Caretakers (Stag Privateers Book 2)

by Nathan Jones

  Lana sucked in a shuddering breath. “I was sent to destroy the Last Stand?”

  After a slight hesitation, the Caretaker replied, “It appears that way.”

  Void. It was hard to force the words out, but she had to know. “So everything I've done here, everything that's happened . . .” even falling in love with Dax? “that's all been the brainwashing?”

  “I don't know,” Ali said simply. “Maybe not. For normal Dormants, they don't even realize they've been changed. They live out their lives as usual, occasionally nudged to actions they wouldn't normally do, or outright taken over to fulfill programmed objectives. They don't realize they're ticking time bombs who might at some point betray everyone they know and love, right up until the moment they're triggered.”

  Lana blinked slowly, took a shuddering breath, and stared up at the newly scarred woman. “Normal Dormants?”

  “We believe you were brainwashed in some new way that allowed it to persist after a mind wipe. We hadn't even known it was possible for Blank Slates to be Dormants before now, which is why none of us even considered the possibility.”

  “So I could've attacked any of you at any time?” Lana asked, feeling sick. I could've murdered Dax in his sleep as he held me in his arms after making love?

  Ali hesitated. “Doubtful. Dormants are generally brainwashed for specific purposes, so while it's not unheard of for them to go on murder sprees after infiltrating a group, in most cases their primary priority is to avoid blowing their cover at all costs, and a secondary priority is to defend themselves so they can continue the mission.

  “Dormants operating on their own more commonly engage in espionage and subtle sabotage activities. They're usually only activated for combat if their controllers send them a specific trigger, in your case an auditory one over the comms.” Ali patted her shoulder again. “Don't worry, it was extremely unlikely you would've ever tried to attack any of us without that trigger. The biggest threat you presented would've been if you'd been left piloting the ship unsupervised, at which point you would've flown us into something at high speed and destroyed the ship.”

  Lana's queasiness roiled until she had to swallow to keep from throwing up. “So I wouldn't have stabbed anyone, but I might've suicided the ship into an asteroid?! How is that in any way comforting?”

  “The fact that you weren't able to?” Aiden said abruptly from somewhere behind her.

  She jumped, at least as much as her straps allowed; she hadn't realized the captain was also in the room. Or if he hadn't been, that he'd entered without her noticing. And much as she tried to crane her neck to get a view of the man, the best angle she could manage was a glimpse of his arm and part of his leg.

  For a moment Lana struggled for something to say to him, some apology. But his tone had been chilly and aloof, and she wasn't sure anything she said would help.

  So she just got straight to the point, looking back at Ali. “What happens now? Am I going to do this again?” She pointedly shifted against her restraints. “Or stay here bound hand and foot forever to prevent it?”

  The Caretaker hesitated. “Without a trigger it's unlikely you'll attack us, although that can be hard to predict now that your brainwashing is aware we know what you are. But as for espionage and sabotage . . .” She shook her head grimly. “There are three possibilities: you keep trying to fulfill your programmed objectives for as long as you have an opportunity. Or you're deprived of that opportunity and your brainwashing acknowledges that and goes dormant, forgive the phrasing, for as long as it considers completing its objectives to be impossible.”

  Lana felt a surge of relief. “So I'd just be myself?”

  “If it happens like that, although that's the least likely possibility. Dormant brainwashing isn't usually so passive.” Ali shook her head grimly. “Which leads us to our third possibility: your brainwashing realizes completing your objective has become impossible and you're a liability, and compels you to remove yourself.”

  “Remove myself?” Lana asked, not liking that at all.

  “Suicide,” Aiden said bluntly, making her flinch. “I had friends during the war who saw it happen. Not a pretty sight, to see a loved one betray you, fail, then kill themselves to avoid capture.”

  The sick feeling returned. “I don't feel like killing myself, though. Is that a good sign?”

  The Caretaker shook her head again. “Doubtful. The brainwashing wouldn't give you advance warning in case you tried to resist, like you did while fighting the gunner. Especially not when you're restrained and unable to attempt self harm at the moment in any case.”

  Lana closed her eyes, the memories of her treacherous body trying to kill her lover coming back like a nightmare. “None of those options involved me just going back to being part of the crew. I'm not going to be able to stay, am I?”

  Aiden snorted, although there was no humor in it. “After you were apparently programmed specifically to take out me and my ship? Don't be insane.”

  “Can't you, can't you fix me?” she asked Ali desperately. “Erase the brainwashing, or something?”

  The Caretaker rested a comforting hand on her arm. “Dormant brainwashing has been perfected over millennia, and on top of that yours is an entirely new form. Our best efforts can't even find evidence your mind has been tampered with, aside from wiping it of course. I'm afraid any attempt to free you from it might just make things worse, unless you could find a brainwashing expert who knew things the Caretakers don't.”

  “In other words, no,” the captain agreed. “And in the meantime, how could we ever trust we defused your hidden programming? I'm sorry, but it's too dangerous for all of us. You most of all.”

  Lana looked away. “Then what're you going to do with me?” she asked in a small voice.

  He sighed. “Drop you off at the next stop. Like I should've done right at the first.”

  She craned her head back in his direction, eyes widening in shock. “Would that work? What if I try something else? Are you really willing to risk that, after what I did?”

  Ali spoke up gently from behind her. “Like Aiden said, you seem to have been brainwashed specifically for the purpose of infiltrating this ship and aiding in its destruction. As long as that's no longer an option for you, it's possible that you may be able to live a normal life once we kick you off. Provided we make sure you can't find us and come after us again.”

  Lana felt a curious sinking sensation. The Last Stand and its crew were all she knew. Her entire life, such as it was. What would she do without them? How could she survive on her own?

  What would she do without Dax?

  Dax! Numb despair crept through her, dragging her down lower than she'd ever felt. “What about my relationship with Dax?” she whispered. “Everything I felt for him, everything we shared together. Was any of it real?” She wasn't sure she could bear to know that the love she felt for the young man had all been part of her treachery, some trick to make herself less suspicious in her infiltration of the ship.

  Ali seriously considered the question. “I think so,” she finally said. “He would be an unlikely target for seduction, if that was your programming's goal. Especially since the Captain showed interest in you and would've been far more useful for manipulation. Not to mention it would've given you more opportunities to assassinate him, which I'm sure was at least one of your brainwashing's priorities.”

  Lana should've felt relief at that, but the leaden weight in her gut didn't budge. “Can I talk to him? Tell him how sorry I am?” Say goodbye, if it comes to it?

  “You could, if he wanted to talk to you,” Aiden replied. “He's barely even come by to check on you in the last few days you've been unconscious.”

  The leaden weight doubled. Of course. She'd tried to kill the man, betrayed his love and his trust when she was the first person he'd ever allowed himself to feel those things for. How could he ever forgive her for what she'd done?

  What she was?

  “Don't be too hard on him,�
�� Ali said, sounding sympathetic. “He's shaken by what happened and might not be ready to talk to you about it. But even though he didn't visit you in person, the ship's logs report he was monitoring your condition from his workstation. He spent nearly every second, on and off duty, watching over you in his own way. He barely slept, barely ate.”

  Aiden cleared his throat. “Speaking of sleeping, we're going to put you back under now. I just wanted to talk to you in person, explain the situation and maybe get your side of things, assuming we could trust it.”

  “I understand,” Lana said dully, blinking as her vision blurred. She couldn't remember ever being so miserable, although of course she could only remember the last few months. “Will you wake me up before kicking me off the ship, so I can at least say goodbye to everyone?”

  “We'll see.” The captain made some sort of gesture at the corner of her vision, and Ali leaned over her. With a flood of coolness moving through her veins unconsciousness washed over her once again, and she was grateful for it.

  Although she very much feared that when she woke up, she might not be aboard the Last Stand anymore. That she'd never see her friends, never see Dax, again.

  But then, maybe that was for the best if she was just going to try to hurt them, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  Epilogue

  There

  “Sir, we've confirmed the Vindicator's remains have been found,” his comms officer said, sounding nervous. “They, um, appear to have engaged the Last Stand and lost.”

  Rear Admiral Novan Granoss ignored the woman. He was staring intently at the footage Administrator Jeres had relayed to him, from the scouting drone Movement Intelligence had sent leapfrogging to all the coordinates the Last Stand had jumped to since the Dormant planted the beacon, in its search for the secret HAE base Thorne had unwittingly led them to.

  What he was seeing left a sick feeling in his gut, but he couldn't look away.

  The comms officer seemed to sense his mood, because she sounded even more nervous as she continued. “We're still trying to recover useful information from what remains of the ship's computers, but thus far there's no indication that they triggered the Dormant.”

  Of course they did, he thought distantly, impatient at the continued distraction in the face of vastly more important considerations.

  Unless that leaky exhaust port Dalar had somehow managed to seize back control of his ship, there was no way the Vindicator would've gone into that engagement without using such an obvious advantage. Bresac had been far more competent than her predecessor, so much so that Granoss suspected she'd been responsible for most of the ship's previous successes while serving as its XO, while Dalar reaped the glory.

  But none of that mattered now. The loss of a light cruiser, the escape of the pirate vessel they were hunting, none of it mattered. All that mattered was the enemy base. The terrible, terrifying things the drone had discovered there.

  It was like something out of a horror full immersion dive, a nightmare humanity had collectively shared since first conceiving of the idea of artificial intelligence: a ship colossal enough to devour entire planets whole, with more vessels waiting to refine the raw materials and fabricate void knew what with them.

  Although it was an easy guess that the robots would make more robots, growing exponentially, until they had the sheer numbers to obliterate humanity.

  How had it come to this? The Deconstructionist Movement thought the last threat to humans remaining at their apex had died with the Stagnants a decade ago. Sure, there'd been obstacles to overcome as humanity recovered from the turmoil and returned to the peak it had been at, but those were to be expected.

  A few pirates, some minor rebellions, nothing to worry about.

  But this, this filled Granoss with genuine dread. Even if this was the only ship of its type, the colossal refinery and shipyard behind it as well, it was too much. A threat big enough to make the Movement drop every other consideration to rush here and blow these abominations to subatomic particles.

  And what if it wasn't? What if, across the vastness of space with countless billions of stars, there were more of these things crawling from system to system? Chewing up planets and leaving asteroid belts of unneeded materials in their wake, spitting out warships and killer robots and void knew what else. What if the DMF was already outnumbered by orders of magnitude more enemies that were faster, stronger, and more skilled than they could ever be?

  What had the fools at HumanAssist Enterprises done? Why had they thought unleashing this plague upon the universe was the answer?

  Granoss finally turned to his communications officer, but the lost Vindicator was the last thing on his mind. “I'm relaying a data packet to you. Send this on to Fleet Command, top priority. Attach my personal authentications to it.”

  “Sir?” the young woman said, face pale; she had no inkling of how doomed they were, but she'd read enough in his tone to be worried.

  Maybe he should show this to his command crew and the task force's senior officers. Let them know they had bigger things to worry about than the Last Stand. But then again, maybe not.

  What would it do for morale, already low enough after this fruitless hunt for their frustratingly elusive quarry? Quarry that had already destroyed the Vindicator, and judging by the fact that they'd survived the encounter had likely uncovered the Dormant and neutralized her as well.

  Did he want to pile panic about their HAE enemies, so seemingly weak, creating an army of self-replicating AIs on top of that?

  No, not just yet. They'd have an opportunity to worry about it once Command sent back orders for the task force to go wipe out this secret HAE shipyard. And in the face of that, his people's low spirits about failing to catch a lowly pirate ship would disappear into their focus on something greater.

  Although he honestly feared his task force might not be enough. To destroy this one shipyard they've found, maybe, but not enough to scour the universe for more signs of HAE presence and hunt them down.

  Granoss very much feared the Movement would need to turn to the Ishivi. Those little purebred sewage clogs already had far too much power and influence for his liking, and gained more by the day, but what choice did humanity have?

  Against an enemy that could mass produce copies of the perfect crew and the most advanced ships, all without error or any sort of inefficiency, their only hope of coming anywhere close to equaling that overwhelming numerical advantage was the Ishivi method of creating Constructs.

  A genius idea, really. Artificially bred en masse with DNA-encoded memories and other genetic modifications, speed grown in nutrient vats, and spat out fully conditioned and ready to die for humanity. They'd have all the skills and abilities these HAE AIs had, but without the one major deficiency; artificial intelligence was notoriously lacking in creativity and innovation, while Constructs would have no such limitations.

  That was how humanity would win, if they had any hope at all.

  “Information packet sent, sir,” the comms officer said.

  Granoss nodded distractedly. “Inform me the moment we get a reply.” He turned to the captain of the Justiciar, his flagship for the last two years, and spoke as he sent him the drone's data packet along with a set of coordinates for a location near the hidden HAE base. “Send out an order to gather the fleet at these coordinates.”

  The man blinked, eyes on his display and the information he'd just received. “This is well back along the path the Last Stand has taken. Is our quarry doubling back?”

  “To the void with our quarry!” Granoss snapped, ignoring the way everyone on the bridge stiffened in surprise, although few dared to turn and look at him. He continued grimly. “We're abandoning the search in the face of a more pressing issue.”

  “Before receiving authorization from Command?” his captain asked, eyebrow raised.

  He glowered at the man; challenging a superior was a good way to nuke your career. Then again, it could also be a good way to advance it
. So he turned the glower to a sneer, motioning to the information on the man's display. “Believe me, it will be coming. Perhaps you should hurry up and look at what I just sent you.” He hardened his tone. “In private.”

  The ship's captain nodded stiffly and withdrew to his ready room.

  Granoss left the bridge as well, making for the Justiciar's officer lounge. Considering the stress he was under, and how much harder his job was about to get, not to mention the impending doom of humanity, a recreational dive should be just the thing. Especially since his ship had the newest sensory deprivation vats to go along with the full immersion hookups, which were really quite relaxing.

  There were various erotic dives he'd been wanting to try out. Almost as good as reality, although there was inarguably something more satisfying about the real thing; a pity Command kept refusing his suggestion of bringing Blank Slates, or even slaves, aboard his capitol ships to serve as “morale officers”. As numerous militaries in the past had done.

  Unnecessary and inefficient expenditure of resources, the desk jockeys called it. After all, full immersion was readily available and offered an infinitely more varied experience. They'd been similarly reluctant about his suggestion of allowing senior officers the use of slaves as personal valets.

  Well, maybe once he'd been promoted to Command himself he could make the many changes he envisioned. After, say, winning a decisive victory against an existential threat to humanity.

  That was a more pleasant thing to contemplate than a numberless horde of killer robots conquering the universe.

  * * * * *

  The next time Lana woke up was infinitely better than the first.

  Most of that was probably due to the fact that Dax was seated in a chair beside her, awkwardly holding her uninjured hand around the straps that bound her to the bed. His face was the first thing she saw, brows furrowed anxiously and expression a mixture of wariness and concern, and the warmth of his touch the first thing she felt.