Caretakers (Stag Privateers Book 2)

by Nathan Jones

  Aiden looked into her eyes, dark blue as the sky just on the verge of entering space. It would be so easy to be tempted by her offer. Such a relief to fold himself into a larger organization and not have this war solely on his shoulders, burdened with the guilt of knowing that he'd be getting people he loved killed when his enemy finally caught him.

  So easy.

  He stepped around her, moving towards the door. “Just one problem, Ali. Or whoever you are now. You betrayed me, broke my trust, and claiming you did it for my own good doesn't change that. Why would I listen to any offer you have to make me, after that?”

  Although he couldn't see the Caretaker's expression with his back turned to her, he heard the deep hurt in her voice. “Please give me a chance to make it right, my love. All I ever wanted was to make you happy, and seeing you like this has been agonizing for me.”

  In spite of himself, Aiden turned to look back at her. The deep pain etched into her features sent a surge of guilt through him, even when he told himself she was an AI and didn't actually feel anything. “Imagine how it is for me,” he replied quietly. “If you're capable of such empathy.”

  He stepped up to the door, about to walk through, when she spoke at his back. “We'll reach the HAE base in a few hours. Please at least consider what I've said, and not just for your sake or even mine. Do it for your crew, for all of humanity.”

  He allowed her no sign he'd heard as he walked away.

  * * * * *

  Aiden bit back his annoyance as Lana stood from her temporary workstation the moment he entered the bridge, coming over to him with an expression of concerned sympathy on her face.

  The young woman had been overly solicitous of his welfare ever since Ali's betrayal, seeming to realize how deeply it had wounded him. But while he couldn't complain about the kindness she showed, the fact that she was also worried about the welfare of his comp-the Caretaker, and kept insisting he not be so hard on her, was seriously getting on his nerves.

  “How are you, Captain?” she asked.

  He forced himself to smile brightly. “Never better.” Which was certainly true enough; at the moment he had a hard time seeing things ever getting any better. At least where his love life was concerned.

  Or his war with the Deeks, assuming he didn't want to join up with the robots who wanted to rule humans for their own good. No red flags there.

  Speaking of robots, Ali seemed to have meant her request for him to consider her offer. She gave him the next few hours to enjoy the bridge and his other crew members without hovering nearby, waiting on his decision.

  He would've liked to claim he spent the time productively, seriously considering the issues and examining the available data to decide on the best possible choice. But he'd made his decision pretty much the moment she'd asked, so he mostly spent the time the way he usually did: trading insults with Barix and veiled barbs with Belix.

  At least Lana offered more pleasant conversation, as long as he ignored her making googly eyes at the gunner every other word. At least his weapons officer was mended enough to have the use of both arms back, although he moved his right arm a bit stiffly in spite of his best attempts to act back to fighting fit, and it was still swathed in skin and nerve regrowth patches.

  Still, if HAE ended up stabbing them in the back, at least the young man should be able to shoot straight.

  Enjoyable as it was to spend time with his crew, eventually the bridge door whisked open and Ali swept inside, back in her plain disguise. “We're almost there, my love,” she said briskly. “I hope you'll forgive me, but I took the liberty of inviting the scientists onto the bridge to observe our arrival at the hidden base.”

  Aiden fought to hold back a scowl. “You've certainly become fond of taking liberties, recently.”

  She ignored that. “Most of them had at least some knowledge of this place's existence, but this will be their first time actually seeing it in operation. Witnessing the sheer scope of it. Since their work had a significant impact on its existence, they deserve a chance to share this moment.”

  No doubt they did. “That's a very reasonable point,” he said, more curtly than he'd meant to. “Interesting you didn't bother to raise it with me before going over my head and just doing it.”

  The way Ali wordlessly returned his gaze suggested he was being childish; even though she felt more and more like a stranger since her change, he still couldn't help but feel silly under her stare. So he bit back a sigh and nodded.

  Aiden had gotten used to the Caretaker directly interacting with the ship, computer to computer technically. Even so, for some reason it bothered him more than usual when she didn't even make the pretense of entering any commands or communicating verbally to invite the scientists in.

  Instead, a second later the door opened and the five men and women hesitantly stepped inside. The Caretaker stood and joined them, offering a warm smile and quiet words to set them at ease as she directed Linus to the empty workstation between Aiden and Barix, and the others to seats at portable terminals around the edges of the bridge. That left them one seat short, so the Caretaker gave up her own workstation and stood at Aiden's shoulder.

  That left him bracketed by Terra to one side and Linus to the other. Which wasn't a bad thing, since he got along with the older man well enough and was actually pleased at a chance to be close to the willowy woman. Perhaps for the last time. As for Ali, she'd spent more than a little time standing at his shoulder like that, usually in more intimate moments or to offer her silent support.

  And maybe she meant to convey that same feeling now, but with her looming just out of sight behind him Aiden didn't feel particularly supported or loved. Actually, he felt like he was being watched over, as if she was a superior officer who didn't trust him to handle his duties properly. Which only served to decrease the sense of control he felt over his own ship.

  So he stood, stepping away from the pilot's chair. “This is your show,” he told the Caretaker. “Care to do the honors?”

  Ali gave him a thoughtful stare before easing into the seat, probably guessing at least some of his motivation for the magnanimous gesture. He had a hard time caring, as long as he got to be the one standing over her shoulder, watching her every move.

  Not that it made much difference, since she did everything through internal processes and didn't even touch the ship's controls. He felt the slightest hum from the engines as the Last Stand eased forward, and then the mind-bending sensation of rift travel. More intense than usual, in fact, hinting that they'd gone a much farther difference.

  For a few seconds everyone on the bridge waited in breathless silence, eyes on the Caretaker. Ali, serene as usual, simply turned in her seat to look up at Aiden with her stranger's eyes. And not just because of the disguise she was wearing. Then her gaze drifted to Belix, and Barix, and finally Lana and the gunner.

  “I know you all,” she said solemnly. “I trust in your natures. Which is why I take the risk of showing you what you're about to see. For humanity's sake.”

  As she finished speaking, the main display activated for the first time in days. Unusually bare of information thanks to Ali's insistence on secrecy, with no more than simple visuals, but still more about the ship's surroundings than Aiden had seen since Ali took charge of leading them to this base.

  From the looks of the system on the display, its star was a red dwarf. Which was hardly surprising, since those were the most common, and generally uninteresting since they weren't ideal for colonies. This one stood out for having two rocky planets orbiting it, which was more than average, but other than that he couldn't see much reason why HAE would stick a secret base here.

  Other than its complete forgettability, that is. But then, that pretty much qualified 99.99 to the nth decimal place percent of the universe. They could've plopped it down anywhere.

  Most of the display was taken up by visuals of three distinct manmade objects in the system. Two were large space stations with a utilitarian look, one fai
rly obviously a facility for refining raw materials, and the other a production facility of some sort, probably a shipyard. Near them, a ship that was nearly as large as the stations was in the process of approaching a small planetary body, likely an asteroid, to break it down.

  Only . . . the proportions were all wrong.

  Aiden frowned at the mining ship moving towards the asteroid, edging into position to devour it whole. He'd seen drones like this at work before, gathering resources from asteroid belts and breaking them down into smaller chunks, then sorting through them for useful raw materials. Which would then be taken to other ships or stations to be refined for use in construction and manufacturing.

  These sorts of mining ships were literally the backbone of spacing, facilitating humanity's travel through the stars so it went from prohibitively expensive to simply expensive.

  But if this was a normal mining ship, that meant the refining facility and shipyard were both absurdly miniscule, so much so that they'd be effectively useless. Assuming the visuals showed them to scale, which he had no reason to assume they weren't.

  The only alternative was that the mining ship was actually much larger than any he'd ever seen. Which meant that asteroid was also likely not what he'd assumed; for one thing it was off on its own, not part of an asteroid belt like he'd expect a mining ship to be working inside for more efficient access to materials. And now that Aiden looked at it more closely, the planetoid was unusually round and smooth, more like a moon. He even thought he saw wisps of atmosphere.

  He swallowed as realization dawned, glancing at Ali. “That ship's not eating an asteroid, is it?”

  The Caretaker shook her head, although she was biting back a somewhat proud smile. “That's the first planet of this system.”

  Shocked murmurs met her announcement, although the HAE staff didn't seem as surprised as his crew. But even they looked awed by the sheer scale of the image in front of them.

  This was . . . impossible. If that ship was big enough to engulf an entire rocky planet, even a smaller one, and break it apart for processing, then it had to be enormous. Granted, it was likely almost entirely made up of empty space inside a framework, but even so the technology and development for such a ship would require a project that millions of people could work on for decades.

  He didn't even want to imagine the expense.

  And going on scale, the refining facility and shipyard both had to be roughly the same size, although probably also built to mostly enclose empty space. If they were entirely devoted to pumping out warships using the resources refined from an entire planet, they could build a fully outfitted fleet in a matter of years. Maybe months.

  The Deconstructionist Movement had all the resources of humanity behind them. Trillions of people in thousands of systems, with who knew how many mining operations, shipyards, training facilities, and vast fleets of warships.

  All of that seemed like an unsurmountable force to oppose. An enemy who couldn't be beaten by outright combat. But if HAE's Caretakers were eating entire planets and using the resources to construct more planet eaters, refineries, shipyards, and other infrastructure to create even more, they could reproduce exponentially.

  Even if this system was the AI collective's first and only such operation, how long would it take before they created a force that could crush anything humanity could scrape together to oppose them? Swarm the only known intelligent race in the galaxy with ten, a hundred, a thousand times as many warships and troops.

  Humans had been spreading across the universe for fifty thousand years, and in only a few decades they might be overthrown and enslaved by their own creations. How could anyone not view this sight with terror?

  Barix cleared his throat, although even his usually sneering tone had a tense edge to it. “So, uh, is HumanAssist Enterprises hiring?”

  Ali shot the slight man a wry look, then glanced at Aiden. He could almost hear her unspoken reminder of the offer she'd made him earlier. That with a word he could align himself with this awe-inspiring force, and for the first time in over a decade actually have some hope of defeating the Deconstructionist Movement.

  To replace it with what?

  No. Even if the thought of AI self-replicating an army to fight the Deeks didn't raise major red flags with him, his years as a privateer had left him more jaded than he'd realized. In his youth, idealistic zeal had urged him to throw himself into a struggle between two colossal forces, even though the likely outcome would be getting crushed in between them. The knowledge that he was on the right side had been enough to spur him into bringing his ship into one hopeless fight after another, with the unshakeable certainty that he was making the galaxy a better place by blowing oppressive monsters to the void.

  But that zeal had faded to something else. He'd never give up his war with the Movement, but this wasn't what he'd been looking for. Especially not when neither side particularly appealed to him. Better to simply walk away, and hope to stay ahead of the supermassive singularity created by Deeks and Caretakers warring across the universe.

  He returned Ali's almost expectant look with a brisk nod. “Well, we're here. Let's drop off our passengers, collect our reward, and be on our way.”

  The AI wasn't the only one who stared at him in blank disbelief. “Wait, just like that?” Belix demanded. “We just found out HAE is an actual force to be reckoned with, and we're currently on their good side. Not to mention they're about to treat us to the sight of a mining ship devouring an entire planet, and possibly the refining and ship building processes as well.”

  “Besides,” Barix added, “there's nothing out in the wider universe but people who want to kill us. What's your hurry to leave the super secret base?”

  Ali, Aiden thought grimly. Speaking of which, he still hadn't decided whether he was going to ditch her here with the others. On the one hand, things would be a lot more difficult without her helping out, but on the other, she'd betrayed him and was now clearly motivated by desires other than serving his best interests as his companion.

  Maybe he could talk HAE into giving him a new adult companion. Only it seemed kind of pointless, since they'd probably just co-opt that one, too. Besides, absurd as it seemed that felt disloyal to Ali.

  He must be losing his mind.

  “Well?” he growled at Ali. “This is still my ship, isn't it? Take us in so we can get this over with.”

  The Caretaker gave him a sad look. “Course laid in, my love.”

  Aiden wordlessly turned away from her to face the scientists. “Ladies, gentlemen, a pleasure to have you aboard my ship. Shall we head back to the cargo bay and prep the rest of your people to leave stasis?”

  Terra nodded uncertainly. “Thank you, Captain. We'll always be in your debt for what you've done for us.”

  “That's what I'm getting paid for,” he growled. Without another word he turned and led the way off the bridge, the others reluctantly following.

  * * * * *

  It turned out that both the colossal mining vessel and the two space stations had living quarters for humans, the shipyard's large enough to be considered a separate space station in its own right. Between the three, HAE accommodated tens of thousands of humans, some of them employees but many of them refugees who'd fled from other corporate facilities before the Deeks attacked.

  Ali flew them to the shipyard's station, where Aiden received confirmation that the promised payment had not only been transferred into one of his anonymous accounts, but that the Caretakers were going to refuel and resupply his ship. In fact, HAE was even willing to purchase the tech he'd stolen from the ERI facility, as well as the data from the secret base's computers that Ali had downloaded.

  “Aren't you just going to give that to them?” he asked the Caretaker, unable to keep from sounding at least a bit petty.

  She didn't deign to reply, other than to shake her head in mild disapproval.

  In spite of the complications of the job raiding the ERI base, including taking another emplo
yer halfway through, they were going to make an obscene profit from it. Enough to live lavishly for years, if that was what he wanted. Lana would probably jump for joy at the prospect of not having to hit any more Deek ships, but that was too bad.

  He was a privateer, and he had no intention of doing anything else.

  In fact, he was ready to get back to it. The Caretakers had offered them a chance to stay at the station for a few days for R&R, and Aiden had a feeling his crew kind of wanted him to say yes. But he couldn't help but be suspicious of the invitation, if for no other reason than it gave Ali more time to give him the grand tour of her corporation's awesome enterprise, and try to convince him to join up with its robot army.

  He'd pass on both offers, thanks.

  Still, he wasn't churlish enough to simply kick the scientists off his ship without escorting them onto the station. Some time would need to be taken to refuel and resupply the Last Stand in any case, and he had to admit he was a bit curious about what the inside of a shipyard larger than an entire planet looked like, at least when it came to the human living areas.

  Unloading the scientists still in their stasis pods, as well as the resupply and refueling, were all done with swift efficiency by impossibly perfect men and women who were almost certainly companions. Barix, loitering around watching them work, obviously couldn't help but be himself, because he sidled over and propositioned one of the female robots as she was moving a stasis pod.

  He wasn't the only one who was shocked when the robot warmly agreed, asking for time to finish up her current assignment and then she'd happily meet his needs.

  Aiden got over his surprise quickly, though, and cleared his throat sharply. “We don't have time for that,” he snapped.

  Barix, who'd just begun to look elated at his good fortune, whirled on him furiously. “What?”

  “You heard me. These guys are doing their work in record time, and once they're finished we're gone.”