Vengeance (Warships of the Spire Book 1)

by Lisa Blackwood

  “Your tactical instincts are nonexistent,” Vengeance chided.

  Swallowing back anger and pride, Liv nodded toward the sentinel and promised, “I will endeavor to improve myself.”

  “Chess!” Vengeance rumbled the one word like it was the answer to the greatest mysteries of the universe.

  “Chess…” Liv repeated slowly.

  “Yes. Tonight, I will meet you at the mess hall and begin your education.” Vengeance made it sound like the whole matter was settled, whether she wanted her education continued or not.

  A renewed wave of panic raised goose bumps on her arms. The more time she spent with Vengeance, the more opportunities he would have to discover her secrets—who she’d once been and could never be again. She had to find a way out of his chess lessons.

  “I don’t think that would be an appropriate use of your resources,” Liv reasoned. “There are other crew members who would make much better candidates, and who are more deserving of your special attention. There are certainly higher-ranking candidates.”

  “It is my choice whom I choose to spend time with, and it is my wish to see you reach your full potential. I will meet you later tonight—three hours before sleep cycle.”

  She was hopelessly trapped. She couldn’t disobey him, and she already knew just how stubborn the old warship could be. Liv lowered her eyes but nodded in acquiescence.

  What else could she do?

  Absolutely nothing good could come from Vengeance exhibiting new interest in her. While she didn’t want to leave her post, if she had to, she could find work on another ship, but it would have to be one of the big battle cruisers like Vengeance. The electromagnetic field and radiation produced by his massive engines effectively cloaked her mind if her telepathy slipped her control while asleep, particularly if she were in the grip of a nightmare.

  But the candidates able to accommodate her specific needs were limited, and her timing between reassignments had to be damned near perfect unless she wanted to forego sleep for a few days.

  “Journeyman Engineer Olivia Hawthorne, I did not take you on just so you could complete your apprenticeship then go serve under another Warship of the Spire.”

  Olivia flinched and gaped at the sentinel. “How did you know…?”

  “You’re expressive, and I’ve had a long time to study humans. Because of that, I find your kind easy to read. However, I cannot read minds as some uninformed humans believe.”

  “I know that.” And she did know that about him—about all AIs—but as the renewed surge of adrenaline abated, her legs still felt weak.

  “You shouldn’t play poker,” Vengeance advised.

  Was he making a joke?

  He used to do that…often, in fact.

  She’d heard he’d stopped twenty-one years ago.

  “I suppose you’re right,” Liv said. “I’m not much of a gambler anyway.”

  She glanced over her shoulder toward the fountain again, trying to plan her retreat, but she stayed. She had to know why he’d chosen her. “Why me?”

  The sentinel’s arms jerked, and she imagined if one were capable of shrugging, he would have just shrugged at her. “I have plans for you. Out of all the journeymen from your batch, you alone show great potential.”

  “I’m flattered,” she murmured. And she was, just as she’d always been delighted to hear his praise. But if Vengeance were picking up on something uniquely special about her now, she obviously hadn’t been careful enough.

  Her telepathy allowed her to scan the biocircuitry of the great AIs and “read” when a component was damaged or faulty, and sometimes, even fix the problem with her mind alone.

  Over the years, she’d learned to use her telepathy very carefully—just a touch here and there. Never enough to make her stand out. Or so she’d thought.

  Apparently, she was wrong.

  “Good, then I see no reason we shouldn’t become a good team one day,” Vengeance announced.

  Liv nodded toward the sentinel for a second time, the Spire’s symbol of respect, and twisted on her heels to get the hell out of this garden and away from the one AI who could blow her cover.

  How could she have thought she’d be able to hide from him aboard his own ship?

  And yet…she’d been unable to stay away.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Vengeance demanded. “Since I admitted to you that this is only a drill, I require you to stay here until the exercise is completed or risk effecting the results of other crew members.”

  Another coil of anger wound tightly in her chest. Had he really just told her he planned to keep her under his thumb? Yes… yes, he had. AIs, especially the older ones, tended to become set in their ways, and Ven had always had a stubborn streak. If he didn’t want her leaving now, there was nothing she could do about it.

  Or, rather, nothing she would ever be willing to do about it. Not to Ven.

  So Liv set her jaw and turned around again, fixing his sentinel with her most determined stare. The sentinel stared back at her with all six of his eyes glowing their unusually intense blood red.

  But she wouldn’t back down. Not this time.

  Their experiences had changed them both, but ultimately, they still had something in common: They were both incredibly stubborn.

  “With all due respect, I really have to go. I’ll be needed elsewhere for regular duties as soon as the drill ends, and I’m in an area for which I don’t have the appropriate clearance. But if it eases your mind, I’ll lock myself into my room until the drill is over so that I can’t possibly interfere with anyone’s performance scores.”

  The sentinel actually shook his head at her. “You’ll remain here for the next standard hour. Besides, my link wishes to meet the young engineer foolish enough to issue orders to one of my sentinels.”

  This time, Vengeance didn’t give her a chance to argue. His sentinel twisted around and vanished between the fruit trees to his left. The heavy metal clanking of his treads assured her he assumed their argument was over.

  And, really, it was. She couldn’t disobey him, even if the thought of coming face-to-face with Renee paralyzed her with fear. She’d always liked her—quite a lot, actually—but Renee was one of the most powerful telepaths of the Spire. How could she possibly hide her identity now?

  Twelve years ago, while she’d been hacking one of the Spire’s archive nodes, she’d learned that Vengeance had performed a primary core purge of certain memories about his visits to Nualla… his visits with her. Those memories were now only part of the archive. In essence, he knew about the events on Nualla, but he wouldn’t be able to relive them over and over in an endlessly destructive loop. He’d deleted her from his existence.

  At first it had hurt to know he didn’t want to remember her. But it had saved him from self-termination, for which she was grateful. Then something else had occurred to her.

  She could stand directly before his drone and he wouldn’t know her.

  That was the beginning of her present life.

  She’d convinced herself of so many lies when she’d stolen Olivia Hawthorne’s identity so she could rejoin the Spire. Her training and her ultimate plan to become one of Vengeance’s crew had fallen into place. She’d assured herself that her position would keep her far from the telepaths, and that she’d almost certainly never have any direct contact with Ven himself. Above all, she’d have no reason to have any kind of contact with Renee since telepaths didn’t venture to the engineering compartments. The low levels of radiation and other sources of interference hindered their telepathic ability.

  But with one misstep, she’d just jeopardized her future.

  Again, Liv seemed frozen in place as she scrambled for an excuse to get out of this meeting. She would have even settled for a black hole suddenly opening beneath her feet and sucking her into its abyss. When neither excuse nor black hole materialized, she reluctantly followed the sentinel toward a building at the edge of the garden.

  She tried to con
vince herself that Renee might not recognize her. She’d undergone illegal cosmetic alterations and kept her normally honey-blond hair dyed dark brown. But could she hide her telepathy from a link as powerful as Renee? All it would take was one stray thought to leak past her carefully constructed mental walls, and Ven’s link would immediately detect that Liv had been lying.

  Together, Ven and Renee would soon drag her nightmares from her, and there would be no running a second time.

  Perhaps Amelia had been right all along. She’d been foolish to return to Vengeance. She’d been foolish to return to any Warship of the Spire.

  And the irony certainly wasn’t lost on her. She’d been engineered to be a powerful, link-level telepath to serve the Spire, and it was a fate she’d once looked forward to, one she’d embraced and celebrated.

  But now?

  Now, she never wanted another warship in her mind again. Not even Ven’s.

  But as soon as they uncovered the truth, she would have no choice but to become the slave they expected her to be… unless she chose death.

  Chapter Seven

  Liv followed Vengeance’s sentinel across a footbridge to an island in the middle of the lake with a gazebo perched on a small rise. Two more sentinels waited on the far side of the structure. Why did he have so many of his assault drones here? The question spiked her anxiety again, especially when both turned their blood-red optical sensors on her, holding her in their gazes as she neared the gazebo.

  Perhaps it was the mind-numbing fear, but Liv raised one hand and wiggled her fingers at the sentinels. To her surprise, one of them raised his hand and waved back.

  This was not how she thought she’d be spending her day when she’d gone to bed last night.

  “You look like you’re attending your own execution,” a woman’s voice teased.

  Liv jumped as a second voice from her past startled her. She looked for its source and found her standing on a set of steps leading up to the gazebo. But she hardly resembled the powerful telepath Liv had once known.

  The woman who had spoken was an elderly woman in a dove-gray gown with equally gray hair that was neatly braided and hung over one shoulder, bouncing with her steps. But what caused Liv’s heart to rise into her throat in a painful moment of longing and regret was the strikingly handsome man whose arm Renee held.

  Liv forced her attention back to Renee and tried to focus on the dark green ribbon woven into her hair, the soft material of her slippers, anything to keep herself from looking at the man again. As if acknowledging him was all it took, her eyes snapped to him—the stranger who was not a stranger. From those buried memories of her childhood, those memories of a happy childhood when she’d felt safe and loved, she remembered this drone most of all. Or at least, one who looked just like him. That first drone had been destroyed back on Nualla all those years ago.

  “She’s nervous to meet you,” Ven told Renee. “My newest engineer is shy, and I think she’d prefer to be arm-deep in organic-circuitry, coolant conduits, and biofluids, rather than holding a conversation with someone of higher rank.”

  “No need to be shy,” Renee assured her. “You’re among friends here. Besides, Ven hasn’t spoken so highly or so often of anyone in ages.” Renee smiled at the human drone, whose expression shifted from amused to perplexed then finally settled on mild embarrassment.

  Renee continued like she hadn’t noticed Vengeance’s reaction. “Ven has told me so much about you that I feel I already know you. He’s practically been beside himself since he first studied your file and recognized your Adept-level potential.”

  Liv’s cheeks flushed, betraying her own slight embarrassment at the older woman’s praise. “Thank you. But that doesn’t explain why I’m here.”

  “Because I wanted a word with you. It won’t take long, Liv.” Renee looked over at Vengeance’s drone and added, “Why don’t you go be useful elsewhere for a few minutes? I’d like a moment’s privacy. And you can take the rest of you with you when you go.” Renee gestured toward the sentinels, whose blood-red optical sensors just blinked at her.

  Ven’s drone shook his head, his expression blank now, as if he’d slipped at playing human. “Why? We’ve never had secrets between us.”

  Renee squared her shoulders, raised her chin, and stared back at him. She looked defiant, indomitable, a match for the AI’s fierceness.

  “I’m not leaving you undefended,” Ven insisted.

  “You really think Liv would hurt me?” Renee laughed.

  “No, that probability is less than 0.65% by my analysis of her personality.”

  “A whole 0.65%? So dangerous?” Renee mocked, arching an eyebrow at him.

  The drone crossed his arms and refused to back down. “That’s not why I’m staying, as you well know. It has nothing to do with her.”

  “True, but there’s no one else in the garden. Stop being so paranoid. I may not be as young as I once was, but I’m not going to shatter because you’re no longer in my immediate orbit.”

  “Your attempt at humor won’t change my mind.”

  “Attempt?” Renee shot back. “Perhaps the problem is that I’m not as funny as I once was.”

  “Renee,” Ven sighed.

  But Renee waved him off and relented. “Fine. Stay then.” She glanced at Liv and winked at her. “I was just going to discuss the possibility of Liv becoming your lover. It’s really been too long for you.”

  Liv choked on the mouthful of air she’d inhaled, but her surprise was nothing compared to Ven’s. His three sentinels went into lockdown, humming as they did weapon checks and ran system diagnoses. The drone opened his mouth then closed it before trying again, only to produce the same stupefied silence.

  But Renee pretended not to notice that either. “Vengeance won’t admit it, but he’s lonely. He hasn’t been in a physical relationship in centuries. Not since…”

  Vengeance’s three sentinels stopped their system checks and went into full shutdown mode as his human-form drone came alive. “You have fifteen minutes to discuss whatever it is you really need your privacy for.” The drone spun on his heels and stalked away.

  When he was out of sight, Renee clapped her hands and laughed. “Won that round. Nice to know I still have it in me.”

  Liv took a deep breath. “So… you didn’t really want to talk to me about… sex.”

  “Of course not,” Renee laughed again. “But Ven loves a good challenge, so he’ll chew on this for a while before deciding I’m just pulling his leg. Although…” Renee’s velvety voice trailed off, and her gaze drifted back to the line of fruit trees where Ven’s drone had disappeared. “It is true, you know. Vengeance is lonely and hurting from different events that took people from him whom he cared about a great deal. Some of those wounds are centuries old, but others are far more recent.”

  Liv swallowed and lowered her eyes, studying the toes of her boots, and wishing for the second time that the damn black hole would just appear beneath her feet and drag her into some void where she wouldn’t have to acknowledge her pain—or worse, Ven’s.

  “And,” Renee said, “I’m not helping matters right now. I’ve lived over two hundred and seventy years thanks to Vengeance’s care, and I love him. I don’t want to hurt him, but unlike him, humans were never meant to be immortal. I’m tired and have been for the last forty years. I asked Vengeance to allow me to start aging when I first came to my decision. I’ve had a good, full life. A wonderful life, really. I want to rest.”

  “Oh,” Liv breathed. “You’re ready to die.”

  “I know you don’t understand. You’re young. It’s difficult to imagine getting to the point where you recognize your life has been lived and it’s time to move on.” Renee smiled at her and lifted a shoulder. “Have you ever been in love, Liv?”

  Liv thought about it then slowly shook her head. She’d had lovers, and she’d certainly liked them, but in love? Allowing herself to be that vulnerable with another person seemed as impossible as ever becoming a
link.

  Renee sighed and ran her fingers along the ribbon woven into her braid. “I was married once. I met my husband shortly before I became Ven’s link, and we had fifteen wonderful years together. He was an excavator for the Greenmantle terraforming guild and helped lay the foundations for new civilizations on uninhabited planets. The Spire thought it had found a suitable planet for terraforming and human habitation, but a terrible storm fell on them and…” Renee paused and closed her eyes, inhaling a slow, deep breath that made her body shake.

  “I’m sorry,” Liv whispered.

  Renee opened her eyes again and offered her a small smile. “I had Ven to help me through my grief. But I’ve never stopped missing him. That’s the thing about love, I suppose. It marks us like a scar, and it can be beautiful or ugly, but it’s always there. I’m ready to be with him again. One day, hopefully years and years from now, you might understand.”

  Renee was right. Liv didn’t understand. She’d first faced death as a child of seven, but what she’d survived had seemed a far crueler fate. She’d never really get over it, and the scars she’d suffered had changed her, but these scars hadn’t been caused by love. An AI—not unlike Ven, but at the same time, unlike him in so many ways—had torn into her mind, invaded it, invaded her. It didn’t matter that neither she nor her friends, her adopted sisters, had never been physically touched. The rape of their minds had damaged them all.

  “I haven’t regretted my decision to allow my body to age as it should have long ago,” Renee said. “But I do have one regret. For Ven’s sake, I hope his next link is the one. I’m his ninth link, and none of us were what all AIs ultimately seek.”

  “And what does an AI ultimately seek?” Liv asked. She already knew the answer, but it wasn’t generally known beyond the telepath Guild. As a child, she’d thought it romantic and daydreamed of being part of that most-coveted relationship. But a Journeyman Engineer wouldn’t know how a Spire Queen came into being, so she focused on mimicking curiosity.