by Natalie Grey
There was a long pause.
“We weren’t trying to steal his ship,” Zinqued explained finally.
“Yeah, why would you think that?” Aliana asked.
“For one thing, the two of you currently look like two children who’ve painted the dog and are trying to keep their mother from finding out, and for another, stealing ships seems to be how Zinqued solves problems. And Lawrence did take your ship, didn’t he? We did some research, Shinigami and I.”
“The AI,” Aliana murmured to Zinqued. She added meaningfully, “They’re famously loyal.”
Barnabas, peering into her head for a moment, found several memories of her telling Zinqued that it would be impossible to steal the Shinigami.
He found himself hoping that she tried anyway.
“The people who say that haven’t met Shinigami,” he told them blandly.
Hey! I am busting my ass for you guys right now!
“I meant Achronyx,” Barnabas corrected.
That’s better. However…”Shannon?”
We’ll talk about this later.
Aliana and Zinqued looked at him like he was a grenade that might go off at any moment.
“Shinigami and I discussed it,” Barnabas continued, “and decided that there was no way you could have known we were going to be on this station. Despite past interactions, it seems that this meeting happened genuinely by chance. So, for that reason—and also because the man you were speaking to seems to be a terrible excuse for a human being—we are going to help you steal his ship. Or, rather, steal your ship back. Then we will all go our separate ways. I can’t imagine we’ll cross paths again, after all.” He gave Aliana a bland smile.
Her internal monologue was fairly consistent swearing.
BINGO! The interjection from Shinigami was so unexpected that Barnabas jumped. Aliana looked at him with a frown and he shook his head.
Bingo? he asked Shinigami.
Oh, sorry. I was playing bingo with all of the douchey things he was saying. And I won!
Yes, yes, very good.
He looked at Aliana. This was going to be fun. Well, it was going to be fun if she said yes. Barnabas slid his hands into his pockets, tilted his head to the side, and waited for her to remember how to speak.
He really was hoping she accepted his help on this one.
This was bad. It was very, very bad. In fact, it was probably a trap.
“Excuse me.” Aliana gave Barnabas a polite smile and dragged Zinqued a few feet away. “All right, level with me. You’ve run into him how many times?”
“Four,” Barnabas offered.
“It’s rude to eavesdrop,” Aliana told him with great dignity.
“Indeed.” His mouth twitched. “I’ll go a few feet farther away.”
“Thank you.” She watched while he strolled away, looking elegant and entirely unconcerned, then looked at Zinqued. “So?”
“He was right, you know.” He was still looking at the Shinigami.
“Yes, yes. Focus.” Aliana took him by the shoulders. “Do you have any idea how dangerous he is?”
“Oh, yes.” Zinqued looked both amused and terrified. “I once saw him and two friends work their way through hundreds of mercenaries.”
“Okay.” Aliana felt a bit queasy. She stole a glance over her shoulder. “Wait, really? Him in the suit right there?”
“You said—”
“I know, it’s just hard to believe.” She blew out a breath. “My point is, if he really wanted you dead, you’d be dead right now.”
“Yes. I suppose so.”
“So he’s toying with you,” Aliana said resignedly. “With us, I guess. Well, let him. If he wants to get his jollies helping screw Lawrence over, I say we take the deal.”
“And steal his ship,” Zinqued said.
“One thing at a time,” Aliana advised him. She marched back over to Barnabas. “All right, we’ll take the deal. The first thing we have to do is get Ria out of jail. She screwed me over, but she did try to make it right. It wouldn’t be good to leave her here. Let’s go.”
“Incorrect,” Barnabas told her. “We have to rewrite the ship’s registration so it’s solely in your name, then you’ll be able to get her out as the captain of the Melisande.”
“Oh, that is better.”
“I thought you’d say so.” He smiled at her. “Let me just ask Shinigami.” There was a pause. “Your middle name is Lilly, yes? Two Ls?”
“I—yes.”
“Place of birth approximately in the Betoger Nebula, yes?”
“That’s about where the Meredith Reynolds was, yes, but—”
“Approximate is fine. Bethany Anne has great respect for the power of bureaucracy. Anyone trying to verify information on humans has a very, very difficult time doing so unless they can prove there’s a need.” He gave her a smile.
“I still can’t get over the fact that you just call her Bethany Anne.”
“It is her name. Now, come along, both of you—yes, you too, Zinqued, I see how you’re looking at my ship—and let’s get Ria out of jail.”
As they walked, Barnabas pointed out some of the features of Victory Station and recounted his exploits here. Aliana gaped at him, laughing at some of the cons he’d pulled. She knew that in some ways, his actions were very similar to Lawrence’s, yet—
“That’s the difference,” she murmured to herself.
“Hmm?” Barnabas looked at her with interest.
“I, uh…I was just thinking.” Seeing his curious look, she took a deep breath for courage and explained, “Lawrence is a con artist too. It made me uncomfortable that I was applauding you for your cons, because his ruin people. Then I realized the difference: he finds a target, he learns everything he needs to about them, and he pretends to be the perfect person so he can take everything. You find a target and you learn about them, but you always give them an out. It’s like you set a trap right in the middle of the easy way out, and if they do the right thing, they’ll never know the trap was there.”
Barnabas looked absurdly pleased. “Yes. Yes, that’s exactly it.” He didn’t say anything more, but she could tell he was happy by the way he hid his smile.
It turned out to be very simple to get Ria out of jail. Aliana waltzed in with her chin held high, introduced Barnabas as her lawyer, and complained that they had imprisoned her mechanic on false charges without even speaking to her first.
“Ma’am, we verified that the accusations were being made by the owner of the human ship—” The Torcellan checked the paperwork “Melisande.”
“Well, clearly you didn’t,” Aliana said, “since I’m the owner.”
There was some hasty muttering as they ran her card. The Torcellan came back, hands fluttering.
“I am so sorry, Captain. I promise this will not happen again.”
“I should hope not,” Aliana said severely.
“Is there anything else we can do for you?”
“Yes.” She gave an icy smile. “We’ll want to leave shortly—to go to a station where this sort of thing doesn’t happen. I’d appreciate it if you’d take care of all the notifications. You know who I am, so there shouldn’t be any problems.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” They waved her away, Ria trotting in her wake, and Aliana gave a disbelieving laugh.
“We pulled it off!” she said excitedly as they emerged into the docking bays.
“You pulled it off,” Barnabas corrected. “And before you get all flattered, let me just say that you’re rather too good at that for comfort.”
“Says the man who proposed stealing a ship.” Aliana flashed him a grin. “Now, how do we get back onto the ship? Lawrence said he changed the codes.”
“Leave that to Tafa.” Barnabas nodded toward a Yofu mechanic who was fiddling with the control panel. “We’ll be on the ship in a jiffy.”
“Who is this guy?” Ria asked dubiously.
“Oh.” Aliana coughed. “Right, of course, you don’t know. Hang o
nto your hat, because this is good…”
Chapter Fifteen
“How’s it going?” Barnabas asked Tafa as he led their strange party up the ramp.
“To be honest, I’m just holding this scanner thingy here while Shinigami does the work.” Tafa shook her head. “I’m a glorified pedestal.”
Oh, don’t say that, Shinigami cut in. You’re so much more than that, Tafa.
Thank you, Shinigami.
You have thumbs! Four of them!
Tafa gave Barnabas a long-suffering look as he snorted with laughter.
To distract her, he asked, “I don’t believe you’ve met Aliana, have you? She’s Carter’s niece. Tafa, Aliana; Aliana, Tafa. Tafa came to be part of our crew after we ran into a mercenary group that was taking hostages. And this is Zinqued, captain of the Palpari, who you may remember as the one who has tried to steal the Shinigami several times. Zinqued, Tafa.”
Tafa looked curiously at Zinqued and Aliana.
“Where’s Gar?” Barnabas asked Tafa.
“On board,” Tafa replied. “Well, on board the Shinigami. He says he doesn’t want to take the chance of Zinqued stealing it.”
“Ha!” Zinqued exclaimed, pleased. “So he thinks it is possible.”
Everyone gave him a look.
“Read the room, man,” Aliana told him.
“We are all friends here,” Zinqued said with great dignity. “For now. What benefit in pretending none of our history has occurred, eh? Often adversaries become friends.”
“He’s a philosopher,” Barnabas told Aliana. “Less uncommon than you’d think amongst thieves.”
“I…see.”
Barnabas was enjoying this every bit as much as he’d expected. As Tafa gave a small sound of satisfaction and the doors clicked open, he grinned and stepped back with an artful bow, gesturing for Aliana to go first.
“Your ship, Captain.”
“I do like the sound of that.” She gave Zinqued a small smile. “And thank you, Zinqued. Thank you for setting this up and—”
“If I may interject,” the Hieto said, “we missed our window last time. Let us not make the same mistake twice.”
“Ah. Yes.” Aliana nodded decisively and strode onto the ship. “All right, two major tasks, as far as I can tell. No, three. First, get all of the verification systems retagged to me instead of Lawrence.”
“I can help you with that,” Barnabas suggested.
“Excellent. Next, make sure there aren’t any booby traps anywhere, probably on secret caches of goods he’s hidden away. Or in the captain’s quarters.”
“I’ll call Gilwar to come scan for those,” Tafa offered.
“Good,” Barnabas replied. He was trying not to laugh at the idea of a high-profile Jotun spy assisting in a single-ship theft. “Wait, what was the third thing?”
“Put all of Lawrence’s things in a pile on the dock and set them on fire,” Aliana said sweetly.
I like her. Can we keep her?
We’re getting her a ship, so I doubt it. He didn’t hate the idea, however.
That’s a shame.
Barnabas agreed and followed Aliana to the bridge. He used some of the tools in Tafa’s bag, as well as Ria’s knowledge of recent missions, to scan the area for booby traps.
There were several.
“You know,” he mused, as he helped Ria disable one of them, “one might say it would be very fitting for Lawrence to be killed by his own booby traps.”
“Yes,” Aliana agreed. “Although I don’t really want him dead. I just want him not to have anything he got by cheating it out of people. And I want him to stop being such an asshole.”
“He’s not going to stop being an asshole,” Ria predicted from under the desk. “You, ginger dude—keep holding that.”
“Sorry.” Barnabas held the piece of machinery as he peered under the desk. “My hair is not ginger.”
“It’s basically ginger.”
“She’s right,” Aliana weighed in. Seeing the look on Barnabas’ face, she added hastily, “But it suits you! It really does.”
“Mmm.” Barnabas looked back under the desk. “Almost done?”
“Not really.” Ria sounded annoyed. “He didn’t have me install these. He did them himself, which means they’re all messed up and are a pain in the ass to remove. Once an asshole, always an asshole. I should have just clocked him on the back of the head with a brick the first time I saw him with a welding torch.”
“Yes,” Aliana agreed, “you should have.” There was a pause, and she added delicately, “You also should have said something about it that time he stole my ship and left me penniless on a remote station instead of taking a job with him and letting him get away with it.”
Ria scooted out from under the desk and looked up at her gravely. “Yes, I should have. I’m sorry.” She heaved a sigh. “Thank you for just saying it. It was hanging there.”
“Mmm.” Aliana shrugged.
“Excuse me,” Barnabas broke in, “but I’m holding a live booby trap.”
“Oh! Right.” Ria dove back under the desk. “Sorry. Oh. Oh! Okay, that came off easier than expected. Let me just get the fuse out and—okay, we’re good. You can set it down.” She came out with a smear of grease on one cheek. “That should be all of them. Let’s reset the passcodes.”
Barnabas handed Ria his handkerchief. “Oh, no, keep it. It’s no trouble. And it sounds like Tafa and Gilwar are finishing up as well. I wonder how Shinigami is doing?”
“The AI?” Aliana asked.
“Oh. Right. Yes. She’s, uh—she was crunching numbers for something. Also, I wonder how Shannon is doing.”
You could have given me literally any name, Shinigami said, and you chose Shannon?
What’s wrong with Shannon?
I don’t know, it’s just not very…you know. I want to be something really cool-sounding. Like Optimus Prime!
A name starting with S-H.
Oh. Right. Well, I don’t know!
How’s it going?
Ugh. This dude is a gigantic douche.
The problem with Lawrence, Shinigami reflected, wasn’t so much that he was a douche.
It was that he was the biggest douche.
“Perhaps you’d like to see the ship now,” he suggested. “The living quarters are quite nice.”
Also, he was a sleazebag. Shinigami found herself wondering if she could put him in a room with Tabitha and watch the man get the living shit kicked out of him while being insulted in exceedingly indelicate Spanish.
In any case, while Lawrence clearly saw Shinigami as a new mark, he also wanted to hurt Aliana, and she did not approve of that.
She deflected his transparent offer as well as she could. “Oh, you should see my flagship.” She’d been coming up with increasingly outlandish stories about her business and living situation. “Have you ever seen Yofu marble?”
Lawrence sat back, blinking. “I, uh…no, I don’t think I have.”
“It’s gorgeous,” Shinigami cooed, letting the fake Russian accent ripple through her voice. “Blue-green, and so beautiful. I decided to panel my shower with it, and I liked it so much that I put it in for the floor of my entertaining room.”
“You have an entertaining room on your flagship?” Lawrence asked dubiously.
He was sensing that something was wrong. Shinigami covered her tracks by laughing.
“Of course! I’m not an animal.” She nudged him with her elbow. “In my circles, a businesswoman really needs to make her partners feel special. Deals like ours—well, they don’t come up every day, yes? The Yofu marble, I turned into a very select market. I’ve only sold it to a few. The rest are beating down my doors, but only I have the mines.”
He was practically drooling as he tried to formulate a plan. “I…see.” He seemed to have come to a decision. “I know I could never hope to buy any—you’re so clever about that—but could I at least see it?” He leaned close. “I don’t want to say Gianni has lost his tou
ch, but these drinks aren’t as good as they were last time. I can mix a much better martini than this.”
“You think so?” Shinigami held her glass up in mock surprise. “I thought this was good!”
“It doesn’t hold a candle to what I can make,” Lawrence assured her. “Shall we?”
“Okay, just let me finish this one.”
“I promise you don’t want to drink anything lesser.” He reached over to take the glass out of her hand.
Help! Give me some way to stall him!
I’ll take their payment systems out for a few minutes, Tafa told her.
Ask him about the woman, Gilwar added. Play the jealous potential paramour. From what I saw, he is clearly attempting to woo you.
And I thought I was a buzzkill, Barnabas said drily.
Shinigami suppressed a snort of laughter as she looked at Lawrence gravely. “I would, but… Can I be honest with you?” She leaned forward, touching his arm lightly.
“Of course.” He took her hand and played with it.
“It’s…well, the woman I saw you with.” Shinigami looked away, pretending to be resolute. “It seems as if there was something between you.”
“Oh.” She saw him consider what to say, then he threw Aliana under the bus with as much sleazy conviction as he could muster: “Aliana was a very valued employee, don’t get me wrong. I quite care for her. I like to think of my crew as my family. You understand, I’m sure.”
Shinigami nodded. If she spoke, she would tell him exactly what she thought of him, and she couldn’t do that just yet.
“Aliana developed feelings for me,” Lawrence continued. “Feelings I simply couldn’t reciprocate. I had hopes that we could move past it, but she was determined to have a relationship. The whole situation got quite ugly, I’m afraid.”
“Oh.” Shinigami tried to think of something to say that would keep him talking. What did self-absorbed con-artist humans like to talk about? They tended to keep the other person talking.