by Gwynn White
Master Engineer Goodwin looked Liv over and asked, “How are you holding up?”
“Rogue sentinel got in a good shot. I survived. He didn’t. We’ll get through this, and even the scars will fade with time. We’re just going to do with little or no sleep for the next three days.” She estimated it would take at least that long to get the worst of the damages patched up. As for Ven, it was going to take a lot longer for him to heal.
“How are bridge repairs going?” Goodwin asked the sentinel.
“Two drudges and a crew of engineers are seeing to repairs.”
Goodwin rubbed his eyes and sighed. “I should be supervising. Instead, I’ll be sitting through an emergency meeting after I waste my time getting a full report from you.”
“Right,” Liv agreed. “Ven, I’ll go with you to medical as soon—”
But Ven waved her off and nodded toward Engineer Goodwin. “Go. I’ll find you to give you an update later… when your emergency meeting is over.”
Goodwin pointed at Ven’s drone and lifted an eyebrow at her. “So he’s a smartass now. This is new.”
Liv laughed and shook her head. “Not nearly as new as you’d think.” She offered Ven a sympathetic smile and touched his arm, forcing him to promise her he’d come for her if there was any news about Renee.
“You have my word, Acting Telepath Olivia.”
Goose bumps broke out on her arms, and she shivered as she let her gaze fall to the floor, ashamed that after all he’d suffered in this excruciatingly long day, she still wanted to run. And worst of all, she already knew he would let her, even though she held the keys to his salvation.
She couldn’t hide from the truth any longer. He loved her and had for some time now. It had been impossible to miss when they were linked during transit. And his love for her could end up killing him.
21
Welner’s meeting had dragged on for almost three hours, but she’d finally convinced him that Vengeance hadn’t been infected by the rogues and that she and Renee had helped him transit safely.
During the meeting, the first of the rescue ships reached them. Citadel, a fellow Neit Class warship, who was normally sociable for an AI, seemed far more somber than normal. And while he offered fifty of his drudges to help with repairs, he didn’t send any of his telepaths. The Spire warships Valor, Dispatch, Acheron, Broadsword, Raven, and Chieftain were due to arrive within hours to aid with Vengeance’s repairs and escort them back to Teutorigos.
Now, Liv nervously wrung her hands as she walked the path around the lake, waiting for Ven to show up with news about Renee. Two dozen sentinels watched her as she slowly lapped the lake, their presence intended to protect her and keep the senior staff away from her. After the long ordeal of Welner’s emergency meeting, she couldn’t answer any other questions. It was all in Goodwin’s official report anyway. They could each spare her another interrogation by just reading the damn thing.
Ven’s tall drone emerged from the line of fruit trees near the gazebo, his face drawn and worried, and she stopped her nervous movements. As soon as he was close enough to hear her, she asked, “Renee?”
Ven glanced over his shoulder toward the medical unit and sighed. “It’s… only a matter of time.”
“I’m so sorry,” Liv whispered.
Ven’s dark brown eyes studied her for a few moments, but she no longer cared about what questions he had. Basilisk had followed them because he was after her, which meant the blood of everyone who’d died in the battle was on her hands. If she hadn’t joined Vengeance’s crew seven months ago, they’d all still be alive.
“Liv, we haven’t really had time to talk… about Nualla. Renee knew more than she ever told me,” he said.
Liv shook her head slowly. “You already know though. I’m a telepath.”
Ven grunted at her and rubbed a hand over his eyes as if he were physically and emotionally exhausted. Maybe he was. She’d thought their friendship from her childhood had taught her so much about AIs, but he often proved how little she actually knew.
“But Basilisk… you made a comment that he’d found you, and then he followed us to the spaceport. Why?”
Liv inhaled slowly and let her gaze wander over the surface of the lake. What could she possibly tell him? He’d shut off his memories of her, entrapped them safely behind the Spire Archive where they could no longer harm him. Did she have the right to bring those painful memories back when she couldn’t be the link he needed? She didn’t want to lie to him anymore either, though.
“Like you guessed, I was part of the Telepath Breeding Program on Nualla, but during the attack, I was kidnapped by Basilisk before the planet was destroyed. He tried to force me to become his link. I escaped after a couple of months, but I never wanted an AI in my mind again.”
“Liv…” He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his pants and sighed. “And yet, you let me link with you though… to save everyone aboard this ship.”
Liv lifted a shoulder as if it were no big deal, but truthfully, it had terrified her, even if the AI she’d allowed inside her mind was one she trusted. “Renee couldn’t do it alone, and your other telepaths were dead. What else was I supposed to do?”
“You’re no ordinary telepath, Liv. I mean, I could sense it… how much power you have. And Basilisk knows this. He won’t stop.”
“I know,” she admitted. “Which is why you should bring me somewhere. Anywhere. For your own safety.”
Ven rolled his eyes and pulled his hands from his pockets so he could cross his arms in defiance of her suggestion. “I’m not dumping you somewhere so he can get his hands on you again. You obviously care about the wellbeing of everyone here so you have to realize how dangerous that could be for us all.”
“But me being here is dangerous, too!” Liv exclaimed. “And you don’t even have a link-level telepath right now.”
“Yes. Renee is dying,” Ven agreed. His voice cracked over that word—dying—but he held her gaze. “You’re the only link I have. I won’t ask you to make any permanent decisions, but if Basilisk finds us again, I will need you. But I suspect you already know that.”
“I don’t know if I can,” Liv protested. “Before, we were in the middle of a battle…”
“Liv, there’s a good chance we’ll make it to Teutorigos without incident. Just… be prepared for the worst.”
“The worst,” Liv repeated. “Does everyone even know about Renee?”
Ven exhaled slowly and collapsed onto a bench looking out over the lake. “I haven’t told the crew yet because I don’t want them to panic.”
“Oh, Ven,” Liv breathed. She sat next to him and without thinking, put her hand over his.
He stared at their hands before swallowing and saying her name, too, his voice thick with heartache. “Liv, about the other night in the gazebo. I am so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I suspected you were a Nuallan telepath, but I didn’t know what had happened to you. I’d never force you to do anything you didn’t want to—physically or mentally.”
Liv squeezed his fingers. “Don’t apologize. I know why you thought I freaked out, but it wasn’t you. Not exactly. Or at least not for the reason you thought. It was this secret, not wanting you to know I’m telepathic. And if I slipped, which seemed so easy to do, how could you not find out? Even now, I’m terrified.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because we both know the safest thing for you to do is to bring me to Spire headquarters. And they’ll force me back into service. I know how rare link-level telepaths are and how much we’re needed, but they have no idea what it was like… the closest thing I can compare it to is being raped.”
Ven flinched, and his grip reflexively tightened on her hand so she quickly assured him, “I haven’t been sexually assaulted. But mentally? Yeah… that’s exactly what happened to us.”
“Us?” As soon as the words were out, realization seemed to dawn on him. “There are more survivors than just you and Harper, aren’t there?”<
br />
“Yes,” Liv admitted. “And Harper’s still angry at me for working on a warship. She was my best friend, and now… I’m dead to her.”
Ven traced his thumb lightly along the back of her hand, and she held her breath. Her mind slowed while her heart accelerated, and she was certain if Bas attacked right now, she wouldn’t even notice. Part of her wanted to ask him to stop just so she could think again, but a much bigger part of her never wanted him to stop.
“I suppose we’re both losing people we care very much about,” he sighed.
“Harper will live, at least. When I was a child, Renee was like the loving aunt I never had. I’ll miss her. And you’ve been close for so long.”
He tilted his head at her, and his eyes turned thoughtful. “Renee only ever visited Nualla when I went there.”
“I know,” she said. She couldn’t even think of a halfway decent lie, not with him still holding her hand and looking at her like that, and why did he have to smell so good?
“Liv, did you know me? Were you supposed to be my link?”
Liv closed her eyes, defeated. Truthfully, part of her was glad he’d finally just asked. She was so tired of the lies. “Yes. My name was Hayley, and you were my best friend, Ven. I loved you and Renee so much.”
“I’m sure she loved you too.”
“Ven, I am so sorry.” She seemed to be saying that all the time now.
He lifted his eyes, and for the first time, Liv noticed they were wet, as if he were struggling to keep tears contained.
But he turned away from her and pointed to the lake. “Bradan are indigenous to Nualla. When you first mentioned them… I suspected, but couldn’t face accessing the Archive and having my hopes crushed if my theories were wrong.”
Liv glanced at their hands again, still clasped together, and stopped biting her lip. There would be no more attempts to run away, to hide from him or her past. She understood that now. She would always return to him because she belonged to him, just as he belonged to her, and no rogue AI could break the bond that had been formed between them twenty-seven years before.
“We had a special connection, didn’t we?” As his voice trailed off, his eyes registered recognition of the truth, even if he couldn’t remember it. “That’s why Renee had been bringing up final links so often lately.”
“Yes,” Liv acknowledged.
A small croaking sound escaped his throat, and he looked out over the water again. “Bradan,” he whispered.
“The last time I saw you right before the AIs attacked, you’d promised to take me to the lake to see them up close. I’ve still never seen one.”
“You’re aware that I cut out all memories of you after the attack. I know data points, events, details of the battle. But I no longer know you,” he said. “I’m over three thousand years old. I’ve lost many people I’ve cared for in that time. But your death was different. I think I came very close to self-terminating. Now, I want to remember it—to remember you.”
“I’m not Hayley anymore, Ven. I’m not sure forcing yourself to remember that girl would be a good idea. I can’t ever be her again.”
“You don’t want me to remember because you don’t want to be my link,” he said.
“It takes so much trust. And I do trust you, I just—”
Ven pulled her hand to his chest and stopped her. “No. I didn’t mean to accuse you of anything. I’m simply telling you I understand. You don’t have to become my link or anyone else’s. Just stay here and work as an engineer. You seem to enjoy it. I won’t even make you play chess anymore.”
A sad, sobbing kind of laugh unexpectedly burst from her, and, just as unexpectedly, she threw her other arm around his neck, hugging him and crying into his shoulder. Renee’s inevitable death, the loss of her former friend, the revelation of her secret, and Ven’s acceptance of her—she’d been emotionally emptied, and all she wanted now was to sleep until somehow, the universe had magically righted itself again.
He wrapped his arm around her, and he ran his fingers through her hair in a comforting gesture as his own breaths became more ragged. “Basilisk has stolen everything from us,” he murmured. “I have only one thing left.”
“Your life?” Liv guessed.
“No,” he answered. “Revenge.”
22
With nothing else to do, Liv had thrown herself into her work, which was how she ended up wading hip deep in a tank of neural fluids that normally flowed throughout Ven’s conduits like blood in a vein. It fed nutrients and oxygen to his bio-organic parts, but could also be re-tasked to helped speed hull regeneration during times of sudden unexpected damage, which it was doing now. But the increase in waste byproducts also clogged the filter assembles faster than normal.
“You know, as much as this shit smells like caramel, it feels like pond slime,” she said as she wadded deeper. The mainline filter housing was just a few feet ahead.
“Noted,” Ven said. The sentinel tasked with guarding her was standing at the tank’s edge, but wouldn’t come in to help her only because it would interfere with his ability to protect her. Or so he claimed. She was pretty sure he actually enjoyed watching her work, and he probably didn’t want to wade through pond slime either.
This was the third filter unit she’d serviced in the last hour. Since she was already coated in Vengeance slime, she didn’t see why anyone else needed to get coated as well. She uncoiled the filter from where it had attached itself to her back like a cape. The soft feather tendrils kept fluttering back toward her as they sought something to hold on to.
“Couldn’t you breed or bioengineer these things to be more intelligent?” Liv muttered. At least she’d bit off her quip about filing a harassment report against overly friendly filter media. She dragged a tendril out from between her cleavage then swiftly stuffed the wiggling mass into its housing where it happily attached itself in place.
After hoisting the old waste laden filter into a holding container with several of its buddies, where they’d stay until she later released them into a cleaning vat, she wadded back to the tank edge and asked, “What’s next on the list?”
The sentinel scooped her up and lifted her out of the tank and set her next to him before answering. “For you, a shower, a change of clothing, food, and if you’re willing, my drone could use help with some blown relays in my starboard fusion cannon.”
Liv paused in her attempt to scrape slime off her overalls and looked up at the sentinel.
Like the rest of the crew, she’d only slept a total of six hours over the last three days, which was only possible due to their liberal use of stimulant patches. But she, and all the crew, had worked miracles and Ven was nearly transit worthy again. She could reward herself with a little time off this evening.
Pulling off her boots, she upended them, pouring the caramel-scented neural fluids onto the floor. A drudge could clean it up later. Now that she knew what task Ven needed help with, she was looking forward to her next assignment because it meant getting to talk to Ven’s drone again. “Relays, you say,” she replied with a grin. “Relays are fun.”
His sentinel was silent as he led her out into the corridor but paused on the threshold and looked back at her. “Thank you.”
“Like I said,” she teased. “Relays are fun.”
Even though sentinels couldn’t smile, she could have sworn he smiled back at her as he said, “I have a feeling you could make anything fun, Olivia Hawthorne.”
“When we reach Teutorigos, I’d like to leave the capital for a few days,” Ven said. “Renee always wanted her body released into the Caratacus Sea.”
Liv pushed the relay panel she’d been checking back into the main control station and sighed. “Are you sure she’s brain dead?”
Ven occupied himself by pulling out another relay panel for Liv to check. “I’m sure. Every doctor aboard agrees with me. I’ve been preparing myself to say goodbye to her for two decades, but I thought we still had so much time.”
He di
dn’t add that he’d been clinging to some hope Renee would change her mind and allow him to reverse her aging so she could live longer. Being linked to a powerful telepath meant he could control every cell in their body, but with his link to Renee severed, he was powerless. He’d never felt powerless before, so helpless.
But knowing how easily AIs could manipulate signals in a telepath’s brain, Liv’s escape from Basilisk was all the more impressive and fascinating. He hadn’t asked her yet how she’d escaped, because he didn’t need to be linked to her to understand how painful those memories were. And the last thing he ever wanted to do was be responsible for causing her any kind of pain.
Liv sighed and put a hand on his arm. “This is a dangerous job, Ven. Maybe rogue AIs are uncommon, but there are always threats to the Spire’s safety that you’ve spent millennia combatting. Anyone who works for you knows the risks we’re taking. You can’t feel guilty about her death. She wouldn’t want you to.”
“I know,” he agreed. “But it would have been better, easier, if she’d actually died rather than this.”
Seven days had passed since Basilisk’s attack at the spaceport, and little had changed in Renee’s mind or body. And the few changes that had occurred were the result of more autonomic systems shutting down. Liv’s friendship and companionship had helped him cope with his grief and even accept Renee’s death, but Renee had been the closest friend he’d ever had. She was like the sister, the family he’d always wanted, and the void in his life her death had created couldn’t be filled.
As usual, Liv seemed to sense his thoughts, and she put a hand on his arm and offered him a sad smile. “Nobody is ever replaced, Ven. About half the girls who were kidnapped with me died, and I still feel every single one of their losses.”
Ven took a deep breath and tucked some of her hair behind an ear. The roots had begun to grow in a different shade, a warm blond rather than the ashy brown she’d been using to dye her hair. He was so conflicted all the time now: heartbroken over Renee’s impending death, worried about finding a replacement for her and finding one as soon as they reached Teutorigos since not having a link-level telepath risked not only his own life but his entire crews’, exhilarated by his new friendship with Liv, and aroused, always so aroused, by her touch and smell.
