Dominion Rising: 23 Brand New Novels from Top Fantasy and Science Fiction Authors

by Gwynn White

  At first, she thought she’d passed out after all, even though part of her realized she wouldn’t have been able to think that if she had. But as fingers gently pulled back her uniform, she understood that his drone was checking her wound and the quiet surrounding them was the result of the rogue sentinel’s death. “Are they all dead now?” she asked through gritted teeth.

  “Yes,” he answered. “I’m sorry. One of the sentinels I’d put down earlier still had plasma cannon function. Can you move your arm?”

  “It’s still there?”

  Ven sighed at her, and she opened her eyes. His dark brown eyes met hers before he shifted his gaze back to her shoulder. “Of course it’s still there. You have a deep tissue burn with probable nerve damage though. You both need to get to medical.”

  The sentinel that had been standing protectively over her slid open a compartment on his abdomen, revealing the basic first aid kit for Ven’s drone. He reached into it, retrieved a medipen and pressed it against her bare arm. The pain dissipated, and she finally relaxed her jaw.

  “Can I have another one of those?” she murmured.

  Ven snorted and shook his head. “I’d rather we not cause heart damage. You’ll need a regeneration patch once we reach medical, but you’ll regain full use of your arm in a day or two.”

  Liv smiled as the pleasant warmth from the painkiller made her head spin. “Good, because you just got the shit kicked out of you, and I’ve got a lot of work to do now.”

  “Hey,” Ven countered. “I just survived fighting off four rogue AIs on my own. I should get some sort of Badass Extraordinaire award from the Spire.”

  Liv’s smile faltered as her groggy brain remembered where they’d been heading and why. “Renee,” she whispered.

  The red lights on the sentinel’s shoulders faded, and his drone’s expression fell. “She’s too weak to move. Medical is coming to us.”

  Liv forced herself up and blinked at the older telepath’s body. Two sentinels were perched in front of her, but he didn’t dare touch or move her. Renee’s skin was two shades paler than the dove gray dress she wore, and the blood that dripped from her nose and ears was strangely vivid in contrast to her pale complexion. Though her chest still rose and fell, her eyes remained closed. The link’s mind had withdrawn into itself, so Liv couldn’t feel her thoughts even when she tried to reach out to her.

  Liv already suspected this was more than a coma—it was the early stages of brain death. But the way Ven watched her betrayed his own irrational thought processes: He clung to the hope for a miracle.

  She remembered the signs, though, that a telepath’s death was imminent. From those repressed memories of her childhood, the images of the weakest of the kidnapped telepaths resurfaced. They’d been unable to withstand the onslaught of the rogues.

  It wouldn’t matter if medical reached Renee in the next ten seconds or ten hours. But Liv didn’t have the heart to tell Ven his link couldn’t be saved.

  She wiped hastily at her eyes, and Ven’s attention flickered briefly back to her. “One of my sentinels can take you to medical.”

  Liv shook her head and with her good hand, wrapped her fingers around his arm. “I don’t want to leave you. Either of you.”

  Ven’s drone took a deep breath and blinked back tears. “Thank you.”

  More of his sentinels arrived before the med units and formed a semi-circle around Renee, kneeling and bowing their heads, their shoulder lights dimming then flashing out entirely. An honor guard for the woman Ven must have suspected he’d lose.

  Liv knelt beside the sentinels and drone, whose tears finally fell, and her breath caught painfully in her lungs. Her throat burned as she watched the man she’d loved her whole life mourn for the woman she’d once idolized.

  Truthfully, she still did. Renee had known her secret all along and hadn’t betrayed her. She’d tried to bring her back to Ven in the same respectful, compassionate way she always dealt with those she cared about. Liv still held Ven’s hand, and her fingers twitched inside his then a painful, ugly sob burst from her chest. His drone glanced at her and released her hand, putting an arm around her shoulders as they both cried for Renee.

  The seven-foot med units turned the corner, and Ven’s sentinels rose quietly and backed away, giving them the space they needed to lift the unconscious link from the ground and bring her to medical. Carefully, gently, they placed her on a transport and within minutes, she’d vanished around the bend in the hall.

  Ven’s drone took a slow, ragged breath and told her, “I’m going to follow them. You should have your shoulder looked at anyway.”

  “I’m needed in engineering,” Liv whispered absentmindedly. She couldn’t look away from the corner of the hall where Renee’s body had disappeared. She had the terrible premonition she’d never see her again.

  “No,” Ven insisted. “You’re needed in medical. If you don’t have that injury attended to, you risk permanent nerve damage.”

  Liv swallowed, but kept her eyes on the now-empty hallway in front of them. “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”

  “I don’t lie at all,” he answered.

  “Renee… are her injuries worse…?” Liv’s voice trailed off because she couldn’t seem to vocalize her fear that Ven would lose his link and best friend.

  Ven’s drone tilted his head at her, giving her a curious look. “Don’t you already know? Didn’t you assess her injuries yourself?”

  “Yes,” Liv breathed.

  “You’re a telepath. You’ve tried to hide it from me twice now—when you and Harper escaped and today during the attack when you used Renee to link with me.”

  Liv finally tore her gaze away from the hallway and blinked at him. Ven continued before she could speak, which didn’t matter because she had no idea what she could possibly say.

  He’d known for over a week that she was a telepath and hadn’t turned her in.

  “It’s rare, but occasionally, the telepathic gene gets passed down to daughters naturally. But you’ve used yours twice now, which means you know you possess this ability and you’ve practiced with it at some point.”

  Oh, God, she thought. If he insists on having me tested, he’ll discover I’m not really Olivia Hawthorne.

  “Ven, I…” she fumbled, but she was momentarily rescued by an unexpected voice—a voice that scared the shit out of her because it was the voice of a ghost.

  “Vengeance,” Renee said.

  “Renee,” his drone whispered.

  Before them, a holographic image materialized, and the link’s warm smile and kind eyes shifted to Liv.

  “I’m sorry if I scared either of you. As soon as Basilisk attacked me, I suspected I wouldn’t survive and created this interactive recording for you. Liv, I know I promised you I’d keep your secret, but given the circumstances, he needs to know everything.”

  Liv wanted to run, but she couldn’t free her hand from the drone’s grip. “Renee, please,” Liv begged. She had no idea if an interactive recording could be reasoned with, but it didn’t matter. Renee continued as if she hadn’t heard her.

  “The young woman you think is Olivia Hawthorne isn’t just a telepath. She’s Nuallan, as you likely suspected, Ven.”

  The few sentinels that had remained in the hallway with them turned on her, the red lights along their shoulders flaring to life again. Liv gasped and tried to free her hand a second time, but he still refused to let go.

  “She’s no danger to you, Vengeance,” Renee added. “You already know that. And you know I would have never kept a secret for her if I believed she were a danger to you or anyone else onboard. But she is powerful and has tremendous strengths and few weaknesses. You need her.”

  “Shut up,” Liv hissed at the hologram, whose eyes flickered to her again.

  In her last message to the AI she’d served for almost three centuries, Renee had chosen to betray Liv, to attempt to force her servitude to a warship. And she wouldn’t become his new link. Not even Ven
geance would invade her mind again.

  “Liv?” Ven asked.

  She glanced down at their hands, their fingers still tightly woven together, and slowly shook her head. “I can’t,” she whispered.

  She wasn’t quite sure if she meant she couldn’t be his link, or she couldn’t tell him the truth.

  “I know,” he said, his voice softening.

  “Liv,” Renee’s hologram continued, “I want what’s best for Vengeance and you. In order to create this message, I had to instruct the nanites in my blood to migrate to my brain, and relaying it now will most likely speed up my death. But I needed you to hear this. Please.”

  “No,” Liv groaned, but she didn’t try to pull her hand away from Ven again.

  “Vengeance is the only Warship of the Spire to survive an encounter with rogues like this, and you are a telepath who has learned how to withstand the chaos of their minds. Together, you would be indestructible. Regardless, he needs you now to return to Teutorigos because the Triumvirate must learn how to defeat Basilisk and the other rogues. Ven, you know what Spire regulations are if an AI suffers the loss of all his telepaths at once. Surviving senior staff will enact the endgame protocol. And for Liv’s sake, I want you to tell the crew that she’s a latent level-four telepath, and that her gift was triggered by the rogue’s attack. That’s when I merged with her and transferred as much of my knowledge to her as I could.”

  “Affirmative,” Ven sighed.

  Renee’s eyes shifted to Liv again, and she said, “I hope you can both come to understand one another. You need each other more than either of you realize.”

  “I can’t be his link, Renee,” Liv cried.

  Ven’s fingers relaxed, and his drone took a small step away from her. “It doesn’t matter if you were engineered for me or not. I never would force you to be my link.”

  “You knew?” she responded weakly.

  “Only that you were Nuallan,” he insisted, but his drone suddenly inhaled a sharp breath. “Renee… I have to go.”

  The hologram fizzled at the edges before vanishing, and Ven’s drone ran, leaving her alone in the hallway with one sentinel who’d either been left behind to defend her or to defend himself from her.

  They stared at each other in silence until heavy treads striking the deck announced the arrival of reinforcements. When five more sentinels fell in beside the first, her original guard finally spoke. “Will you accompany my sentinels to Medical? Your arm is in need of treatment.”

  Liv nodded wordlessly. She would go to Medical and get her arm treated, but afterward, thanks to Renee’s last act, she would have to make a choice and she would have to make it now, which meant not only leaving Vengeance but hiding from the entire Spire.

  20

  Liv slowly rotated her shoulder as the doctor who’d patched it put his supplies away then turned on his heels to attend to other patients. She’d just put her shirt back on when she noticed movement in the doorway. Ven’s drone cleared his throat and picked up an empty intradermal injector on the table by the door.

  “Everything’s all right?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she replied, tugging nervously at the hemline of her shirt. “Renee?”

  Ven lifted a shoulder and glanced up at her. “The doctors and my medical units are doing everything they can. Our link is severed, so there’s not much I can do to assess the extent of Renee’s brain damage. I hate feeling so useless.”

  “You’re not useless, Ven,” Liv hurriedly assured him. “If she can be stabilized, maybe you can even reestablish your link.”

  “Maybe,” he said, but he sounded as unconvinced as she felt. “I, um… I need to give you something.”

  “Okay,” she breathed.

  “No, I mean…” he stammered again and ran his fingers through his hair. The short brown messy spikes begged her to smooth them down. She clenched her fingers into tight fists to distract herself from the overwhelming urge to touch him.

  “I have to give you administrative clearance with a biometric key since you’re the only telepath aboard,” he explained. “And there’s only one way to do that.”

  “Oh,” she whispered.

  Ven stepped into the room and pushed the panel on the wall to close the door. “I need you, Olivia. You’re all I have left.”

  There was so much pain in his voice, in those simple words, that she dug her nails deeper into her palms so she could focus on this physical pain. It was a far lighter burden than the emotional pain of seeing him so distraught, so heartbroken and helpless.

  Liv released her fingers slowly and sat back on the table. “Where will it be implanted?”

  “Your arm,” he answered. “Once it’s implanted, we’ll have to go down to my primary core to activate it.”

  “All right,” she agreed nervously, pushing her sleeve up her left arm so the tiny biometric key could be implanted.

  Ven reached into his pocket and produced an intradermal injector, much like the one the doctor had used to anesthetize her shoulder, only this one contained the microscopic device that would give her access to Ven’s primary core.

  He pressed the injector to her forearm, and a brief stinging pain forced her jaw to tighten, but it passed quickly, leaving only a small red mark on her forearm. She ran her fingers over it, but she couldn’t feel the biometric key. She hadn’t really expected to.

  Voices in the corridor outside surprised her, and she shot Ven a questioning look because she recognized them. Captain Welner and Master Engineer Goodwin were outside.

  “They’re attempting to assess if I suffered sensory disconnect while in transit and if there’s any damage to my primary core,” he explained.

  “They think you might go rogue,” Liv said.

  Ven lifted an eyebrow at her as if to say, “What do you expect?” If he had suffered a complete sensory disconnect, he would likely have permanent damage to his primary core—the AI equivalent of going crazy.

  “We need to activate this then,” Liv said, holding up her arm with the biometric key. “Reassure everyone you’re sane and can get us to Teutorigos where you can find a new link-level telepath.”

  Ven looked her over quickly, his expression shifting slightly as if her continued refusal to serve him still hurt and shamed him. “Right,” he agreed.

  His palm slapped the panel to open the door, and she stood beside him, but this time, she didn’t attempt to hold his hand or offer him any sort of hope she might change her mind. How could she?

  The best she could offer him now was the truth. But even the truth would have to wait.

  As they wove through the tangled hallways toward the deck that stored his primary core, she broke the silence by asking him, “What is the endgame protocol?”

  Ven never slowed down. “It’s a new protocol, dating back just over twenty years. When an AI’s telepaths are killed, endgame protocol is a set of orders that senior staff can issue to the AI to isolate the intelligence to the primary core. All ship functions are then rerouted to the crew. If the AI refuses to surrender control, the endgame protocol triggers a kill code buried deep in the AI’s primary core.”

  “And you’re just telling me this now?” She stopped walking and gaped at his back.

  He made it six feet before realizing she had no intention of continuing until he talked to her. Ven sighed and turned around, running his fingers through his hair again in that sexy, disheveled way. “What else is the crew supposed to do? If I’m unable to operate properly, they risk death. And right now, as far as they know, all my telepaths are either dead or dying.”

  “So our only option is to cause you to self-terminate?” Liv yelled.

  “Sh!” he hissed. He looked over her head before lowering his voice to tell her, “Look, I’m honoring Renee’s last request. We’ll get the biometric key activated, and I’ll tell the crew you’re a low-level telepath and we should be able to get to Teutorigos safely. We may be grounded for a while until I’m declared fit for duty. Replacing so many tel
epaths and finding a link-level telepath can be time-consuming. But the endgame protocol will only be activated as a last resort.”

  “But, Ven…” she tried again, but again, he stopped her.

  “Olivia, once the biometric key is activated, I’ll go into lockdown while my core assimilates the update that you’re my acting telepath. You will then have sole command over me, and any orders Welner or the senior staff issues will need to be confirmed by you. But I need to be sure you can handle this. If you run, you’ll be endangering the entire crew.”

  Could she handle it? He wasn’t asking if she had the ability to function as his telepath, but if she had the ability to overcome whatever fears and obstacles had prevented her from becoming a link in the past.

  And, truthfully, she wasn’t at all sure she could. But she couldn’t condemn the entire crew if he were attacked again, or if he himself became a rogue. And she couldn’t condemn him to that fate.

  She met his eyes, those beautiful chocolate brown eyes, and nodded. “I can do this,” she bluffed.

  Ven studied her for a few seconds then nodded. “We’re almost there.”

  As they turned another corner, she found herself in a hallway lined with sentinels, their weapons already trained on the entryway in case any threat emerged. At the end of the hall stood a thick, impenetrable door, behind which lay the complex neural network that housed the personality she’d once loved and had come to love again.

  She was standing before the essence of Vengeance.

  He stopped in front of the door and glanced nervously down at her. “Renee was the last person to gain entry into my primary core.”

  “Oh,” she whispered. But what else could she say? She was honored but terrified at the same time. And as complex as her own emotions were at that moment, she could tell his emotions were just as mixed.

  Three bulkheads retracted and a final aperture door folded back, allowing them to step inside the room where a translucent barrier separated her from his primary core. But she could see it, and its presence transfixed her, freezing her where she stood.