by Natalie Grey
Rald had decided to remain on his own, but Jutkelon got a steadier stream of contracts through the syndicate. He had funds saved for when he decided to build his base on Devon—but in return, he had to pay part of his take to the syndicate.
Rald had never gone for that sort of thing. No one told him what to do.
Still, he didn’t bear Jutkelon any ill will. They even saw each other occasionally, since Rald’s team often took contracts to guard the transit and cargo ships traveling to and from the planet.
Rald had been out of contact on an urgent mission when Jutkelon had sent out the call for backup. He’d sent a message back as soon as he’d seen Jutkelon’s and received only silence in return.
He had begrudgingly contacted the syndicate to get the details. Three fully-crewed, fully-armed ships had been sent to take down someone who was meddling in their business.
They’d failed miserably.
Jutkelon was dead, those three ships had never come back, and when Rald had asked around to see why, all anyone would tell him was that the planet Devon was forbidden. Further questioning had uncovered that Devon had been renamed ‘High Tortuga’ and that it was now under the control of Queen Bethany Anne, formerly of the Etheric Empire.
Like hell it did. Who did they think they were? They had come out of nowhere, these humans, flashing tech that was too good to be true, and started flinging rules around as though they owned the galaxy.
High Tortuga—like they could just rename an entire planet!
Rald didn’t really care if the humans wanted to dress up in fancy clothes and call themselves kings. Hell, if their money was good enough and they offered enough fights, he’d sign right up and call them “Your Supreme Majesty” or whatever they wanted. Rich people got weird after a while but they were the ones who kept him in food and fights, so he had learned to let the weirdness go.
It was the way of the world, after all. If you were strong enough, you took what you wanted. Rald helped people who did that, and if he didn’t, someone else would. There was no use complaining about it.
But now these humans were turning the established order on its head. They hadn’t taken over the businesses completely, but instead had laid down the law with the owners and told them what they could and couldn’t do.
Rald didn’t care for that, especially when they just went and killed the people who didn’t comply.
So he’d made himself a promise to find whoever had done that to Jutkelon and make them hurt. He’d asked around at the syndicate, but no one seemed to know anything—until this mysterious Torcellan had called out of the blue and offered information.
All Rald had to do was break his only rule and join something called the ‘Yennai Corporation.’ He’d pay the share of his take and pass along information, and in return they would give him any information they found on the human who had killed Jutkelon and their ships would back him up if he cornered the bastard. As a gesture of goodwill, they had even given Rald a possible name for the human’s ship—Shinigami. The information was unconfirmed, but it was more than Rald had been able to find on his own.
Take it or leave it.
He’d take it, Rald decided. He had to. Jutkelon had asked for his help but he hadn’t come through…and now Jutkelon was dead. Some son of a Hieten had gone in there and murdered his friend, and Rald owed it to him to return the favor.
He could figure out who the Torcellan was later. In the meantime, he was going to get even with whoever had done this—but if they’d taken out three ships he was going to need the corporation’s help, as much as he hated to admit it.
He nodded at the figure on the screen. “I’ll take it. I’ll be in contact when I get to Devon.”
“Ah. For that, you will need my help. Ships must be cleared to land there.” Rald got the impression the Torcellan was smiling. “There is a berth for you on the merchant ship Ulys. You’ll be registered as a worker on the ship. I’ve sent the itinerary. Meet it at Gammon.”
The screen winked off and Rald frowned. He read the instructions that had just come through and frowned harder. No weaponry? This had to be a fucking joke.
Rald wasn’t laughing, and by the time he was done with the humans they wouldn’t be either. As far as he was concerned, anyone and everyone who’d had anything to do with Jutkelon’s death was fair game.
Carter wiped his hands on a dishtowel and backed out of the kitchen at Aebura’s as he called instructions to Oemuga, his new assistant.
“And make sure they don’t shortchange you on the fruit!” The last piece of advice was probably lost in the clatter of cooking and juice-pressing.
He shook his head. Oemuga was a good assistant, but he needed to get better at bargaining. Ubuara always looked for accord when they were making deals, which meant they were likely to compromise too much. The same was true of the Ubuara he was training to be bartenders.
He’d have to ask Aebura how she’d learned to be so shrewd in business. Maybe she could teach Oemuga and the others. She’d left Tethra a few weeks ago after signing over her bar to Carter so she could work in the newly-liberated mining town.
Carter whistled, his spirits lifting at the thought of being able to talk to her again. Aebura always cheered him up. She had such a simple, happy outlook on life: gathering friends together was good, and worrying about the future was bad. She also had a sense of humor that always startled him, and he was grateful to count her amongst his friends.
He was over by the bar getting himself a cup of water when he noticed one of the patrons and stopped dead. “Barnabas! I thought you’d left.”
“I was going to,” Barnabas told him. “But then I figured I’d get one last glass of juice.” He held up his glass with a mournful look. “We haven’t been able to synthesize it yet.”
“And I,” a young woman with black hair interrupted, “came here expecting to find him doing drugs, and found out that ‘juice’ actually means juice.”
“Carter, may I introduce Tabitha?” Barnabas requested politely. “Tabitha, Carter runs this bar. He helped us against the mine owner a few weeks back. Carter, Tabitha is—”
“Ranger Two.” Carter breathed. He had to work to keep from gawping like a fish, and judging by Tabitha’s expression he wasn’t doing too well.
“I knew this new armor looked good.” She snickered. “It really makes my ass look—”
“He’s impressed by your record of service to Bethany Anne,” Barnabas told her in a pained tone. “He can’t see your… You know what, never mind.” To Carter he added, “Also, we really do need to find a different term. We aren’t ‘Ranger One’ and ‘Ranger Two’ anymore.”
“Details.” Tabitha waved her hand to dismiss the problem of a name and downed the last of her Coke. “You know what this place needs? Burgers.”
“We’re working on that, actually.” Carter grabbed a menu. “Now, if you want just some random fried stuff—fries, cheese curds….”
“Cheese curds?”
“I grew up in the Midwest. Trust me, they’re good. We’re still waiting on artificial production for the beef, though, so no burgers worth eating yet. We do have this kind of sausage sandwich thing.”
“Like choripan?” Tabitha demanded. When she saw Carter’s confused look, she flapped a hand. “Never mind. Bring me one, though.”
“You’re not being very polite,” Barnabas chided.
“There’s no time to be polite. I’m hungry.”
“So help me, if you are rude to people here, I will not take you anywhere else.” Barnabas glared at her.
“Fine.” Tabitha threw a look at Barnabas. She turned back to Carter with her hands clasped in front of her, and her head tilted to the side. “Can you please bring me a sausage sandwich? I’m so hungry. I’ve been craving choripan for years because I stupidly forgot to steal a street cart as we left Earth. And a vendor.”
She turned back to Barnabas. “There, was that polite enough to get me fed?”
Barnabas sighed and tou
ched a hand to his forehead to rub the spot where the headache Tabitha gave him always began.
Carter grinned as soon as his back was to the Rangers. He pushed the door open into the kitchen and shouted Tabitha’s order to the cook. Qiliax had come here to help after the mines were freed. Like most of the former guards there, she was a Brakalon. She barely fit in the kitchen, spending most of her day hunched over, but her food was fantastic.
She was such a good cook that he couldn’t figure out why she’d ever been a guard, but she only shrugged when he asked and told him that no one hired a Brakalon for anything except hitting things very hard. Apparently, Carter was the first one who hadn’t laughed at her when she’d asked him if she could try out as his cook.
Their loss, Carter’s gain.
Between her cooking and Aebura’s established group of regulars business was humming along, although he joked with Barnabas that half their profit margin so far was Barnabas’ insane consumption of hakoj juice.
“I’ll have a crate of juice ready for you by the time you leave,” he told Barnabas when he got back to the front. “If you’re going off to save the universe you really should have refreshments on board.”
“Just make sure you don’t give me any of that spoiled batch of Coke,” Barnabas teased Carter wickedly. “It was really tragic,” he told Tabitha. “He came here with this plan to run a bar, and he’d handle producing Coke, right? Well, his first batch just went way wrong. I think it’s something about the water here. Anyway, he’s figured out the filtration now and everything’s better.”
Barnabas took one look at Carter’s deer-in-the-headlights expression and snorted. He was well aware that Carter had been producing Pepsi on the sly, and there was nothing he liked more than teasing Carter about it.
Tabitha looked back and forth between them, but a few seconds later the sandwich appeared in the little window next to the bar and all her attention turned to the food.
“Ohhhh, that smells so good.” She grinned at Carter when he handed it over. She snatched it up and took a bite before the plate had even hit the bar. “Thankff. Oh man, thif taftef fo good.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Barnabas told her.
“Wha, la vif?
Barnabas dropped his head into his hands in defeat and Carter tried to stifle his snort of laughter. “So, where’s Gar?” he asked to distract Barnabas before he brought up Carter’s Coke snafu again.
“Ah.” Barnabas looked up again. He was studiously avoiding the sight of Tabitha eating. She was clearly playing up all the smacking sounds, looking over at him with a grin every couple of bites. “He’s on the ship, getting prepared for upgrades.”
“Upgrades?”
“Povvoc,” Tabitha clarified around a mouthful of sandwich.
“What?”
“Pod-doc.” Barnabas looked like he was going to have an aneurysm. “She said ‘Pod-doc.’ They allow for certain changes to physiology. Now, he hasn’t yet been cleared for those changes—”
“Why not?”
“For one thing, Shinigami has to learn more about his species before she just starts changing things around. There wasn’t much about Luvendi in our databases. She’s working with TOM to figure out what sort of upgrades would even be useful and make sure we don’t mess anything up, especially in terms of cognition. Physical issues are pretty easily fixed, but once the mind goes…” Barnabas gave Carter a meaningful look. “But part of it is certainly that he hasn’t fully proven himself to me. Before I allow him to take advantage of some of the best of our technology, I want to make sure he’s not going to have another change of heart once he has the power the upgrades will give him.”
Carter nodded in approval. Gar had helped immensely when Barnabas liberated the mines. In fact, Gar had willingly sacrificed himself to kill Lan, his former employer. The fact that he hadn’t died was entirely due to the advanced tech available on the Shinigami.
Still, before he had come over to the side of Justice Gar had done some terrible things under Lan’s orders. It made good sense to Carter that Barnabas wanted to keep an eye on Gar for a bit longer before making him any more dangerous.
Tabitha, meanwhile, finished licking off her fingers and smacked her lips. “That was amazing. I’m going to be back. Probably every day. You know what? Just have a sandwich waiting for me around this time. I’ll keep a tab open.”
“Are you planning to break mid-mission each day to come get a sandwich?” Barnabas inquired. He looked like he was trying not to laugh.
“I think I could get Bethany Anne to go for that. She appreciates the important things in life.”
“She does,” Barnabas agreed. “Honor, duty, Justice…and sandwiches, apparently.”
Tabitha nodded seriously as she wiped her fingers on her napkin and threw it onto the empty plate before getting up. “Bye, Big B.” She waved cheerfully to Carter, planted a kiss on Barnabas’ cheek—he only sighed at this—and disappeared into the street, a surprisingly short figure all in black.
Barnabas smiled at Carter’s expression. “Not what you expected from Ranger Two?”
Carter held a hand up at head height. “I thought…you know, taller? And serious, maybe. I mean, she’s done some insane shit if even half of the stories are true. Sorry for swearing,” he added hastily.
Barnabas only chuckled. “She definitely has done some…well, impressive things, shall we say. You could not ask for a more loyal ally. Of course, she embodies the term ‘chaotic neutral.’ But I’ve come to appreciate that chaos over the years, even if she is a bad influence on Shinigami. Probably on me, too.” He set down his glass with a sigh. “Say hello to Elisa and the kids for me. And if you ever need help, do feel free to call on either Tabitha or me. I’ll be back when I can.”
“Where are you going?” Carter asked curiously. He had known for a while that Barnabas intended to head off-planet, but so far he hadn’t told Carter anything about where or why.
“I’m not exactly sure.” Barnabas flashed Carter a smile full of teeth that were a lot sharper than humans usually had. “I’ll be on the lookout for the people who came to Lan’s aid. There are a lot of people out there who target planets like High Tortuga because they think no one’s protecting them. My mission has always been to make people like that…reconsider their course of action.”
Carter considered pointing out that people had to be alive in order to reconsider things, but decided not to say anything at all. He waved as Barnabas disappeared, then he cleaned the glass with a shake of his head.
Barnabas had been a stalwart ally and a good friend, and he was surprisingly indulgent with Carter’s twins, Alanna and Samuel.
But Carter would never, ever want to get on his bad side.
On the Shinigami, Gar opened his eyes as the Pod-doc hissed open. He sat up, squinting in the bright lights. His head ached fiercely.
“Any progress?”
“Yes.” Shinigami’s voice came from the speakers nearby. “Your physiology is quite interesting. Not only are your bones more brittle than those of other species, your skeletal structure is not well suited to walking on land. It supports the theory that the Luvendi did indeed evolve from marine mammals, even if it wasn’t on Luvendan.”
Gar nodded as he got dressed. The history of the Luvendi was shrouded in mystery. His people now lived in submerged towers in the oceans that covered the planet Luvendan, but no one could remember how and when the towers had been built.
It was a mystery that quite intrigued Shinigami.
“Barnabas is back,” Shinigami reported. “He asks that you join him in the planning room.”
“Of course.” Gar felt the usual thrill of worry he got when he anticipated seeing Barnabas, although he was aware that he was in no danger as long as he did not do anything immoral or unjust. He was even more aware of the fact that Barnabas had very high standards
And that he was very, very dangerous.
Since Barnabas was back now, Gar assumed he had picked a
place for them to go first in their search for Lan’s allies. He adjusted his robes as he walked down the hallways, and found himself shaking his head.
Those poor bastards had no idea what was coming.
Chapter Two
Barnabas waited in the planning room. True to form, he was making notes in pen on the printouts of the maps and schematics that he’d gathered for their mission. The pen was a concession he had made to Shinigami when he had pulled out a pencil and she had asked why he wanted her to have to filter graphite particles and sawdust out of the air.
He preferred to do things with paper rather than on computer screens. Something about writing and drawing cleared his mind, perhaps a legacy of his days spent among the painstakingly illuminated handwritten texts in the monastery.
It amused everyone else to poke fun at it.
When Gar came into the room Barnabas looked up with interest. The Luvendi seemed more subdued than usual, but he offered no reason for this so Barnabas decided to let it be for the moment. Gar had certainly had serious and unpleasant things to consider while he atoned for his past actions, and Barnabas believed that moral wrestling bouts were best done on one’s own. He would only step in if he were asked to do so or if he sensed a problem.
“We have our first stop,” Barnabas told the Luvendi. He tapped on a star chart and pulled out a set of schematics. “Virtue Station, which was called something unpronounceable by humans in the original language so I translated.”
Gar frowned at the schematics and shrugged. His own path off the planet Luvendan had involved very few stops along the way, and in any case, there were so many planets and stations that no one could hope to know all of them.
“This is the source of the mercenaries Jutkelon summoned?” Gar asked. He was learning to speak English and his speech had gradually grown more formal to match Barnabas’, something Shinigami found deeply amusing.