by Natalie Grey
“You can’t be serious. Why are you wading into the water?”
“It’s warm. It feels nice. You have nerve endings, yes?”
“Yes, but I hate them.” She shuddered. “Constant biofeedback. Take a step, feel some pain. Adjust your posture, feel some pain. How do humans deal with it without going mad? Actually…” She frowned. “That explains a lot. You’re all mad.”
“As hatters,” Barnabas agreed. “I don’t think that’s why, but I could be wrong. You’re walking very well right now, by the way.”
“Am I? I wonder how I’m doing that. I… Oh, sonofa—” She tumbled into the sand. “You say not to think about it, and then you draw my attention to it?”
“Yeah, that one was on me. I’m sorry.”
She stuck out an arm and tripped him, sending him sprawling into the waves. “There. Now we’re even.”
“I liked this coat!”
“I’m sure the saltwater will wash out. Don’t be such a baby.” She wiggled her toes in the sand. “This feels peculiar.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” Barnabas sat up but didn’t bother to get out of the water. He stretched out his legs and leaned back on his hands, looking at the sky. “You know, aside from the sky being too purple, this is a nice place. I bet we could start a proper resort for humans here.”
“You want to run a hotel?”
“No, that sounds terrible. Just a large building for people to visit when they wanted to. I think Tabitha would like it.”
“Probably.” Shinigami made a few attempts to pull her hair into a ponytail and gave up. “Jeltor’s coming.”
“How can you tell that’s Jeltor?”
“I put a little sticker on his suit when he wasn’t paying attention.”
Barnabas snorted and bit his lip. “Hello, Jeltor,” he said as the Jotuns approached.
“You’re getting better at recognizing us!” Jeltor sounded pleased.
“I… Er, yes.”
Liar.
I can’t admit to him that they all look like blobs of grape jelly to me. He’ll be crushed.
Shinigami scowled at him. You shouldn’t lie, she said primly.
Where is this sudden streak of morality coming from?
She snickered and looked at Jeltor. “So, how is the party going?”
“Very well.” Jeltor smiled as fireworks exploded above. “It’s not every day you avoid getting crushed to death by a dreadnought, after all.
“And we are drinking in memory of those we lost in the battle.”
Shinigami studied her hands. When she had been an avatar, she could just disappear rather than decipher what to do with her expression. She bit her lip.
“Plus,” Jeltor continued, determinedly cheerful, “now we have to go back and get hauled up on treason charges by the Senate while we try to haul them up on treason charges, so we might as well have a good party before we go. We won’t be getting any for a while, I think.”
“Would you like us to testify?” Barnabas asked him.
“I’d like you to get Gar before he’s sick in the pool.”
“Dear Lord.” Barnabas stood and hauled Shinigami to her feet. “I forgot that we didn’t give him the upgrades to make him impervious to alcohol.”
“He said he didn’t want them. I think Luvendan was a bit on the boring side and he’s been wanting to cut loose. You know, get drunk, get in bar fights—that sort of thing.”
“I’m going to regret bringing him aboard, aren’t I?” They headed off through the trees. “Next time, we go somewhere with no bars.”
“If you go somewhere with no bars, how are you going to find trouble to fix?” Shinigami frowned at him.
“There was that distress signal we picked up earlier today—the one from that farming planet. We could start there and see what we find. And you’ve clearly never lived in a monastery. There’s always trouble, regardless of whether there’s a dive bar for it to happen in.” Barnabas looked at the sky with a grin. “There’s always trouble,” he repeated. “So let’s get Gar, feed him some coffee, and go find it.”
FINIS
Author Notes - Natalie Grey
July 20, 2018
Thank you for reading Paladin! As always, diving into the Kurtherian universe has been amazingly fun, and I can only hope you’ve had as much fun as I have when writing. With Tafa’s recovery, Gar growing into his abilities, and Barnabas and Shinigami forging a true friendship, there’s a lot to root for, and that’s the type of series you really hope to get to write.
The publishing team has, as always, been amazing. Jeff with his amazing covers, Lynne and her team on editing, Steve helping all of us stay on task, Michael bouncing plot ideas around with me, and the beta readers helping me keep everything tight! I’m lucky to work with this team and in this world.
There’s a lot coming up this year: more Dragon Corps, more Barnabas, and (as we go into next year) some more of Nicky’s story, as well as a two-book series of steampunky, dragony adventures! I can’t wait to share it all with you, so definitely sign up for the mailing list if you haven’t already:
https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/w0k9j4
Happy reading,
Nat
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
July 24, 2018
First, THANK YOU for reading through both this story to the end and my Author Notes.
Just the other day, Natalie reached out through our Slack channel and asked for story ideas for our pals Barnabas and Shinigami, and how we might want to tell them.
I suggested that we go ‘on the road.’ Of course, it’s obvious you can’t quite go on the road in space, but the idea is there in principle. So, my version was to go to different areas (maybe space stations?) and track down those messing with people and adjudicating a little Barnabas Justice along the way.
He might swing through and say hi to the peeps from time to time, but this would be the road show for the two of them (and the rest of the team).
BUT, as I considered what to write in these Author Notes, I wondered what YOU would tell Natalie if she had asked? If you have ideas, why not send them to her? You can find her at her Facebook page here:
https://www.facebook.com/nataliegreyauthor/ .
GO ahead…reach out!
Personally, I hope about thirty (30) of you do this, and pummel her (in a good way) with all sorts of directions you hope to see Barnabas and Shinigami head in!
For those interested, Bethany Anne will be making a return August 10, 2018 (about two and a half weeks from when I’m writing this) and this time, Michael is responsible for a little baby-sitting.
However, there is a reason he was able to last over a thousand years on Earth and it had a lot to do with his ability to see into the future and figure out what he needed to keep his sanity.
(It’s a pretty cool solution, and I want one or three myself.)
However, it has a drawback, and John Grimes might find out first-hand the challenges of Michael’s…toy.
Finally, it’s time they get serious about building a barbeque pit, but the Queen has put her size seven-and-a-half shoes firmly down on where she doesn’t want it, on pain of pain if they fail to listen to her.
Will Michael do that? Or, is he truly that stubborn?
Check out the pre-order (sometime soon) to make sure you have it when Amazon drops it at midnight Aug 10th.
I hope your summer is FANTASTIC. We will be publishing another twenty books to keep you up all night and sleeping all day before summer ends!
Ad Aeternitatem,
Michael
Justiciar
Vigilante Chronicles Book 5
Chapter One
Thirty minutes out from the stranded ship, Shinigami reported.
“Heading to the bridge.” Barnabas whistled as he made his way through the white corridors of the Shinigami. The ship raced through a particularly lonely patch of what Shinigami had nicknamed “the Jellyfish Sector.”
The name referre
d to one of the more noteworthy races in this area of space, the Jotun. They looked like multicolored blobs of jelly and tended to transport themselves around in mechanical suits with a range of intriguing features.
Barnabas had worked with some of the Jotun Navy in his last mission, which had given him a great deal of respect for the Jotuns as a species and an absolute hatred of the Jotun Parliament.
Corrupt bastards, the lot of them. They had signed their people over to a bloodthirsty corporation in return for a few beach houses and Lord only knew what other trinkets. Shinigami had uncovered enough dirty money trails running through their system that Barnabas could have made nearly every member of Parliament a pariah in society. He hadn’t released the information yet, but he fully intended to if they pissed him off in the future.
Shinigami had accused him of blackmail. Barnabas maintained it wasn’t blackmail if they didn’t know his plan. Gar and Tafa, meanwhile, had wisely opted not to weigh in.
Barnabas turned a corner and gave a yell as he tripped over a body. Eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling while pale hands lay palm up, fingers slightly curled.
Ghostly snickering echoed from the nearby speakers. “You look ridiculous,” Shinigami told Barnabas in deep amusement.
“For the last time…” Barnabas recovered his footing and adjusted his vest, glaring at the speakers, “do not leave your body in the corridor. You have rooms of your own now. You pestered me about them for days.”
“I need clothes.”
“No, you don’t. You don’t use your body.” Barnabas hauled the limp thing up by the armpits and dragged it to the side of the corridor.
“I do too!”
“Then I don’t suppose you’d help me with this? Mechanical bodies are heavy.”
“You could use the exercise. Too much fruit juice.”
“Low.” Barnabas knew she was only teasing. With his upgrades, he was practically incapable of carrying extra weight. Still, Shinigami had discovered something that he had managed to hide from nearly everyone else: he was incredibly vain. She needled him about it at regular intervals, making fun of his hair, his clothing and now his looks. He smoothed a hand over his stomach and glared at the speakers again. “And you’re hardly one to get on my case about exercise. How long since you last used this body?”
Shinigami flickered into being as a projection. With her arms crossed and one hip jutted out, she looked unimpressed.
“It is not the same thing at all. I don’t need to work my muscles or increase my cardiovascular function.”
“On the contrary.” Barnabas leaned forward with a smile. “It’s very similar. You, like anyone in training, need to learn to make your body do what you want it to. You need to learn to interpret its feedback. You find this process frustrating, as we do. Therefore…” His smile broadened, and he shrugged slightly, “you slack.”
Shinigami’s face turned stony. “I am not slacking. I am flying this ship!”
“Says an AI who once told me that she had plenty of capacity to handle multiple projects at once. Are you running out of memory? Do you need a defrag?” Barnabas took pleasure in waltzing directly through Shinigami’s projection.
“Listen, you ingrate, I am not going to take this abuse from you!”
“Mmmhmm. Well, may I remind you that you very much wanted to—what was it you said, exactly?—ah, yes ’smash some skulls in.’” Barnabas cast a look over his shoulder.
“I can do that!”
“You definitely cannot. I am not letting you off this ship and into combat until I think you’re ready.”
Shinigami created another projection right in front of him, causing him to stop briefly on instinct. She snickered at his expression. “Ah, yes, the much-vaunted human intellect. We’re much better off with you in charge.”
“Let’s try that experiment with you,” Barnabas muttered. “You’ll trip over your own feet.”
“I will not. This body is an atrocity and is far too difficult to use.”
“So we’ll take the body back,” Barnabas said airily.
“No! It’s mine.”
“You don’t want it, and I’m sure Achronyx could use one.”
Shinigami huffed but did not answer. A moment later, Barnabas heard a sound behind him. He turned to see the body come to life. It was always a somewhat disturbing process to watch it animate, and he grimaced when the chest shuddered and the eyes blinked.
It took two tries for Shinigami to get up off the floor. “This is harder for me than you,” she complained to Barnabas. “AIs aren’t meant to have to learn this sort of thing.”
“You wanted to learn this,” Barnabas pointed out. He made sure not to let his face twitch with amusement while the body walked jerkily toward him. “Besides, you have far more memory to create things like subroutines. You can build an entirely new way of learning to use a body. And have you seen little kids learning to walk before? They’re not good at it.”
“I saw holos of Christina— “
“Christina doesn’t count.”
They made their way to the bridge, Barnabas ambling with his hands in his pockets, Shinigami swearing both out of the speakers and the mechanical body as she struggled to walk smoothly.
Barnabas refrained from suggesting she speak to Jeltor. He had mentioned it already, and Shinigami had been resistant to the idea of, as she said, “Having a jellyfish teach me how to walk.” Barnabas thought Jeltor was probably the best person to teach her, but he was trying to learn to keep his mouth shut.
He wasn’t very good at it yet.
On the bridge, he found Tafa sitting at the navigator’s desk watching the charted route and making minute adjustments. She flashed them both a smile.
“I thought you said you were flying the ship,” Barnabas said to Shinigami.
“I’m backup,” Shinigami replied, with great dignity. “Tafa doesn’t know all the ins and outs of the ship’s capabilities yet.”
“Mmm.” Barnabas thought Tafa was showing an innate grasp of the skill, but he did not voice that thought. He took a seat in the captain’s chair and watched while Shinigami struggled to sit gracefully in the next chair over. “You’re getting better at that.”
“I still tip at the end.” She sounded disgruntled. “How do you all avoid doing that?”
“It has to do with the balance of the weight and committing to the movement.”
“Show me,” Shinigami ordered.
With a roll of his eyes, Barnabas complied, standing up and sitting down several times while Shinigami watched.
When he finished, he sat down and crossed his legs, only to jump as Gar’s voice said, “What in the sea was that all about?”
“Shinigami is learning how to sit.” Barnabas looked over as Gar joined them. Gar prided himself on being more cosmopolitan than most Luvendi, who were famously insular. He was also a good deal less amoral than many others of his species who had left their home planet.
Still, the more comfortable he became with his new shipmates, the more Luvendi colloquialisms peppered his speech. Using “the sea” when others might use “the universe” was one of them—a giant ocean covered Luvendan, and the Luvendi lived in giant submerged towers.
Gar sat on Barnabas’ left, unaware of Shinigami leaning forward to watch.
“He’s more graceful than you are,” Shinigami told Barnabas, needling him again with a wicked grin.
“Mainly because I have spent most of my life worried that my bones would fracture if I weren’t careful,” Gar pointed out. Tall and thin, he nonetheless had muscle tone that no other Luvendi in the universe could claim. Shinigami had modified him in the Pod-doc, increasing his bone strength—Luvendi were famously fragile—and increasing his healing speed and his reflexes, and enhancing his senses.
Now, unaware of the argument going on under the surface of the conversation, Gar nodded at the screen. “Any more details on the stranded ship?”
“Only a few,” Shinigami reported. “I ran what I could t
hrough the reports from local stations. If it’s the ship I think it is, it’s civilian. Has a large cargo hold, probably for food transport as a side business but is mainly for passengers. Lots of bunks.”
“No word on the nature of the emergency?” Barnabas had picked up the distress call a few days earlier while attending a celebration of the defeat of the Yennai Corporation. Since the ship was stranded in a very remote area, he had decided to pursue the lead.
After all, it was unlikely that anyone else could get to them faster than the Shinigami could. With the best of Etheric Empire technology, the ship had the security features necessary to venture into an area potentially filled with pirates.
In all honesty, Barnabas was hoping they would encounter a few. He was longing for a nice uncomplicated bit of work, something that didn’t involve massive shadowy corporations that had infiltrated multiple governments and business sectors.
Perhaps someone on the ship would have a good lead to follow.
Shinigami’s face went blank. While she had learned the knack of emoting with her projections, she still did not think to do so when she was inhabiting her new mechanical body. “I’m picking something up,” she said in an emotionless voice.
She brought the disturbance up on the screen, and everyone frowned and leaned forward to look.
The ship most likely thought it was invisible to the Shinigami’s detection. It was approaching from a nearby cloud of debris, which Shinigami now scanned. The scan turned up pieces of two distinct ships, one Brakalon and one Shrillexian.
“The wrecks are recent,” she told Barnabas.
Barnabas sat back with a frown. “What do you think the odds are,” he asked no one in particular, “that a ship hiding here with two recent wrecks is not connected to the ship making the distress call?”