually accomplishing something. Because right before going into a slugfest was the worst time for his shields to be at less than their best.

  * * * * *

  This wasn't even the task force? How was it possible that the criminal had picked up on the beacon the Dormant had set up, and acted on the information sooner than an entire flotilla of warships?

  Either way, it was obvious no trigger was forthcoming. The best the Dormant could do was move slowly in repairing the shields, hope it would be enough for these transports to blow them up. Somehow she doubted it.

  Even worse, if they survived the captain would tear the ship apart looking for the beacon. He'd find it eventually, which meant the task force had a few hours at most to stop dragging their heels and come blow them up.

  Given their track record so far, she somehow doubted that, too. Which meant her focus going forward would be making sure suspicion didn't fall on her, or ideally anyone else on the ship, for the beacon's presence. At least it had been made from parts taken from the ERI facility, so her crew mates should reach the conclusion that it had been planted on their ship during the raid on Recluse.

  In the meantime, time to do some heel dragging of her own and wish the transports luck. That, and ignore the Blank Slate's surging relief at this outcome.

  “Lana, I'm sending Fix 3 to help with repairs,” Aiden abruptly snapped. “Nothing against your skills, but we've got the combat androids available and I want the shields squared as soon as possible.”

  Fantastic.

  * * * * *

  Going into combat with five layers of shields wasn't the worst thing in the universe.

  After all, Aiden could still remember back when he'd first been given the Last Stand, pristine and beautiful from the shipyard. It had only had three layers of shielding then, and he'd made do.

  In fact, sometimes he looked back at that time and wondered how he'd survived. Especially since his younger self now seemed almost suicidally reckless and daring, flying through the fiercest fighting during massive scrums between fleets and coming through on the other side to brag about it.

  Then again, he supposed when it came to jumping headfirst into fights with Deeks, not much had changed.

  Aside from the fact that he was feeling less like bragging in this particular fight. That was because he'd noticed that the Pilots in those automated fighters came close to matching his flying skills, as well as the gunner's shooting. Which, considering there was a planet eater out there most likely churning out ships run by the things by the tens of thousands, or if there wasn't now there would soon be, was a worrying thought.

  That was a concern for the future, though. For the moment, those frightening AIs were on his side, and he really needed them.

  Almost first thing as he turned his ship around to engage the transports, the Pilots shot down the atomics coming for the Last Stand. Thanks to their flawless reaction time and intimidating accuracy, they managed it before the warheads could get anywhere near his ship.

  Then, as the gunner opened up on their first target and Aiden maneuvered to put it between them and the other enemy ship, the fighters swarmed around the two big ships like flies around a couple of spaceport drifters, hammering them with railgun slugs. That forced the transports to evade, keeping them from focusing fire on Aiden's ship.

  Which was a good thing, because the two enemy vessels seemed determined to finish off the Last Stand, pouring all their firepower at his ship with dogged determination and completely ignoring the fighters. He wasn't sure if Elyssa was pushing for them to destroy him as a first priority, even if it wasn't tactically sound, or if they thought he was hacking their Pilots and were trying to take him out to stop it, but it was obvious his ship was their one and only target.

  Which, oddly enough, Aiden didn't mind. As long as he flew to keep one transport blocking line of fire from the other, maneuvering with every ounce of skill in that constrained zone to stay ahead of the enemy fire, the gunner working alongside the eight fighters had nice fat targets to take potshots at.

  It worked for a minute or so, until the transport they were targeting made the desperation move of launching an atomic point blank and destroying both their shields. The enemy vessel had been down to its final layer in any case, likely hoping that would be enough to at least prevent catastrophic damage when the atomic overloaded it.

  It wasn't.

  The gunner reacted quickly the moment the nuke launched, spraying a barrage slugs from the railgun's swiftly emptying magazine, and depleting the capacitors in both laser arrays in a quick burst. Together that was all enough to finish off the beleaguered ship's shields, and for a moment Aiden allowed himself to hope the enemy gunner would realize the danger and simply allow the atomic to fly off into space.

  No such luck, although whoever it was did aim it to shoot past the Last Stand and detonate on the far side of them, with more distance from the transport itself.

  That bought Aiden time to evade, although not enough. And it wasn't enough for the transport, either; as the Last S
tand's shields once again went down, warnings blaring about minor hull damage as well, the massive explosion rolled over the support ship. In the wake of it, his sensors reported systems down and multiple hull breaches on the larger ship.

  Although at the moment he had other worries, since the explosion coincided with the other transport popping into view; the two support ships had coordinated maneuvers to veer in different directions at the same time. Before the closer transport took the brunt of the atomic's blast, it managed to get off a barrage of shots of its own.

  Which, combined with the other transport's sudden flurry of shots and the Last Stand's shields being down, proved to be a threat that Aiden realized he couldn't dodge only seconds before the attack hit them. Even abandoning his attempts to stay in the transport's shadow and evading full out wasn't enough.

  He actually braced for the impact that would destroy or cripple his beloved ship. At his station, Barix was muttering something that sounded suspiciously like a prayer. Or at least a bitter complaint to some higher power.

  Then three of the unmanned fighters made a suicidal dive into the nuke's blast wave, putting themselves between the Last Stand and the incoming shots.

  Aiden watched their icons wink out on the display as he continued his mad dash for safety, one eye on the attacking ship and the other on the blaring red outline of his unshielded hull, with a countdown of far too many seconds before his shields were back up.

  Another fighter suicided to block more incoming shots, while the others converged on the unshielded and heavily damaged transport and picked off its vital systems, leaving it dead in space. Although in spite of the speed and apparent ferocity of their attack, he couldn't help but notice the HAE AIs were very careful and precise in avoiding inflicting damage that might unduly risk the lives of the transport's crew.

  Despite that show of mercy and restraint, the swift, thorough dismantling of the support ship sent a message that was hard to ignore; to Aiden's surprise but vast relief, at the sight of it the final transport turned and fled.