by Gwynn White
The sentinel stepped closer, and his massive hand came down on her shoulder briefly in a companionable pat. “For what it’s worth, this woman may really be clueless about the attack that killed your family. She’s a pirate, after all. She probably stole the ship from other pirates because that’s what they do.”
Liv shot her childhood friend an apologetic glance and nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir,” Amelia mocked. “You’re a slave, and you don’t even realize it.”
Liv looked around the small cell and that old habit she’d never quite managed to break erupted again: She spoke too quickly and too thoughtlessly. “Strange… because it looks like you’re the one in a cage.”
Liv turned on her heels and marched away from Amelia’s cell, already regretting her actions and already planning a way to free the woman who used to be her friend.
Ven’s drone, the handsome man she was trying desperately not to be attracted to, moved his rook in front of her king and warned, “Check.”
Liv bit her lip so she wouldn’t tell him he might as well add “mate” to that because she’d lost interest in their game half an hour ago. Instead, she picked up a pawn and blocked the rook from taking her king.
Ven looked up at her and instructed, “You should’ve moved your king. You’ll still be in jeopardy of losing once I take your pawn.”
“Ven,” Liv groaned. “Please just take it already. You probably figured out how to win this game after my first move.”
“Of course, but how does that help you become a better strategist?”
“Why does an engineer need to be a good strategist?” Liv retorted. “I repair things. I don’t wage war.”
Ven plucked her pawn from the game board and set his rook in its place. “Check.”
Liv squinted at him and folded her arms. “I’m not moving my king until you answer me.”
She thought his lips twitched as if he were trying not to smile. He probably had a terribly sexy smile… the kind that could get her into serious trouble if she weren’t careful.
Damn it, Liv, get a grip.
“You have far more potential than just repairing things, Journeyman Engineer Hawthorne. With study and hard work, you have the potential to become an officer, and any officer of mine should be a master strategist. Now move your king.”
“You’re assuming I want to be an officer,” Liv muttered as she moved her king out of his rook’s path.
Ven’s hand, already poised above his chess pieces so he could make his next move, froze in the air, and he peeked over at her again through his dark lashes. “Why wouldn’t you want to advance your career?”
She’d done it again—spoken too quickly without considering the potential consequences. And Ven’s question was entirely fair. Liv shrugged and pretended it wasn’t a big deal. “I like being an engineer, that’s all.”
“You’re happy with your job now,” Ven said. “But ten years from now? When your peers are all surpassing you even though they don’t have the same level of skill, will you still be happy?”
No, Liv thought. I would have been happy as your link as I was supposed to be. But you never came for me.
“I suppose I never thought about it,” she lied. “It’s your move.”
Ven slid his bishop across the board and announced, “Checkmate. Reset the board.”
“Again?” Liv complained. “Ven, it’s late. Some of us actually do have to sleep.”
“I’m aware of that, Olivia. Just as I’m aware that you don’t normally go to sleep for another two hours. Reset the board.”
Liv gaped at him then plucked her king from the board, holding it ransom until he leveled with her. “Have you been spying on me?”
Ven’s cheeks actually seemed to darken as he stammered, “No! That’s not what I meant. I just… the entire crew… I keep a log of everyone on board and you’re on board, and you’re part of the crew, so I’m aware of your normal routine. I don’t spy on you. I don’t spy on anyone, and you’re anyone so no, I’m not spying on you—”
“Ven,” Liv laughed. “I think you’ve got a bug in your programming.”
His cheeks definitely seemed brighter as he bit his lip, but this time, his attempt not to smile didn’t work. He lifted a shoulder and asked, “Should I send you to check out my language processors instead of playing chess then?”
Why did she have to be right about his smile?
“That’s a job for your links, not an engineer,” Liv responded then felt completely stupid for pointing out the obvious. He already knew that, of course, and had only been teasing her.
Ven kept smiling at her and reset the chessboard himself. “So it is,” he said, attempting to keep his voice humorless but failing.
Her own cheeks flushed, and she hastily put her king back on his square, which only knocked over half the remaining pieces he hadn’t captured.
Ven caught most of them before they could hit the floor and placed them on the table. “Are you all right, Olivia?”
“Liv,” she corrected. “Please. And yeah… just tired. Been a long day.”
She didn’t need to remind him he’d woken her up ridiculously early with that drill and was now keeping her awake to play chess.
“Okay, Liv,” Ven said. “We’ll pick up with a new game tomorrow. For what it’s worth, this was… entertaining. I hope you found it informative and entertaining as well.”
Liv tilted her head at him, and her mouth formed words before she could stop it. “Why do you do that? You’re perfectly capable of speaking like a normal human.”
Ven sat back in his chair and studied her, and Liv squirmed in her seat. Why had she said that? And when would she learn to keep her mouth shut? Liv couldn’t even lie to herself and knew exactly why the words had tumbled out. She missed the conversations she’d once had with him when he’d let his guard down and felt comfortable just being himself.
“And how do you know what I am and am not capable of doing, Journeyman Engineer Hawthorne?”
“Speaking to Renee… earlier… that’s all,” she mumbled, although her lie was almost certainly as transparent as it sounded.
Ven tapped one of his pawns against the table as he continued to study her then pushed his chair back. “Get some rest, Liv. I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll save you some of those fried relays. I know how much you love fixing them.”
Liv kept her eyes on the table but nodded.
If Ven kept insisting on these lessons, he’d uncover her secret, and at this rate, he’d uncover it soon.
She needed to get Amelia off this ship… not only to save Amelia’s life, but to save her own.
12
Ven knocked on Renee’s door even though he knew she wasn’t asleep yet. It slid open with a soft hiss, and she arched an eyebrow at him, giving him a look he interpreted as, “Disappointed you’re here and not in bed with Olivia, aren’t you?”
Or maybe he was just projecting his own surprising feelings onto his link.
Ven cleared his throat and pointed to his favorite chair in her room. “Are you going to invite me in or are we going to stand here staring at each other?”
Renee stepped back and waved him in. “How did your… chess match go?”
Ven rolled his eyes and collapsed into the chair. “I won three games, as expected.”
Renee sat across from him, yawning as she tugged on her robe to keep it closed. “Ven, it’s not possible for you to lose. And she’ll quickly grow bored with losing all the time. You should let her win a few matches.”
“I think she’s already bored with me,” he muttered, picking at a loose string on the arm of the chair.
“Oh? And what makes you think that?”
Ven peeked over at her and lifted a shoulder. “She didn’t seem at all interested in the games or in conversing with me.”
Renee sighed heavily so Ven stopped pulling at the thread and looked up at his link, giving her the full attention she obviously wanted. “What exactly were you convers
ing about?” she asked. “If your idea of attempting to talk to the girl was lecturing her on chess strategy then yeah, no wonder she didn’t seem interested.”
Ven crossed his arms defensively and shot back, “That wasn’t all I tried to talk about.”
“You’re your own worst enemy,” Renee teased.
“I just don’t think she likes me very much,” Ven pouted. He knew he was pouting, too, but couldn’t seem to stop himself. Why did this woman have so much power over him? It had been a long time—a really long time—since a woman had any power over him at all.
But something was different about Olivia Hawthorne. He was inexplicably drawn to her, even more so than Jillian, the last woman he’d fallen in love with.
Renee tilted her head, studying him, and he didn’t need a telepathic connection to tell what she was doing. She knew something he didn’t, and that always drove him crazy.
“I think,” she said, “she likes you more than you realize for reasons you can’t even begin to imagine.”
Ven snorted and reminded her, “I’m over three thousand years old. I’ve probably seen it already. What could possibly be so different that I can’t imagine it?”
Renee sat up straighter and grinned. “You’ll have to figure this one out on your own. Just like every other man in the universe.”
“You’re really not going to tell me?” Ven blinked at her then shook his head. “Ridiculous. You’re a terrible friend.”
Renee arched that same eyebrow at him. “So now I’m ridiculous and a terrible friend?”
“Depends,” Ven joked.
“On?”
“On whether or not you tell me whatever you’re hiding.”
“Ven,” she warned.
“Come on, Renee. You tell me everything.”
“Not this time.”
“Huh. During our next link, we’ll see how long this secret lasts,” he pretend-threatened. As much as her secret annoyed him, he wouldn’t really betray her trust.
“You really can be a pain in the ass,” Renee retorted.
Ven nodded seriously. “I know.”
“Look: I think you and Liv need each other more than either of you realize. And I think you need to be particularly patient with her. You don’t know her full past or what she’s been through, and you may not want to know. Give her some time… and give yourself some time, too.”
Ven sighed and ran his fingers through his dark brown hair. “I don’t even act like myself around her. I feel like I turn into a robot, and I’m old enough to remember a time when some people still made that assumption about AIs like me.”
Renee rose from her seat and kissed the top of his head. “She makes you nervous. That’s normal, and the more comfortable you both become around one another, the more you’ll be yourself. Now go to your own room. I’m tired.”
Ven smiled up at her and clasped his hand over hers. “What am I going to do without you?”
“Same thing you’ve done for three thousand years, Ven,” Renee answered. “You’ll find a new link and a new friend. And maybe, someone even better than me.”
Ven shook his head. “Impossible.”
Renee smiled back at him, but Ven recognized that expression, that look that told him she was up to something. “Not impossible, Vengeance. In fact, if I have my way, you might end up with the link you’ve always wanted and deserved.”
“Not this again,” Ven groaned.
Renee laughed and shrugged before tugging on her robe again and nodding toward the door. “Is it so terrible I want you to find a telepath you’re one hundred percent compatible with? You never know. Your future link might be the one.”
Ven stood but before he left, he shrugged back at her and said, “It’s been so long since a telepath became an AI that I don’t have any hope it will ever happen for me. I’ll consider myself lucky if I can ever find a link to live up to you.”
As the door slid closed behind him, he thought he heard her say, “You shouldn’t lose hope.”
He stared at the closed door for a few seconds before deciding he wasn’t taking the bait. Whatever Renee was up to now was nonsense. He was sure it was nothing more than another ploy on her part to convince him to find a new link, or worse, another lover.
And he had no intention of doing either anytime soon, especially since love had only ever proved to be a useless emotion, one that had nearly destroyed them both.
Liv lay awake on her platform, staring into the blackness of her room as she attempted to work through the only plan she had for saving Amelia: She’d have to use her telepathy—and hope Amelia was willing to use hers as well—to deceive the guards and steal a ship. She’d seen how well Amelia could pilot and would rely on her old friend to get them to safety.
Which meant she’d be leaving Vengeance for good.
Liv turned onto her side and stared into the blackness from a different direction, but it didn’t offer her a different perspective or the courage to get up and do it. She closed her eyes and thought of her evening with Ven as he’d awkwardly asked about her childhood and training to become an engineer and she’d just as awkwardly lied about both.
She couldn’t remember him ever being so unsure of himself, so fumbling in his words and actions. He’d even clumsily knocked over her bottle of water like he was nervous around her. And of course, she’d sat there thinking how adorable the whole thing was.
Liv sighed and rubbed her eyes, sitting up slowly as she resolved to get on with her plan. Clearly, Ven’s interest in her would eventually force her to leave him anyway, so it wasn’t like her early departure was that big a deal. She wished Renee hadn’t decided to retire though. She hated the thought of more loss for Ven, more heartache, more goodbyes.
She slipped her boots on and grabbed her jacket as she quietly snuck into the hallway, hoping to reach her destination before Vengeance could stop her. The last thing she needed was to get captured before she could free Amelia.
The monitors along the hallway taunted her as she stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets and kept her eyes straight ahead. She was shooting for calm and unaffected but suspected she was failing miserably. She’d made it to the deck below when she heard his voice.
“Liv? Isn’t it the middle of your sleep cycle? Is everything all right?”
She froze, unable to face him, or run, or even speak.
“Olivia?” he pressed.
Damn it, woman, speak!
“Ven,” she breathed. She turned around slowly and immediately realized that was a mistake. His drone watched her, concerned rather than suspicious, and took a step closer. Ven’s eyes darted above her head and his expression shifted.
The male crewmembers’ quarters were ahead of her.
“Oh,” he breathed back. “You’ve never shown an interest in any of the crewmembers before.”
“Ven,” she protested, “it’s not…”
It’s a good cover story. Don’t correct him.
Liv bit her lip and stared at the tips of her boots, but she still noticed the way his posture stiffened as he backed away from her.
“My apologies, Journeyman Engineer Hawthorne. Although you should ensure you still get adequate rest. In your line of work, there’s no room for errors.”
Liv nodded but couldn’t look at him. Her entire face burned, and she imagined she’d turned crimson by now. And yet, she didn’t correct him.
Ven turned on his heels and headed back toward wherever he’d come from. Liv waited until she could no longer hear his footsteps before resuming her mission to save her former best friend’s life.
13
Apparently, sneaking around a Spire warship was a lot easier when the AI who controlled the ship thought one of his crew was sleeping with another crewmember and didn’t want to witness it. A quick probe of an access terminal using her telepathy had confirmed that Vengeance had temporarily removed her bio-signature from his internal scanners, effectively ignoring her.
Poor Vengeance. He’d been so upse
t that he’d suspended her locator until morning. While that had given her an advantage to reach Amelia undetected, it wasn’t foolproof. As soon as one of his sentinel or drudge units tagged her with their sensors, her cover would be blown.
He would learn about her duplicity soon enough anyway. There would be sentinels stationed in the brig and no way to hide her presence there. But she had a plan for that, too. Her fingers tightened on the grip of the big Separator—an ion-torch on steroids. It was one of her favorite tools for dealing with stubborn pieces of technologies that didn’t want to come out of their housings willingly.
When cranked up to full power, the Separator could cut through almost any material in moments—even the armor-covered exoskeletons that protected the sentinels’ delicate internal mechanisms. She wasn’t exactly happy about having to get so close to one of Ven’s ground assault units, but if she didn’t disable them, her plan to save Amelia would be over before either of them could even make it out of the brig.
As she neared the prison, she paused one corridor over to assess the sentinels. Fortunately, there were only two: one outside in the hallway and the other inside watching the prisoner.
Liv aimed at the closest sentinel just as he was turning toward her with his weapons powering up, but she struck first. The Separator lived up to its name as the energy beam burned through the sentinel’s armor and bit deeper, tearing into the more fragile workings underneath.
The sentinel flailed for a moment, his weapons misfiring, then the entire twelve-foot behemoth crashed to the floor. She darted forward; every second counted. The sentinel possessed some self-repair abilities, so it might be able to recover enough functions to continue the fight.
The second sentinel stormed out of the brig, his weapons trained in her direction. Liv raised the Separator to target it, but she knew she’d be seconds too late. This sentinel already had his weapons locked on her.
But he didn’t fire. Stunned, she just stood there.
“Liv? What are you doing?” he asked.
