Liv ducked around one of the landing struts then under the ship to look at the damage. A nasty hull breach stared back at her. She could patch it with some of the spare panels, but the power conduits underneath and the bio-circuitry with its protective gel were a mangled mess.
“If we were on a populated planet with a spaceport and supplies, yeah. But, Harper, I don’t have anything to work with here.”
“We’ll die from dehydration then,” Harper sighed. “If I call for help, we’ll have the Spire on us immediately… long before any of my friends can reach us. And we’d just pull them into the Spire’s path anyway.”
Liv nodded and leaned against the side of the ship. “I planned that jailbreak hoping to save your life, and instead, we’re both going to die.”
Harper offered her a crooked smile and shrugged. “Yeah, but it was a fun jailbreak.”
“Well, if you’re going to escape one of the most powerful warships in the Spire, you might as well do it with flair, right?” Liv joked.
Harper nodded seriously and leaned against the ship next to her. “Where do you think we are? If we’d been able to keep going… Liv, did you know we were heading toward Nualla?”
Liv flinched as she studied the brown rock wall of the canyon in front of them. Even hearing the name of the planet where they’d been born pained her. It had been a paradise, a safe space for them to grow, a place where they’d been loved. “They pulled everyone from the planet, you know,” she finally said. “No one lives there anymore.”
“It’s a shame,” Harper agreed. “It’s the most beautiful planet I’ve found in this universe. Where’s the new Telepath Breeding Program?”
Liv shook her head slowly and picked up her tool bag, not because she needed them but because she needed something to do. “The Spire is keeping it secret. No one knows, not even the Spire warships who will eventually need new links. They won’t risk another attack.”
“That’s stupid,” Harper muttered. “How can the warships form bonds with links if they’re not allowed to get to know them?”
Liv arched an eyebrow at her and retorted, “Since when do you care about the warships?”
“I don’t,” Harper corrected. “I care about those girls. And it sounds like some warship they don’t even know will just be forced onto them. After what happened to us, how can that not bother you?”
“Harper, it…” Liv trailed off as light from this solar system’s star reflected off something approaching them, something large enough to be visible while it was still in orbit. The massive object was soon silhouetted against the sun.
Harper stood up straighter and gasped. “A warship. Liv, hide!”
“Where?” Liv exclaimed. “There’s nowhere to hide, and the AI most likely pinpointed our ship already.”
Harper pulled on Liv’s arm, urging her away from the ship they’d stolen. “We’re in a canyon. There has to be a cave around.”
“Oh, brilliant idea… let’s trap ourselves inside a hole with no possible escape route,” Liv snapped.
The warship kept getting closer, its engines rumbling louder in the sky. It wouldn’t be long before it was close enough to strafe them if they didn’t get away from the stolen vessel.
“Liv, we have to get out of this canyon,” Harper insisted. “We don’t have time to strategize here. As soon as we’re in range, they’ll open fire, and we will die!”
She tugged on Liv’s arm again. Above them, the rhythmic purring of the warship’s engines grew into a roar, so Liv didn’t argue anymore. They were out of options. And they were out of time.
From his orbit in space, Vengeance prepared to launch three transports with a full complement of sentinels in each ship. As soon as he’d tracked the stolen ship to this planet and scanned to confirm his targets were here, he’d broadcast the new intel to the rest of the Spire hive-mind.
He hadn’t had a choice. The other AIs would have sensed a lie of this magnitude the next time he synced with the hive-mind. So he’d reported the incident to the Spire, leaving out Liv’s involvement, but outing Harper as a telepath and telling his superiors that he attempted to prevent the pirate’s escape but hadn’t wanted to risk killing his crewmember. That was at least partly true. He had believed Liv was Harper’s prisoner until they’d reached the hangar and used telepathy to escape. The Spire Triumvirate had immediately assumed his failure was due to the repairs and upgrades he’d been putting off for years, and they were insisting he return to Teutorigos to receive them.
This region’s Spire Queen had confirmed his orders—capture the rogue telepath alive and rescue his kidnapped crewmember. For now, Olivia Hawthorne’s secret was safe.
The AI Spire Queens had tacked an addendum to their command: Under no circumstances was he to allow the rogue telepath to escape him a second time. If he had to kill her to stop her, they wanted her body preserved and shipped to them as soon as possible to evaluate this new threat to Spire security. Apparently, the Spire Triumvirate was just as disturbed as he’d been about the possibility of telepaths operating on their own.
The entire experience was humiliating. He’d been outmaneuvered, and now he was being treated like a relic. That humiliation warred with other emotions though. The anger and betrayal were still there, but they were losing ground to another dominant emotion sparking though his primary core: excitement. Liv was on the planet below.
Surveying the barren planet, he merged the new data with the information already on the bridge’s energy webs. The downed transport ship’s location appeared, along with his three transports leaving alpha hangar bay. The visual aid was entirely for the benefit of his senior officers.
“ETA of the transports to the site of the stolen transport’s location,” Captain Welner demanded.
Ven’s drone actually rolled his eyes at the captain. Was the human blind? The information was right there on the screen. He answered the captain’s requests with direct, uninflected sentences. Nothing in the days since the drill had gone as he’d planned. He’d just had one of his rare arguments with Renee, who had been angry that he was sending down so many sentinels with the plan to capture Liv. He’d also made it clear he’d kill the pirate if he must.
Renee had launched into a tirade, and for the first time in over two hundred years, he’d severed their link. While she was momentarily speechless, his drone had stormed off to the bridge.
If the crew found it strange that his drone was there without his link, none of them were foolish enough to bring it up. They could obviously tell he was in a bad mood.
Ven’s drone folded his arms across his chest and scowled at the energy webs, ignoring everyone on the bridge as he attempted to will the mission to be over. He was doing a fine job, too, until something triggered a warning alarm on deck thirty-seven. His consciousness homed in on the alarm, even though he already knew what it was. There was only one thing stored on deck thirty-seven.
A life-pod had just been launched, and like all life-pods, it was designed so an AI couldn’t override its controls.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Vengeance muttered. He rubbed his forehead, wondering if, for the first time in his long life, he were truly developing a headache.
“Captain Welner,” he sighed. “I must inform you that I’ve lost another crewmember. Primary Link Renee has just used one of the life-pods to enter the planet’s atmosphere. I assume she’s attempting to reach the rogue telepath before my sentinels do.”
Before the captain or crew could respond, he spun around and marched from the bridge, prepping another transport for launch.
Chapter Fifteen
Footsteps echoed against stone outside the cave where she and Harper were hiding. They sounded light against the pebbles and dirt, and the two women backed farther away from the opening, hoping they’d be able to lose their pursuer in the darkness. It was foolish. They were stranded on a barren planet with nowhere to go, but neither woman was ready to die.
Liv froze when their pursuer reached ou
t to her… in her mind.
“Hayley, please stop. I just want to talk to you. I slipped away from Ven to reason with you, but we won’t have much time. He’ll be here in minutes.”
“Renee,” Liv whispered.
Harper shook her head quickly, indicating they shouldn’t trust a woman who’d served as a link to a warship for over two centuries. But Liv couldn’t force her legs to obey her friend’s command. She glanced over her shoulder toward the mouth of the cave where Renee stood, peering in at them.
The older telepath had called her Hayley. It had been so long since she’d actually heard her real name, it seemed surreal, as if Renee were talking to someone else. And hearing her name, her real name, had immobilized her, paralyzed her with uncertainty and fear and sorrow.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” Renee asked.
Harper pulled on Liv’s arm, but she still refused to budge. It would be pointless, anyway. They couldn’t escape her.
“Right about what?” Liv asked weakly.
“Who you are,” Renee answered. “Or at least, who you used to be.”
“Liv,” Harper hissed. “I will leave your stubborn ass here if you don’t move it. Now!”
“Amelia,” Renee sighed. “I don’t know what—”
“That is not my name, old woman,” Harper snapped.
Renee held up her hands, showing the younger woman she had no intention of fighting her. “You broke his heart, you know,” Renee told Liv.
Liv flinched and shook her head slowly. “I helped an old friend escape execution. And he was going to deliver her to her death.”
“She broke our laws, Liv. That was her choice to make,” Renee countered.
“Choice?” Liv scoffed. “You don’t know a damn thing about our choices.”
“You’re right. But I would like to know what happened to all of you. And you did return, Hayley. Out of all the Warships in the Spire, you came back to Vengeance. Why?”
Liv gritted her teeth and inhaled a slow, deep breath. Renee stepped into the cave, closer to both women, and Harper tugged on Liv’s arm again. “I don’t know,” Liv finally admitted. “I guess I wanted to make sure he was okay.”
Renee tilted her head and crossed her arms. “And is he?”
“You ask a lot of questions,” Harper interrupted. “Are you here to interrogate us or turn us in?”
“I’m here to find out how the most joyful and powerful little girl I’ve ever met became so scared that she erased her own identity and created an illusion of a different life. And to find out why she wants that life to remain hidden from the AI she still loves.”
“Because…” Liv’s whisper fell from her lips, and she closed her eyes as the intrusive, painful memories of Basilisk invading her mind, attempting to force a link between them, resurfaced. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks, but the helmet of her suit prevented her from being able to wipe them away.
“Olivia,” Renee sighed. “Show me. Let me see what you went through. I may be able to help begin your healing.”
Liv squeezed her eyes closed even harder, not wanting to share her mind with another living soul. But if this was the only way Renee would understand the hell she and the other girls had survived, and maybe even give her and Harper the chance to keep running, she’d do it. Her mind opened, and her telepathic gift, or curse—she no longer knew which it was—reached back toward Renee. As those images and emotions stampeded through her mind with an intense ferocity, they rushed across the link to Renee, who gasped and moaned, “No.”
Liv opened her eyes and caught the older woman clutching her stomach with one arm, the other hand pressed against the faceplate of her helmet.
“I don’t want an AI in my mind ever again,” Liv said quietly. “Not even Ven.”
“Oh, Hayley,” Renee sobbed. “All of you… you were just children. I will do everything in my power to protect you, even from Ven. You have my word.”
“Thank you. But I am willing to surrender myself if you tell Ven you couldn’t find Harper,” Liv offered.
Both women protested at the same time, Renee insisting she couldn’t lie to him and Harper insisting she wouldn’t allow her to sacrifice herself like that.
“You wouldn’t necessarily be lying if you let Harper go now. Once she’s out of our sight, she’ll have escaped.”
Renee let her hand fall from her faceplate and gestured to the cave wall beside her. “She’ll die here!”
“And she’ll die if you drag her back onboard!” Liv yelled.
Renee gasped again and spun around, facing a phantom outside the cave before Liv could even hear him approach.
“Damn, that was fast,” Renee said as she glanced over her shoulder. A noise outside the cave drew their attention back outside.
“Ven,” she called, “give me a few moments. I need to handle this.”
“You’re attempting to reason with potentially dangerous criminals,” Ven argued, but Renee cut him off.
“Are you serious? Liv is a dangerous criminal?”
The tall, dark metal form of one of his sentinels appeared at the mouth of the cave, and Liv could have sworn it was somehow glaring at her.
“She is now,” he said, his voice matching the cold, inhuman appearance of the sentinel. “She stole Spire property, aided in the escape of a prisoner of the Spire, and resisted arrest.”
Renee waved him off and insisted, “None of that makes her dangerous.”
“She neutralized five of my sentinels. Five! However, I have a full complement of sentinels waiting outside,” Ven warned Liv and Harper. “And the authority to shoot to kill if you run.”
Liv crossed her arms irritably and shot back, “You’re threatening to kill me? Now who’s the dangerous one?”
“Only if you attempt to evade capture,” Ven retorted. “So I suggest you both surrender now.”
“Right,” Liv scoffed. “Because being killed by the Spire is a much better alternative.
Harper shrugged and offered, “The Spire is at least quick and efficient about it. No telling what this asshole will do if he gets his hands on us.”
“He has weapons,” Liv pointed out. “He doesn’t need to get his hands on us.”
“Ven,” Renee tried, “perhaps if you promise not to hurt them, they’ll cooperate.”
“Um…” Harper stammered. “Any chance you’ll believe I’m trying to kidnap her again?”
Renee laughed, and the red lights on the sentinel’s face twinkled as if he were both surprised and angered by Harper’s levity in their hopeless situation.
“Put your weapon down,” he ordered as his cannons powered up and he directed them at Harper, who grunted at him but placed the plasma rifle she’d been carrying on the ground.
“Renee,” he continued. “Return to the life-pod and the ship.”
“No,” Renee interrupted. “I’m staying with these girls until they’re both safely aboard.”
“Renee—” he barked, but Renee interrupted him again.
“Even the pirate isn’t as dangerous as you think. They won’t hurt me. And I would like to—”
“Forget it,” Ven grumbled.
His sentinels stormed into the cave, and one grabbed Harper and lifted her from the ground. For a brief moment, Liv was seven years old again, a small, defenseless child who’d watched helplessly as similar monsters stole her and her friends from the safety and peace of their home.
“Put her down!” Liv screamed, and as a second sentinel picked her up to haul her away, she lashed out at them with her mind, briefly disabling the sentinels before she felt the skillful precision of someone lashing back, shutting off her control of the sentinels and forcing the world around her to darken as she slipped into a dreamless sleep.
Liv awoke in a room aboard Vengeance, but she wasn’t in the brig yet. Surely, her imprisonment was coming. Not surprisingly, Harper wasn’t with her. She sat up slowly and rubbed her eyes as she tried to figure out how she’d wound up here and how Renee had forced her to
pass out. She eventually gave up and just waited for one of the sentinels to come for her, but when the door finally opened, Ven’s drone, his handsome, humanlike drone, stood in the hallway instead. Liv swallowed and sank in her chair, feeling so much smaller than she was.
Ven looked her over quickly and curtly asked, “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head slowly. “No,” she breathed.
“Then follow me. I’ve notified the Spire that you and the pirate are in my custody again.”
Liv rose from the chair, but her legs seemed weak and shaky. She could handle whatever punishment the Spire dealt out—she’d been through worse—but Ven’s obvious pain and disappointment threatened to destroy what few defenses she had left.
She obeyed, though, and followed him into the hallway as he began the long walk back to the prison cells. Liv watched his back for a few minutes, fumbling with words in her mind before allowing any to spill out. When they did, they formed a simple apology. “I’m so sorry, Ven.”
He slowed briefly then resumed his brisk pace. “It’s easy to be sorry after you’ve been captured.”
“No,” Liv argued. “It’s easy to be sorry when you’re actually sorry.”
Ven suddenly stopped and turned on her, but she’d been following too closely and walked into him. He grabbed her arms to steady her then pushed her back as if he could force the emotional distance between them as well. “You betrayed me,” he hissed.
Liv’s eyes stung with tears, but she wouldn’t look away. “I know. But piracy in the Spire is punishable by death, and I couldn’t let you deliver her to the Spire Command. She was my best friend growing up, Ven.”
Ven threw his hands up and exclaimed, “You never talked to me. You never asked me to make a different decision.”
“Because you wouldn’t have!” Liv exclaimed back. “You always do exactly what you’re supposed to.”
He narrowed his eyes at her and asked, “Liv, given your circumstances, it’s time to tell me the truth. How do you know what I always do?”
He was clearly fishing for something about her past. Liv shuffled her feet nervously. “I studied your history. I work here… or I did.”
Vengeance (Warships of the Spire Book 1) Page 11