by Gwynn White
“She was reprimanding me for ignoring you,” he explained, wisely leaving out the whole suggestion about sleeping with her. “Normally, I’m capable of holding hundreds of conversations at the same time. Perhaps it’s time to return to the home world and undergo the upgrades Spire Command has been badgering me about.”
“Upgrades? That’ll be a mess,” Liv said, making a face as if she were already dreading the process.
“Tell me about it,” Ven agreed. “Last time I underwent a major overhaul, I spoke almost an octave higher, my new quantum frame was so large I swear I lost parts of myself, and my new drives were ‘touchy.’ First time I eased into motion under low power, I knocked all my crew off their feet. They complained for days.”
The tension in Liv’s shoulders relaxed, and her body language softened, almost friendly now as she slanted her body toward his with her head tilted back. “Oh, well, that sounds fun. Can’t wait.”
“Why do you think I’ve been putting it off for so long?”
“So you have a lackey like me to deal with the aftermath?” she joked.
“Technically, I have hundreds of lackeys like you to deal with the aftermath.”
“Wrong thing to say, Ven,” Renee chided.
“I mean...” Ven stammered, “most aren’t as adept as you. I simply meant—”
Liv’s sudden laughter cut him off, and even though he’d found himself embarrassed, once again, by his social blunder, he smiled at her. Her laughter apparently had that effect on him.
Renee’s voice interrupted his reverie. “Vengeance, can you wrap up your flirting? I think Captain Welner is trying to contact you. He’s pinged my communication frequency three times in the last forty-five seconds.”
Vengeance scowled and told her, “I know. I’m ignoring him.”
Liv sighed, and he caught her shooting him an exasperated look so he offered her a sheepish grin. “Captain Welner is trying to get my attention. I’m trying to ignore him.”
“Are you in the habit of ignoring the captain?” Liv asked.
Vengeance shrugged. “The drill was his idea, and he’s the one who wanted me to make it more difficult, to act like I’m experiencing a severe disconnect. I’m just being non-responsive as he asked.”
Liv narrowed her eyes at him and murmured, “I can’t believe it… the rule-following, policy-quoting, rigid warship persona is just a disguise. You’re a total rebel.”
Ven offered her a doe-eyed, innocent look and, completely deadpan, asked her, “What do you mean? I’m simply complying with his own request.”
Liv rolled her eyes. “Okay, Ven. If that’s the story you tell me, I can’t lie if he asks me about it, right?”
Ven slowly smiled at her and lifted a shoulder. “Well, I’d certainly never ask you to lie for me.”
Liv laughed and shook her head, and while Vengeance would have been perfectly happy to spend the rest of his night in the garden chatting with his newest engineer, a new order arrived along his deep space neural link to the rest of the Spire hive-mind.
An authoritarian female mind touched him briefly. One of the Spire queens—not his own mother since he was presently outside her jurisdiction—shared the data blast. “Station Excelon-7 has just reported a raid. One of its supply run ships has been hit by space pirates. You are the nearest ship in range. Please render assistance to the station then locate and recover the stolen supplies. If the raiders do not surrender to Spire Command, you have permission to use deadly force.”
“VEN-0115-343 acknowledges new command,” he replied to the hive-mind then said aloud to his crew, “Drill termination sequence initiated. New orders received. All Senior Officers, please report to the captain’s briefing room.”
Liv pulled at the tunic to take it off while asking, “Is everything all right?”
“Keep it,” Ven told her. “But get back to your quarters, dress, and report to engineering as quickly as you can. We have pirates to catch.”
9
After being dismissed, Liv made her way back to her quarters in record time. Once inside, she shed the nanogarment Vengeance’s drone had loaned her and pulled on her own uniform and work harness.
Two minutes later, she was back out in the hall, hurrying down to engineering. She wasn’t the only one. Other crewmembers were rushing to their assigned departments.
She was almost at main engineering when six of Vengeance’s massive sentinels emerged from a side corridor and stalked down the hall ahead of her. At their sudden appearance, she clamped down harder on her telepathic gift.
Routine procedure dictated that a company of sentinels report to main engineering in the likelihood of a conflict. Still, when the sentinel farthest back in line slowed and turned his triangular head in her direction, her stomach flipped nervously.
Keep going, she silently willed him. Don’t single me out.
But Vengeance had other ideas and slowed his sentinel to match her speed. “Ah, Journeyman Engineer Hawthorne, your efficiency is as impressive as always,” he said in his familiar, deep, and far too sexy voice. “You’re going to make it to engineering before some of my senior staff make it to the briefing room.”
Great. She’d impressed him and drawn his attention back to her.
“Thank you. I endeavor to always do my best.” Now go away and look menacing somewhere else.
Vengeance didn’t comply with her mental request, though, as he continued to keep pace with her. When the silence stretched on and became awkward, Liv scoured her brain for something to say. “How long until we transit?”
The deck already trembled under her feet with the familiar vibrations of the transit engines coming online.
“I’m briefing my senior staff in five minutes. We’ll be transiting in three.”
Liv nodded as they passed under the wide archway that marked the outer edge of her territory. Main engineering spread out before them. Maintenance drudges waited in their bays while human personnel stood at their assigned terminals and went about their duties. In the center of the vast complex, Adept and Master-level engineers looked up at complex energy webs that displayed various readings. Beside them, a holographic version of Vengeance’s human-form drone was briefing his engineers.
Her gaze skated away from the hologram as she veered to the left, parting company with the sentinels and following the running lights that marked the different pathways deeper into engineering. Once she was firmly grounded in her work and safely installed in the bowels of Vengeance’s engines, she could forget the unsettling conversation from earlier in the garden.
She was just feet away from escape when her eyes drifted back toward the central energy webs. They were displaying the schematics of a small ship, a Sloughad Class scout ship. Normal pirates wouldn’t have been able to get their hands on that type of vessel. But then again, she and her rogue sisters weren’t a regular pirate crew.
Years before, she and her sisters had killed the rogue AI who had controlled the Agrona, a Sloughad Class scout ship, and used her corpse to escape. Their enhanced telepathy had allowed them to interact with the ship’s controls the same way the AI had.
After their escape, they’d commandeered other ships to serve their needs. Several of the young women, Liv included, had wanted to see the Sloughad destroyed in a sun, but the Triumvirate they’d formed to make important decisions insisted they couldn’t destroy such a valuable tool. Besides, killing another Spire AI to get their hands on a different ship would draw the Spire’s attention.
As far as the Spire knew, all the young Nuallan telepaths had died back on the planet. The Triumvirate wanted it to remain that way. Liv did, too. Plus, she wasn’t sure she could stomach killing an innocent AI simply to steal his or her body.
But rogues? That was another matter altogether. If it were within her power to round up every last rogue and melt them in the nearest sun, she’d do it without hesitation.
However, knowing what she did, she had a really bad feeling about this Sloughad. She needed to g
et closer to the view screen to see the ship’s birth stamp.
“Is there a problem, Liv?”
She jerked in surprise. Oh, gods. That deep, sexy voice again.
She turned to the holographic version of Vengeance standing an arm’s length away. “Um… I… that ship on the view screen. Is that the pirate ship?” It wasn’t every day that pirates got their hands on a Spire ship—even a corpse. If she didn’t want to blow her cover, she needed to seem more shocked. “How is that even possible?”
“We don’t know yet. However, the station hit by the pirates reports that the ship’s AI was long dead. A corpse ship. I don’t know how pirates acquired it, but I plan to hunt them down and find out.”
And if he succeeded, he’d learn a great many other secrets, too.
She couldn’t let that happen. Vengeance’s deck shuddered under her boots and the massive ship jumped into transit. With another glance at the large energy web showing the frozen image of the scout ship, she only had as long as it took Vengeance to reach his intended destination to come up with a plan to foul his hunt.
“How long until we reach the station?” she asked, desperately hoping she didn’t rouse his suspicions.
“ETA twenty minutes.”
“Vengeance, if you find the ship, would I be allowed to see it up close on one of the view screens?”
“When I catch the ship, not if.” Vengeance’s hologram scowled at the ship on the view screen, but his expression warmed when he looked at her again. “I sense this request is brought on by more than simple curiosity. And since I hate mysteries, I might be persuaded to comply with your request, given the proper incentive.”
The hologram Vengeance walked a half-circle in front of her, tilting his head in a humanlike manner as he read her bio-signs and body language.
Damn and double damn. She’d further sparked the AI’s interest, and now he was studying her for signs she was lying. Her entire life was one big lie, and she hadn’t done anything to give herself away yet. Hell, she’d been lying for so long that if she ever told him the truth, that would probably register as a lie.
Oh, well. No risk, no reward. “I’m sure you reviewed my records when I was first assigned to you.”
“I review all new candidates,” he answered with a shrug. “So, yes, I’ve reviewed your record a few times. From that, I ascertain this request has something to do with your parents and siblings being killed in a pirate raid on your home colony.”
Liv nodded. “The pirates struck at night. There were only a few survivors. I was just a child at the time, and I don’t remember much of the attack now. Doctors say it was the trauma—that I’ve repressed the memories.”
“I’m sorry.” Vengeance’s inquisitive expression turned sympathetic. “I know what it’s like to experience terrible things and the need to forget them.”
Liv glanced back toward the energy web and pretended to study the scout ship, hoping he wouldn’t notice that his admission bothered her.
“I think,” Liv began and then paused. She needed to word this carefully so that she wouldn’t raise his suspicions. “I think my memories of that time aren’t as repressed as the doctors once thought. Sometimes, I have these nightmares, and I can clearly see the monster that destroyed my life. It all seems and feels so real that I know it has to be more memory than imagination.”
“The likelihood that this pirate ship is the same one that attacked your colony world is slim,” Vengeance countered. “However, I didn’t take the name Vengeance for no reason. I know the burning need to see wrongs righted. I’ve just assigned another engineer to man your station. Report to Master Engineer Goodwin.”
Apparently, her mind’s control over her body was enough to mask her own bio-readings. It likely helped that there was enough truth in the tale to eclipse the lies. Whatever the cause, Liv stopped herself from sighing in relief.
“Thank you,” Liv said. “I won’t ask for special treatment again. But this is important to me.”
“Then it’s important to me as well.” With a quick nod, the holographic version of Vengeance vanished.
Liv might not have been able to see him, but she could still feel his attention on her. A chill raced down her spine and gooseflesh covered her body in a rush of sensation as the knowledge that Vengeance was watching her settled in her mind.
The feeling should’ve been dread.
Instead, it was a mixture of delight and longing.
Fantastic.
As much as she wanted to deny it, she could easily fall for Vengeance. Unfortunately, he was also the one person who could completely derail her new life.
But it was too late.
She was falling in love with Vengeance.
As instructed, Liv had joined Master Engineer Jason Goodwin. The tight knot of tension between her shoulder blades soon subsided. Her mentor never failed to ground her and put her at ease. It helped that Vengeance had already informed Goodwin and the other senior engineering staff why Liv was present. They accepted Vengeance’s request without question or comment. Master Engineer Goodwin even began explaining a new theory the Spire scientists and engineers were developing that might lead to more efficient jumps in and out of transit.
Liv continued to relax while Vengeance made the transit to their destination, but he only stayed at Excelon-7 long enough to sync with the station AI and share data about the attack before he resumed his hunt for the pirates.
It didn’t take long to find the stolen scout ship. Vengeance’s long-range scanners quickly discovered where the pirate ship had gone into transit. The warship gave chase, hopping in and out of transit multiple times, mirroring the pirate ship’s path.
Vengeance’s engines were getting a workout, and by the seventeenth transit jump, the senior engineering officers were growling and barking orders to their subordinates, growing grumpier by the moment.
“Seventeen jumps! We’re leaping all over half the galaxy,” Goodwin complained as he scanned a report on his handheld energy web. “Are we chasing a scout ship or an alien space rabbit?”
Liv didn’t know about alien rabbits and half the galaxy was an exaggeration, but Goodwin’s sarcasm landed near the mark. No regular pilot could have avoided the warship’s pursuit as long as this pirate ship had.
But even with so skilled a pilot, it was only a matter of time before Vengeance, with his more powerful engines, finally outpaced the smaller scout ship. Liv’s anxiety increased with each transit jump.
This had to be one of her telepathic sisters. She had no idea what the hell they were doing hitting a Spire station, but the foolish raid was going to out all her sister telepaths if Liv didn’t find a way to prevent Vengeance from capturing the smaller ship.
“Journeyman Engineer Hawthorne,” Vengeance said moments before one of his holographic forms shimmered into existence. “I have a visual of the enemy ship.”
Liv stood behind Master Engineer Jason Goodwin and the other senior engineering staff as she studied the image of the scout ship displayed on the three largest energy webs.
The ship’s birth stamp confirmed Liv’s fears. This was the Agrona, which meant the ship was likely piloted by one or more of her sister rogue telepaths.
“Is something wrong?” Vengeance asked.
“I… No. It’s just that it’s been so long.”
“Can you confirm that this is the same ship that destroyed your colony?”
If she lied now, he’d pick up on it. But going with a version of the truth had served her well in the past. “That’s the ship that’s haunted my dreams.”
“Your colony wasn’t the only one hit. I recognize this ship as well.” A threatening edge colored Vengeance’s voice.
“You know this ship?” she asked. Of course he would. He hadn’t purged all his memories from Nualla. His duties as a warship required him to keep all tactical data.
“Yes. The ship used to be controlled by an AI named Agrona. I’ll capture it and question her crew. If I discover anything pertai
ning to your home world, I’ll share it with you.”
That was a clear dismissal. Liv thanked the hologram and started back to her assigned station. Vengeance would be on top of the scout ship in minutes. He was already within weapons range but wasn’t opening fire. He’d said he wanted to capture not kill. She would have to do something before that to give the other ship a chance to escape.
She was halfway to her station in the far back of engineering when she knew what she had to do. As soon as she reached her station, she dismissed the ensign who’d been covering her duties before she could change her mind.
After scanning the area to ensure there was no one nearby who would be endangered, she allowed her telepathic gift to unfold.
Pushing her abilities farther, she reached out toward the nearest access hatch, where the shield protecting the sensitive parts of the ship was thinnest. She reached deeper into the conduits that encased the bio-circuitry in a protective gel. Neural impulses flashed down those conduits, acting as the ship’s nervous system.
Liv followed one nerve cluster down a side branch where she found the transit engines’ cooling systems. Perfect. They were already under stress from all the transit jumps. A small malfunction could easily be explained without looking too suspicious.
She redirected a tiny amount of power from a subsystem and fed it into the branch of the coolant system. Before the fail-safes could kick in, she neutralized them then disabled the warning alarms. A cascading system failure caused a sudden spike in energy levels in the nerve conduit.
A simple power surge overloaded the neural pathways, killing a small section of Vengeance’s bioorganic nervous system, temporarily rendering him blind to what was going on in that area. Now hidden, she tore apart relays and ruptured conduits so it would look like an uncontrolled pressure buildup had led to a blowout.
Warnings lit up her energy webs and flashed schematics in pulsing reds and oranges, denoting a critical heat buildup in the main transit engines while screeching alarms did their best to shred her eardrums. Liv ignored them and tapped on her handheld energy web.