Caretakers (Stag Privateers Book 2)

by Nathan Jones

  Aiden stared at nothing, feeling like he'd been punched in the gut.

  Off to one side the gunner swore bitterly. “I don't believe you!” he snapped. “Why would she do that? More likely you're the traitor, Caretaker!”

  “Likely or not, Lana betrayed us,” Ali responded with cool finality. “Behavioral indicators suggest she is a Dormant.”

  It was Barix's turn to swear in disbelief. “Unreclaimed waste, she is! Even if she had been brainwashed, how could she still be through a mind wipe?”

  “Unknown. Perhaps layers of brainwashing in a way we have not previously seen.”

  “It's not possible,” the gunner insisted heatedly. “I've had intense training in spotting the signifying indicators of Dormants encoded into my DNA. She couldn't have fooled me. She didn't. You must be wrong.”

  “I'm aware it must be painful for you,” Ali said, voice gentle in spite of the urgency of the situation, “but you of all people should be able to put emotion aside and see the truth of the matter.”

  A sudden thought chilled Aiden. “What about Belix? What did Lana do to her?” The thought of harm coming to the elfin woman troubled him more than he'd expected. A surprising amount, considering the animosity between them.

  “She was merely unconscious when I checked her, and I dragged her out into the corridor before the Dormant betrayed us. I can't speak to her status now, however.” The Caretaker made an impatient noise. “We're wasting time we don't have talking, my love . . . if Lana is a Dormant assigned to sabotage the Last Stand, she will not stop with the shields. She must be stopped, and I'm not available to do so.”

  “Um, guys?” Barix said, face pale. “Good news and bad news. Good news is our last two Fixes just finished off the enemy boarders. Bad news is a very cute little murderous sleeper agent is headed for the bridge.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ruin

  With a soft hiss and rattle, armored plating rose up around the bridge's workstations. A last resort defense against intruders.

  Although as Aiden ducked behind the protective barrier, gripping his trusty cauterizer in one hand, he very much hoped they wouldn't be needed.

  “Lock down the ship!” he snapped at Barix, who was cowering behind his own plating. “Get the Fixes back here to defend us.”

  It seemed absurd to think of going to all this trouble, just to defend against an innocent strawberry blond girl who'd never shown the slightest sign she could hurt a fly, let alone would. And yet Dormants didn't have such a terrifying reputation for just the shock of being betrayed by a trusted loved one, although they were certainly reviled for that.

  The Ishivi cursed. “Lockdown procedures aren't working. She's got an open path right to us, and there's nothing I can do to stop her!”

  Aiden whipped his head around to stare at the man. “She hacked our computers?”

  “There's no sign of it,” Barix snapped. “And no way she could've, with Ali watching our systems like a hawk. She must've directly hardwired these systems at some point, planned this in advance.”

  “That explains where she disappeared to all those nights,” the gunner said grimly.

  And the man had never bothered to mention such suspicious behavior? Aiden glanced over at his weapons officer, who was situated behind his own protective barrier with his cauterizer in one hand and his KFM in the other. But in spite of being poised for action, the gunner looked, well . . . he looked like a complete wreck. There was almost no sign of his usual blank stoicism, the professionalism that was almost his trademark.

  To be fair, he looked like a lovesick boy who'd just discovered his girlfriend was a traitor.

  That wasn't what Aiden needed at the moment. “Focus!” he growled, eyes on his display. The space around the ship was clear, thankfully, with just the disintegrated remains of the Vindicator drifting away in all directions. No debris that presented an immediate threat to the Last Stand; that would've been all he needed at the moment.

  More importantly, the readout of the ship's interior showed the blip that was Lana, or whoever she really was, swiftly approaching. Farther back, the two remaining Fixes rushed to catch her.

  She'd come into view at any moment. Aiden grit his teeth and leveled his cauterizer down the corridor behind his station. He wasn't psychologically ready to shoot the young woman he'd come to love practically as a daughter, but as a soldier he would do what he had to.

  Any second now. He rested his finger on the trigger, one eye on the display and the other on the corridor. Any second.

  A moment later the gunner opened fire . . . towards the other entrance leading into the bridge. “She spoofed the sensors!” the young man yelled in warning.

  Aiden cursed and threw himself flat, narrowly dodging a cauterizer beam that whined sharply overhead. It would've liquefied his brains if he hadn't moved.

  Looked as if Lana didn't have the same qualms about shooting him as he felt about shooting her. Then again, if she was a Dormant why would she?

  The gunner had been forced down behind his barrier as more cauterizer beams stabbed their way across the bridge. He returned fire with his usual accuracy, keeping Lana pinned behind the doorway as well, but it was still a shock to see the Construct reduced to a stalemate.

  Aiden's eyes darted to his display, then back to the corridor he'd originally been watching. With a surge of relief, he caught sight of familiar hulking forms coming into view. He ducked back behind cover, raising his voice to be heard over the whine of cauterizers and the hiss of melting metal.

  “Fixes, Lana's a Dormant! Reprioritize her as a threat and ki-”

  The word choked in his throat, and he couldn't bring himself to say it. He hadn't known her long, not that there was much to know since there hadn't been much there. But even now, even when she might've got them all killed, he couldn't bear the idea of being responsible for her death. She was as much a victim of the Deeks as any of them, as helpless to prevent her betrayal as if the enemy had implanted an explosive inside her rather than brainwashing her.

  It didn't matter. Before he could change the order to “neutralize her”, ducking his head out just long enough to make sure Lana was still occupied fighting the gunner, he saw one combat android raise its arm with the attached cauterizer port and take aim at the other, blasting it into a nearby bulkhead.

  The traitorous Fix kept up the punishing fire until the other android's AI circuitry was a puddle of slag dripping onto the deck, then shifted its cauterizer to point back down the corridor towards the bridge.

  Directly at Aiden.

  He cursed and ducked back behind his barrier as another deadly beam whined overhead. Unreclaimed sewage, she'd stolen his robot! He didn't know when or how, although he supposed she would've had plenty of chances since he captured the new combat android.

  “Barix, we've got to hold off Fix while the gunner deals with Lana!” he called to the Ishivi, who was still ducked behind his workstation. If the slight man was planning to do something to help, he certainly hadn't shown any sign of it.

  The same couldn't be said for the gunner, who abruptly vaulted over the plating around his workstation, dropping his weapons as he rushed the far doorway. Since he wasn't immediately charred to a crisp he must've managed to take out Lana's cauterizer, or maybe the young woman herself.

  The fact that he hadn't used that advantage to finish the Dormant off, instead abandoning his own weapons to engage her hand to hand, was more than a bit worrisome. In fact, it seemed beyond stupid.

  Was the young man trying to take his lover alive, even now?

  * * * * *

  A good fighter didn't just exploit opportunities, she created them. Her handlers had literally burned that lesson into her brain.

  Although there were plenty of opportunities to exploit until she set one up herself. First and foremost being the gunner's injured arm, which was weaker and obviously caused him intense pain with every contact. Not that he let it stop him.

  Unfortunately, that dis
advantage was balanced by the Dormant's own injured hand, now a useless lump of burned and blistered flesh with flecks of molten slag from her destroyed cauterizer, or his technically, still coating it.

  Luckily for her, there was a far better weakness to exploit than mere injury; their emotional bond.

  Which was why Lana was screaming inside, and not because of the blinding agony of her severe burns that the force that had control of her didn't even seem to notice.

  Not Dax. Not him. Whatever was happening to her, whatever was making her do this, she had to stop it. Stop it before she hurt him the way she'd hurt Belix, or sent Ali into space.

  He looked just as reluctant to hurt her as she felt, but unfortunately her body had different ideas. She attacked viciously, without hesitation, even using her injured hand as a club, and each blow was meant to kill or incapacitate. And she hammered mercilessly at his injured arm, horror seeping into her soul at the agony writ across her boyfriend's face as he continued to use it to fend off her attacks in spite of the pain.

  But even though she obviously intended to kill him, her boyfriend never tried to do more than defend against her attacks, occasionally trying for a hold that would never work on a committed enemy of comparable skill. “This isn't you, Lana,” he pled, normally even voice thick with pain that had nothing to do with his arm. “It's some kind of conditioning.”

  She simply snarled and tried for his legs, taking advantage of her lower center of gravity.

  Dax countered by taking a more solid position, his greater mass more than making up for being more top-heavy. “I know about conditioning, Lana. I've had to fight it ever since Belix released me to join the crew. It feels like molten iron pouring over my skin sometimes, but I can manage it. I know you can, too.”

  Lana would've wept at the gentle understanding in his voice, the empathy for her own situation. But the eyes of the pitiless force that had taken hold of her remained dry and coldly focused; she could no easier fight it than she could will away the need to breathe. In fact, there was nothing to fight, because she couldn't even sense whatever it was that had control of her, and her limbs wouldn't even respond with a twitch to her most frantic attempts to bend them to her will.

  In fact, she was now specifically going for the most vulnerable parts of his burned arm, using the knowledge she'd gained about his injuries from sitting supportively by his bedside as Ali treated him. Trying to cause the most pain possible, trying to cripple him again and gain an advantage.

  This was beyond terrifying. Like suddenly finding herself imprisoned in a place that had been her comfortable, protective home all her life. As if everything she'd loved about it now inspired horror. And even more awful, her prison was a weapon that could, that had harmed her friends.

  Dax thought she could fight this, but he was wrong. Dead wrong.

  And soon he might just be dead, because the most awful thing of all was discovering that whatever had taken control of her could fight. Well enough to make up for their considerable difference in size and strength, or the fact that her boyfriend had the knowledge and skills of some of humanity's best warriors literally burned into his DNA.

  Some of that might've been his reluctance to fully commit, to hurt her. But even so she was pushing him back, and back. A blur of blows not only meant to injure but to put him off balance, creating openings she could exploit to finish the fight: feinting with punches while trying to hook his leg out from under him, an attempt to knee him in the groin while she tried to slam her stiffened knuckles into the side of his head. Slipping around his own return blows with the grace of a dancer, trying to get inside his guard at the same time.

  And with each attack and counterattack and shift of balance, she gained more space in the corridor while he lost ground. “Fight it,” he panted as she cornered him against a bulkhead. “Lana, this isn't you. Fight it!”

  He was finally a heartbeat too slow, focused on trying to get through to her with his words, and her heel connected with the side of his knee. He managed to twist aside before she felt the vulnerable cartilage give way, but from his change in posture she knew he no longer had full use of that leg.

  At that point Dax's expression changed to firm resolve. “Fine,” he growled. “If whatever's controlling you won't let you stop, then I'll have to stop you. Before you do something you won't be able to forgive yourself for.”

  The young man charged forward, movements nearly a blur in spite of his injuries. And as the Dormant stumbled a step back, suddenly focused completely on turning aside incapacitating blows and ducking out of inescapable holds, with all thoughts of going on the offensive abandoned, she confirmed that he had been holding back.

  Quite a bit.

  * * * * *

  Aiden shouted triumphantly as his shot melted the cauterizer attachment on Fix's arm. Finally. Although, if he had to be honest, he should've been pissed that he'd just been forced to damage the expensive combat android. The last of his prizes from Recluse.

  While he decided whether to mourn or celebrate, he spared a moment to check how the gunner was doing with the Dormant, and whether he could help.

  It was honestly hard to determine either of those things; the two were barely in sight in the corridor, with his weapons officer mostly visible and only flashes of Lana's arms and legs. And flashes was accurate, since she was moving so quickly that her limbs were a blur. Which meant that Aiden hitting her with his cauterizer would've been hard enough, even if the gunner wasn't so close he might accidentally hit him instead.

  As for how the young man was doing in his fight . . . he was holding his own? Considering Aiden had seen him literally take apart combat androids, the fact that a slip of a girl was going toe to toe with him, matching his strength and precision with her technique and agility, was impressive.

  The deadly, almost choreographed looking speed and ability from both combatants would've been incredible to witness if the stakes weren't so high. If he didn't stand to lose someone he cared about no matter who won, unless the gunner was able to take down Lana without needing to kill her.

  Which, frankly, didn't seem likely at the moment.

  He reluctantly tore his attention back to Fix, only to jerk out of the way with a curse as a portable terminal flew at him with the full force of a combat android's strength behind it. It sailed through the main display and across the room to smash into the bulkhead there, with a sound that made him wince at the destruction of such a valuable piece of equipment.

  Unfortunately, chucking things wasn't the extent of the reprogrammed robot's threat now that its cauterizer attachment was slag; it had begun ducking from cover to cover to get at Barix, all the while throwing more portable terminals and other expensive objects snatched up from around the outside ring of the bridge as a distraction. Aiden winced every time one flew past and was smashed to junk somewhere behind him, grimly struggling to bring down the rogue android but unable to find an opening as it drew ever closer to the Ishivi.

  Even more alarmingly, the slight man didn't seem to notice the danger; he'd also turned towards where Lana and the gunner fought their almost hypnotically swift and graceful battle, pulling a silvery disk from his belt pouch with an almost feral snarl. “I hope you enjoy getting those appealing genes ripped to shreds, you treacherous mongrel!” he screamed, throwing the bio grenade into the corridor behind the Dormant.

  Aiden screamed as well, in horror. He wasn't sure if he was worried more about losing his gunner or Lana, or both. Or maybe the fact that, in the relatively confined space of the bridge, the DNA-scrambling retrovirus would hit him as well.

  Either way, he couldn't believe Barix had done it.

  Apparently, he was the only one shocked by the crazy move; in spite of the incredible speed and fury with which the Dormant and Construct fought, an endless flurry of attacks, defensive movements, and counterattacks that looked more like a dance than deadly intent, neither of the two were caught by surprise by the sudden grenade.

  Although, to b
e fair, the slight man had basically shouted a warning at them like a moron.

  In any case, the gunner was already throwing himself backwards into the bridge and towards the protective barrier, responding to the danger. Lana, on the other hand, didn't try to dodge aside at all. Instead she drew something from her own pouch and hurled it with inhuman speed and accuracy, hitting the bio grenade in midair.

  Immediately, the object she'd thrown expanded in a cloud of gel, which quickly congealed into an elastic shell around the Ishivi's grenade to contain the blast. The shell bulged as the grenade detonated, and Aiden felt his stomach churn as he watched to see if the membrane ruptured anywhere, allowing out the deadly biological agent that would seal his doom.

  Lana had already turned away, not even pausing to make sure the threat was dealt with before launching herself at the gunner again. The young man met her halfway, the fury of his charge backing her towards the corridor until they both disappeared down it.

  “You stole a containment grenade from me?” Barix yelled, even more furious. “You thieving mutt! I can't believe . . .”

  Aiden felt slightly guilty for thinking, just for a moment, that it was pretty inconvenient that the young woman had waited until after betraying the ship to show all these useful skills. Although come to think of it, she had slagged that combat android during their last brush with the Vindicator.

  Maybe he should've paid more attention to that. At the moment, though, he needed to pay more attention to the other deadly killing machine in the room.

  So he ignored Barix, who continued his tirade even though he was about to have his own problems to worry about as Fix closed in on him. Unfortunately, the rogue android would be Aiden's problem immediately afterwards, so it was probably a good idea to stop it now.

  Also, you know, the entire bit about saving his crew member. That was something he should probably do.