While Bas could damage or destroy the sentinels as they boarded, he couldn’t do much else to them, and he’d eventually lose because even if he managed to destroy each sentinel now boarding him, the other ships would just send more. Soon, they’d rescue the kidnapped telepaths or at least retrieve their bodies. Once that was done, the warships would reduce Bas to base particles.
“Come on, Bas,” Liv taunted. “Tell me what you’re up to… for old time’s sake.”
Her telepathy continued to hunt him, mentally pinning him down as he wiggled and fought to escape her probing mind. But she hadn’t come this far to allow him to escape.
Charging past all his defenses, she rushed into his primary core. It was dark and turbulent, a maelstrom of emotions that swirled in a dangerous vortex. She waded in deeper.
Rather than expressing any fear that she’d infiltrated his primary core, Bas’s maniacal laughter greeted her. “I’m glad you’re here, Hayley. I wanted you to see this.”
For the first time since confronting him, she faltered. Why the hell would he be glad she’d arrived to destroy him?
“This is just a body, Hayley. A caterpillar’s awkward and unwieldy body. But now, I’ll emerge from my chrysalis, stretch my wings, and expand across the entire empire.”
The rogue’s mind extended before her. The sparks and flashes of light that represented his emotions and memories were a twisted mess of chaotic surges and impulses, but she caught a hint of ambition snaking through his ten thousand thoughts. She chased it, pouncing upon the cluster of memories that had lit up as brightly as a supernova at his mention of expanding across the entire empire.
His plan unfolded in her mind, and she grabbed Ven’s arm and yelled, “Vengeance! Target Basilisk’s hangar bays and destroy his fighters! Now!”
Ven immediately obeyed her command. While Bas was distracted with this new onslaught, she launched her own mental attack. Digging metaphysical claws deep into his primary core, she tore and shredded everything in her path.
At first, she unraveled whatever bit of code was floating directly in front of her until she realized Bas was tossing unimportant memories and data points at her in an effort to slow her down.
Undaunted, she dug deeper, burrowing for vital systems, and finally stumbled upon the primary and secondary subroutines that controlled the coolant system for his power stations. And there, she found key-codes for all the relays that regulated the flow of bio-gel to his primary core. Emboldened, she attacked the oxygen recirculation system that fed the biological parts of his brain. She’d starve and suffocate the bastard to death.
At last, Bas was dying, and he’d die by her hand.
But Liv had no time to celebrate. Thousands of pre-programed fighters had already escaped his hangar bays and were streaking toward the Archive Node.
“Vengeance, alert every ship in the region that we need to eradicate those fighters. All of them. He was carrying ten times the normal number of fighters. The other rogues must have given them to him. They can’t reach the Archive Node, because if even one does, he can infiltrate it and take over every AI in the Spire.” A splitting headache made her wince so she rubbed at her temples and blinked spots from her vision.
“Liv!” A worried drone was suddenly standing in front of her, gripping her shoulders and studying her carefully.
A thin, warm trickle of blood ran over her lips, and she ran her fingers over it, blinking at the red stain on her hand as if she had no idea where this blood could be coming from. “I’m fine, Ven,” she lied. “Keep your mind on the battle.”
“I’m an AI. I can multitask. You’ve overtaxed yourself, and you need to back off. Let me finish this.”
An airy laugh passed through her bloody lips. “Those fighters are all carrying Bas’s self-proliferation code. If even one of them gets to the Archive, countless AIs will be infected before they know what hits them. Bas will kill the host AI and take over the body. You can’t fight this alone, Ven.”
“He’ll spread like a virus,” he breathed.
“Yes.” Liv glanced up at the bridge’s energy webs, too exhausted to use her telepathy to determine what was going on with the battle outside. “Don’t allow any of those fighters to breach your hull. Unlike the rogues’ sentinels, those fighters have been modified. They’re a danger to more than just the Archive Node.”
Ven nodded and told her, “I just relayed that information to all ships in the vicinity as well as Spire Command.”
“Good,” Liv sighed. She blinked a few times until the energy webs came back into focus. The firefight outside wasn’t exactly reassuring. Ten warships huddled around the Archive to protect it while their own fighters engaged in battle with the vessels Bas had dispatched. “Did the Spire sentinels manage to get any of the kidnapped telepaths to safety?”
“Five were found alive, and the sentinels got them to escape pods,” Ven told her, his voice still betraying his concern for her.
“Good,” she said again, her legs feeling weaker as she struggled to remain upright. “In that case, blow this asshole back to hell.”
“Gladly,” Ven growled.
While Vengeance was preoccupied, Liv forced herself back into the fight. She locked onto the nearest enemy fighter and sought out one of the incendiaries in its hold. A mental push armed and detonated it.
One down, a few thousand more to go. Battling this many fighters was like trying to shoot down a swarm of twenty thousand biting Sarwinian gnats in close quarters.
More of the enemy fighters were vaporized as newly arrived warships took up the fight. Slowly, the tide of battle began to turn. Liv took down five more fighters then swayed on her feet. She tried to latch onto the next fighter, but she wasn’t quite sure she reached it.
“Liv…” Vengeance’s worried voice penetrated her fog of exhaustion.
“I’m fine,” she murmured.
The salty, metallic taste of blood filled her mouth.
“You’re done,” he told her. “Rest now.”
Liv tried to shake her head, but she wasn’t sure if her neck actually moved or not. “I can’t…”
“The battle is over,” he interrupted. “You’re safe now, Liv.”
She forced her eyes open and met his, those dark brown eyes she’d loved her entire life. “Safe,” she whispered.
“Yes, Liv,” Vengeance’s drone whispered back. “He’s gone. You did it.”
She let her eyes close again, and her head fell against his chest. “No,” she murmured. “That was the problem all along. We had to rescue each other.”
Ven’s strong arms lifted her from the ground, but she didn’t ask him where he was taking her, and she didn’t care.
She’d returned to him.
And she would never leave him again.
Liv wasn’t surprised that she awoke in a medical ward, but she was no longer aboard Vengeance. She panicked and sat up, pulling at the blanket over her body, but a familiar hand rested over hers and stopped her.
“Ven,” she gasped.
His drone had been crying.
Ven swallowed and inhaled a ragged breath. “Renee…”
“Oh god,” Liv groaned.
“We knew it was coming. At least I got her home first.”
Liv looked around the room then twisted on the bed so she could look out the window. The pale turquoise sky and one of Teutorigos’s moons looked back at her. “How long have I been out?”
Ven laced his fingers with hers and kissed her hand before telling her, “Two days. I’ve helped you sleep peacefully. You needed to allow your body to heal.”
“And the Triumvirate?”
“They want to talk to us, as we suspected… and we still have to arrange Renee’s funeral. I didn’t want to go through that without you.”
Liv placed her free hand on his cheek and shook her head. “You don’t have to go through anything on your own anymore. She believed in a life after this one, you know.”
Ven’s lips turned up at the corners
, and he shrugged. “You humans have all sorts of beliefs that make no sense to me.”
“It doesn’t have to make sense,” Liv countered. “That’s why it’s a belief. It’s faith, Ven.”
“It’s a superstition, Olivia,” he insisted.
“And if you were to lose me? Would you really rather believe I’m gone forever?”
“I’ve already lost you once,” he reminded her. “And it damn near killed me.”
Liv stroked his hand absentmindedly and mumbled, “What I did to destroy Bas… it should have killed me. He was a much more powerful AI than the scout ship Agrona.”
“You already know you’re a powerful telepath, Liv. You were bred…”
“No,” Liv interrupted. “I know about my own history. I know what’s in my file. And we both know it should have killed me.”
Ven glanced down at their hands, woven together tightly, and relented. “Yeah. Maybe we just got lucky.”
“Or,” Liv countered, “maybe we know how to rely on each other, how to diffuse our own trauma to minimize it. Maybe our faith in each other carried us through.”
Ven grunted at her but smiled. “Don’t start with this perfect compatibility shit.”
Liv arched an eyebrow at him. “Stop being such a pain in the ass then. I’m still here, and you don’t have a logical explanation for why. I know it has to be driving you crazy.”
“After this week, let’s lay off calling anything crazy for a while,” he teased.
“Deal,” she said. “As long as you accept that Renee was right about us all along.”
Ven rose from his chair by her bed so he could sit next to her, embracing her, and as she inhaled deeply to take in his sweet, musky scent, he stroked her hair and whispered in her ear, “Olivia, Renee was almost always right about everything. And I’ve known all along she was right about you.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
If she hadn’t been so nervous about appearing before the Triumvirate, Liv would have enjoyed exploring the vast capital city of Teutorigos, seat of the Spire Empire’s power. But since her fate was about to be determined by a handful of strangers, she only cast a few glances out the clear sides of the flight-car as it sped toward Spire Tower, a tall, intimidating structure of gleaming silver metal and elegant, airy arches.
The immense tower twisted impossibly into the clouds, its vast base stretching wide enough to allow entire space stations to fit within it. Liv had never actually been in Spire Tower before, but now, she wondered how deep its roots dug into the ground of Teutorigos and if it contained the most dangerous criminals in the Spire in some secret dungeon… dangerous criminals like Harper.
Through Ven’s memories, she’d watched sentinels bearing the imperial insignia on their armored chest boarding his warship and escorting a heavily sedated Harper away.
Vengeance laced his fingers through hers, and she looked up at him, confused.
“You’re fidgeting. I’ve already promised you they won’t force you into their servitude.”
“I know,” Liv replied quietly. “It’s not just me, though… they have Harper.”
“My mother informed me that Harper will be brought before the Triumvirate during our session,” Ven explained. “You’ll have the chance to learn her fate, and I’ll do what I can to ensure it’s a comfortable one.”
Liv found little reassurance in Ven’s words. His mention of a “session” sounded way too much like an interrogation or worse—a trial. She’d lived in fear of discovery and being brought before a Triumvirate for so long that it felt like a literal nightmare, one more in a series of nightmares she’d been forced to live lately. But at least she had Vengeance. The girl she’d grown up with and whose friendship had saved her own sanity had no one to defend her before the Triumvirate.
The Spire was ruled by twenty-six Triumvirates spread across the empire. Each Triumvirate was made up of a Cynbel Hive Queen, her Keeva-level telepath, and a human Caderyn. These were ancient names that reflected the person’s original function: war chief, kind-one, and battle king. Shortly after the birth of the Spire Empire, it had been the telepaths who had bridged the gap between AIs and humans, ending a war that otherwise may have destroyed both sides. Liv’s only hope was that this Keeva would do the same for her and Harper, because the young women desperately needed a peacekeeper right now.
Vengeance rose as the flight-car swooped under one of the tower’s graceful arches and came to a halt above a landing site. When the vehicle touched down with a slight bump, the doors opened, and twenty massive sentinels waited outside to escort them to the Triumvirate’s chamber.
There was no escaping the Spire. Liv allowed Vengeance to lead her from the flight-car and guide her deeper into the tower with the imperial sentinels keeping pace.
Her journey ended in a room void of any furniture save three thrones situated high on a dais in the north end of the room. When they walked in, the floor, walls and ceiling were all a uniform black, but they soon shimmered as colors swirled in the dark depths. It was only then Liv discovered she was standing on a massive energy web. The glittering colors transformed into the whole of the Spire Empire—a vast, breathtaking star map. Its beauty took her breath away.
But more than that, its vastness made her head spin. “It’s like standing in the center of the universe and looking out in all directions,” she whispered to Ven.
“I’m fairly certain the universe doesn’t have a center,” a woman’s voice answered, her tone light and amused.
Liv jerked her attention back to the three thrones to find them now occupied.
The woman who had spoken smiled warmly at her. “I’m Keeva Elissa. And this is Cynbel Victorious, Hive Queen of Teutorigos.” Elissa nodded toward a young woman, who wasn’t a young woman at all. As the hive queen of Teutorigos, she was older than Vengeance. The Cynbel’s drone had long dark hair and luminous green eyes edged with velvet dark lashes in a perfectly shaped oval face. She sat on the throne with quiet assurance as she looked down on Liv.
“Olivia Hawthorne, or should I call you Hayley?” Cynbel Victorious asked.
Liv had no idea what the right answer was. She never wanted to be Hayley again. That girl had died and had been resurrected as Olivia Hawthorne, whose life had only recently been patched back together.
“Liv,” she responded. “Please.”
“Liv,” Victorious said, “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”
Keeva Elissa smiled at her again and motioned toward the man on her other side. “This is Caderyn Kenrick, Victorious’s battle king and overseer of Teutorigos.”
The stern-faced man, who looked close to forty but could have been a hundred and forty, studied Liv for a moment then nodded and addressed Vengeance. “We will begin once the Nuallan telepath Harper is brought before us.”
Liv and Ven exchanged uneasy glances because rulers were not usually expected to wait on the arrival of a prisoner, unless that prisoner was causing trouble. And they both knew Harper’s temperament well.
As if to confirm their suspicions, a familiar howling and cursing from a side corridor filled the chamber. Moments later, Harper was dragged into the room between two sentinels.
Caderyn Kenrick arched an eyebrow at Harper then laughed, destroying his earlier fierce demeanor. “If this is her sedated, I don’t think I’d want to meet her in full command of all her abilities.”
Keeva Elissa looked somewhat appalled as she addressed the newcomer. “Harper, we are not your enemy. You’re safe here. Calm down.”
Harper stopped cursing the sentinels long enough to scowl at the Keeva.
Liv was mortified. “Harper, just shut up and listen. I don’t think they’re going to hurt us.”
“Of course they’re not going to cause any permanent damage to their valuable new weapons,” Harper scoffed. “But that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to make our lives miserable.”
Liv speared Harper with a sharp look and continued aloud. “The rogues need to be stopped. The
y’re growing in number and abilities. The truth is the Spire needs the surviving Nuallan telepaths, and we need the AIs we were designed to complement.”
“Maybe you need an AI to hold your hand, but I don’t,” Harper snapped.
“It’s not weakness that drove me to link with Vengeance,” Liv argued. “It was anything but. You know this better than anyone.”
“I know you love him,” Harper shot back. “And I can’t trust your judgment because of it.”
Liv sighed, but every time she looked at the woman who had chosen a life as a pirate rather than risking a future as an AI’s servant, she saw the terrified seven-year-old girl who’d held her hand as they walked down a gangplank into a dark and empty world. And she could never abandon that child.
“You’re right,” Liv said. “At first, I feared him as much as you fear all AIs, but the truth is with Vengeance I’m far stronger than I ever was alone. And our partnership will allow us to kill more rogues, which is something even you should be able to support.”
“He forced you to become his link, just like Basilisk!” Harper cried.
“No,” Liv assured her. “Vengeance was willing to let me stay on as his engineer even if I couldn’t be his link. He does love me, Harper. And he reminded me that my past doesn’t have to define me for the rest of my life.” Liv glanced up at the Triumvirate and took a slow, deep breath. “I just hope I’m allowed to continue serving as his link.”
Cynbel Victorious folded her hands in her lap and stared directly at Liv. “You and Vengeance must both be evaluated for mental health, stability, and battle readiness. After we’ve analyzed those reports, we’ll discuss your future in more detail. Too many lives are on the line to risk doing otherwise.”
Beside her, Vengeance stiffened. “Liv and I have the highest rogue kill count of any Spire warship. But even more important to me is my promise to Liv. I told her if she couldn’t handle being my link, I’d give her a safe place to stay for however long it takes her to heal.”
Victorious laughed. “Oh, my son. If I know you at all, I imagine you promised her far more than a safe place. But don’t worry. I have no plan to separate the Spire’s flagship from his destined link.”
Vengeance (Warships of the Spire Book 1) Page 21