by Natalie Grey
What better occasion than this? Barnabas asked whimsically. He targeted another mech, pressed what he guessed was the missile launch button, and was rewarded by four missiles launching from the right side of the mech. It rocked on its spider feet, and the target exploded in a shower of sparks and splintering trees. We probably didn’t need all four of those.
Probably not, no. Look down at the control panel for a moment? Okay, try the green button. Now the blue. Now press the blue and the orange at the same time while targeting that cluster of mechs over there. Whooooo!
We’ve started a forest fire.
We’ll deal with that in a moment. Right now, you need to be anywhere but inside that mech.
Barnabas hauled himself out with a curse and tumbled into the undergrowth as several missiles slammed into the mech and knocked it back into a tree.
Ruuuuuun, tiny squishy human!
Barnabas ran.
Several mech crews, apparently not aware of who or what he was, decided to take this opportunity to avenge their fellow mech pilots’ deaths. They piled out of the mechs and ran for him.
Unbelievable. Inside the mechs, they had armor and missiles. Outside…
Barnabas snickered as he dove into a slide and took out several pilots at the ankles. They yelped as they fell, and Barnabas rolled back to his feet. A few were still standing. He drove a fist into one’s face, pivoted to bash another with his elbow, and seized a third by the lapels and kneed him in the chest. Two shots took out the two on the ground still moving.
Can you get to the center of town?
Yes, why?
Because there are two more Yennai carriers on the way, and I’m guessing it’s nuke o’clock.
Barnabas turned and sprinted for the town. Get word to the Jotun!
They know. They’re evacuating the troops and sending shuttles into the town. The Shinigami screamed overhead and banked sharply before descending. I’m picking up as many as I can.
I’ll meet you there. Barnabas pushed himself as fast as he could, screaming for the Jotuns on the city walls to get to the center of town.
Koel Yennai had wanted to take this colony with infantry. No doubt he wanted an occupation, with the civilians held hostage for the Jotun Navy’s good behavior.
But he’d been prepared for it to go wrong, and he was willing to sacrifice his own soldiers to make that happen.
Above Abassi, Commander Jeqwar swung her ship around and primed her missiles. All she had to do was intercept enough nukes for the evacuation to take place. After the last battle, she had no faith that she could take down a carrier.
“Do whatever you have to do,” she told her fighter pilots as she launched them out into space.
“Yes, ma’am.” They knew what that meant.
Nukes launched from the carriers, and Jeqwar let instinct take over. She directed her own missiles to intercept, keeping the destroyer in constant motion. Not a single one of the destroyers could afford to be taken down, not when they were all that stood between the nukes and the colony. They had arrived the fastest and now…
“All clear,” came the transmission from the ground. “Get out of there. Don’t wait, and don’t engage.” There was a pause, and the admiral added, “We can’t fight this fleet.”
21
Admiral Threton was one of the most distinguished officers the Jotun Navy had ever produced. A living legend, he had single-handedly rescued several civilian ships from a slaver attack back when he was just a destroyer captain. Since that time, he had managed the fleet through several engagements and war drills.
The problem was, Barnabas couldn’t for the life of him figure out which of the Jotuns standing on Shinigami’s bridge before him was Admiral Threton.
“Help me,” Barnabas said to Gar silently.
“How?”
“You introduce me as our emissary, and hopefully, their second-in-command will introduce him.”
“Clever,” Shinigami commented. “Maybe you should introduce me as our emissary, however.”
“You can’t project an avatar out here.”
“Give me a body, then.”
Barnabas refrained from rolling his eyes as Gar stepped forward with a bow, gestured, and announced, “Barnabas, captain of the Shinigami.”
Barnabas nodded to the group of three Jotun.
“Barnabas, this is Admiral Threton.” The leftmost Jotun gestured to the one on the far right. “I am Commander Jeqwar, and this is Commander Celwar.”
“I am pleased to meet you.” Barnabas nodded to each of them in turn. “This is Venfaldri Gar, and my associate, Shinigami, is listening in remotely.”
“Shinigami is an Artificial Intelligence, yes?” Admiral Threton sounded dubious. “Is it capable of drawing conclusions?”
“I assure you, aside from multitasking processing capabilities—in which capacity she far exceeds any of us—she is quite similar to any organic mind.” Barnabas gestured to the ship. “She will be able to use the ship’s external speakers to communicate with us.”
Not that I intend to after that insult. “Is it capable of drawing conclusions?” What does he think I am, a pocket calculator?
Quick! 4 + 6.
I hate you.
Barnabas hid a smile. “We have important matters to discuss. Namely, how we intend to defeat the Yennai Corporation.”
There was an awkward moment of silence, then the admiral made a noise Barnabas could only describe as clearing a mechanical throat.
Thankfully, he did not beat around the bush. “We aren’t prepared to attack until we can be sure that we understand their cloaking and shield mechanisms,” he said bluntly. “And we don’t know when that will be.”
“I’ll help,” Shinigami said. “We all need to know that. After all,” she added smoothly, “we’re on the clock now.”
The Jotuns looked at one another.
Shinigami continued with only the faintest edge to her voice. “I assume we all understand that any appeasement efforts will be entirely useless. What Koel Yennai wants—”
“Is to rule this sector,” the admiral interrupted. “We are aware of that, Miss Shinigami. At this point, we have to weigh his goals against his apparent desire to kill our entire populace if he does not get what he wants. Because it seems he can carry that plan out quite successfully.”
“That would be short-sighted.” Barnabas picked up the thread Shinigami had started. “Koel only wants you to believe the choices are between benevolent dictatorship and certain death. In fact, neither of those options are a true representation of the facts. He is using brutality to blind you.”
“I am aware of his tactics, thank you.” The admiral sounded unimpressed. “And I hold this position with the express purpose of defending my people. If I undertake a course of action which will result in deaths—perhaps thousands of deaths—I must be willing to say that it was truly the only way. I must be able to say with certainty that I knew more would die. Not that I simply believed Koel would eventually turn into a dictator.”
“Idiot,” Shinigami muttered over their comm.
“Hold on a moment.”
Barnabas looked at the admiral. “What do you see as an alternative to an attack?”
“A false capitulation that sets him off his guard, followed by an attack at an appropriate time.”
Barnabas nodded slowly. “And you think this has a chance of winning? You think Koel will not anticipate this, demand the imprisonment of your officer corps, and install some method of insurance in every Jotun colony?”
There was a long silence.
“You’re right. He’s an idiot.”
“I do have some sympathy, though,” Gar commented. “It would be a hard sell to go back and explain that he knew Koel was going to destroy colonies if he didn’t back down…and he didn’t back down.”
“Then he just needs to take Koel out before Koel can take out any more colonies,” Shinigami said promptly.
“Precisely,” Barnabas agreed.
“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.” Gar looked a little bewildered. “Why isn’t he doing that?”
“He thinks the odds are too much of a long shot,” Shinigami explained. To the admiral, she said, “We understand your desire to save as many lives as possible.”
“We also respect your wish to make this a battle of wits as well as weapons,” Barnabas added.
“The only way to win against Koel now, however,” Shinigami finished, “is to hit him hard and fast and end his hopes entirely.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” the admiral snapped. “Your colonies aren’t in the crossfire.”
“Yet.” Barnabas felt his lip curl in contempt, though he tried not to be too obvious about it. “I am not sure about Jotun history, but in human history, it is quite clear that when someone like Koel takes power, no one is safe. If we allow Koel’s reach to grow longer, he will come for human colonies.”
“Then summon your fleets to deal with him!”
“If we must, we will.” Barnabas did not waver. “I am telling you, however, that we do not have time to get all of those ships here, and pulling them away from their current engagements will hurt us as well. I do not ask your ships to engage for no reason.”
“Besides which, it’s hardly unfair of us to ask you to fight Koel yourself when it’s your colonies he’s attacking at present,” Gar pointed out.
“A very good point,” Shinigami said over the comm.
“Thank you. Now, try not to roll your eyes too much. Just let me try something.”
“All right,” Barnabas said apprehensively.
“I’m intrigued,” Shinigami said.
“With your politicians having sold out to the Yennai Corporation, this is a uniquely difficult operation for you,” Gar observed.
Admiral Threton bristled at this. “We are hardly the only species that has had politicians taking bribes.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Gar’s voice rose slightly, but he got himself back under control. “You’re quite correct. All species are corruptible, and Koel is very good at finding leverage. What I meant was that you are fighting, knowing that there is misinformation being spread, and knowing that your sacrifices are not being honored. That is…well, I cannot imagine how difficult it is. I know only the smallest part of that.”
Admiral Threton looked at him curiously.
“I am Luvendi,” Gar said with a shrug. “My family does not respect my choice to leave Luvendan. Though I have found great purpose and done many things of which I am proud, I know they think I shamed our family by leaving. I cannot imagine how much worse it must be to know that I would face imprisonment or disgrace, as you are.”
“Er, Gar? Are you sure you’re making this better?”
“Keep listening.” Gar’s subvocalization sounded serene.
The Jotuns looked at one another.
“You know,” Gar said emphatically, “that they’re back on Jotuna, making speeches and media statements, saying that you were supposed to be in prison, that you’ve brought the wrath of the Yennai Corporation down on the civilians…and they’re just hoping, praying, that they’ll make it out with their mansions and their bribes still intact.”
Commander Jeqwar fairly growled her contempt. “Soft-living idiots. They do nothing for us. They sold us out to the Yennai. They gave them windows into our technology! They should be strung up for this.”
Gar laughed. “But did you hear their communications when they arrived and saw your fleet? We caught a few pieces of chatter. They were flabbergasted. Whatever those politicians gave them, the Yennai fleet didn’t have any idea they should expect you all. Oh, it was beautiful.”
The Jotuns started to laugh as well, little mechanical chuckles.
I’ll be damned, he’s actually pulling it off. Barnabas saw where Gar was going with this, but he didn’t want to intervene or even chime in. Gar had wormed his way into their good graces and was working them. Barnabas might only scare them off.
“They’ve handed so much over, though.” Gar shook his head. “Like you said—the technology, the channels into the fleet. You managed to cut off their access, but that hardly excuses it. Those politicians thought they were giving all of that information up.”
The Jotuns nodded.
“And right now…” Gar sounded thoughtful now. “I can’t imagine what Koel is offering in bribes.”
The Jotuns murmured to one another in alarm.
“You shut them out once,” Gar said. “But any time they have, they can probably use to their advantage. Who knows what tricks they have up their sleeves now?”
“Treasonous bastards,” the admiral rumbled. “We need time. We need to figure out where they’re going, how their cloaking works, how those damned impervious shields of theirs work, and we have no such time.”
“There’s only one thing to do,” Shinigami said simply. “We need to get one of their ships and use it.”
A good point. Barnabas nodded slightly to himself. If they’ve got any human colonies in their sights…
Exactly.
“It would need to be a carrier,” Commander Jeqwar said. “Or the Avaris. And that’s a damned risky mission.”
“We wouldn’t want to send any more ships than we absolutely had to,” Shinigami proposed. “Just us, I would think.”
“I’ll go as well.” Jeltor, who had been in close conversation with another Jotun, clanked over and ducked his mechanical body to the admiral. “My actions at their headquarters were part of what got us into this mess. I can help fix it now.”
“You fought back after they kidnapped you,” the admiral rumbled. “What were you supposed to do? Hell, what were any of us supposed to do—stand aside while our politicians sold us out and frolicked in their cash?”
Barnabas saw Gar’s faint smile. The Luvendi’s plan had been successful. By reminding them just how stacked the odds were, and why they were so stacked, he had lit a fire under the Jotun officers.
It was genius.
“They’ll pay,” Barnabas assured the admiral. “We’ll make sure every piece of incriminating evidence we need appears in your media. They won’t be able to keep people from knowing what they did. When this is over, they’ll hang.”
The admiral nodded decisively. “Good. Now, what do you need, to find that ship?”
“Anything you have that narrows down their location,” Shinigami said. “We know they must have a patch of fairly empty space because we’ve never figured out where their shipyards are, and with so much cargo going from place to place…a few more shipments of steel and electronics don’t stand out.”
“We have a guess of where they are now.” The admiral pressed a button on his suit. “Fretor, this is Admiral Threton. Send the possible location of the Yennai fleet to the Shinigami. Yes, I’m sure. Yes, it’s me. Do it now.” He turned back to the group. “I certainly hope you can do this quickly,” he told them. “I have a feeling we don’t have much time.”
“Agreed,” Barnabas said solemnly. “We’ll do what we can and do it quickly—and then strike together. Wait for our signal. We may need you sooner rather than later.”
“We’ll be on alert. And…you were right.” The admiral shook his head. “Whatever we give Koel, whether it’s time or resources, he’ll use it against us. We have to strike soon.”
22
For two days, the Julentai hung in a field of rubble around a comet and waited while Chofal and Dretkalor camped out in the cockpit and assessed each ship that passed.
They dismissed so many that Zinqued began to have fantasies of firing them both. First, a ship was too small, then too old, then too large, then too new.
“Too new?” Zinqued demanded. If he had any hair, he’d have been pulling it out at that point. As it was, he was very tempted to stab himself in the eye just to make a distraction from all this insanity.
Dretkalor and Chofal looked at one another.
“Yes,” Dretkalor said finally as if explaining something to a v
ery stupid toddler. “The Julentai is old and has very old components. If we try to add something that’s too new, it might break everything. The voltage standards have changed, among other things.”
Zinqued suppressed a shriek and stormed off to find out if any of the new guards had figured out how to distill alcohol. He could use a drink.
He was exceedingly surprised, therefore, when there was a shout from the bridge and Dretkalor sprinted down the hall in the middle of dinner to announce that they’d found it, they’d found the ship they needed, and everyone needed to get ready to fight.
“I assume you don’t mean me,” Tik’ta said acidly. She had gotten progressively more and more annoyed at being shut off the bridge of her ship, and nothing Zinqued said about taking a vacation seemed to make an impact.
She stomped off to the cockpit while Dretkalor waved the rest of them out of the room.
“I can’t even finish my food?” Zinqued asked, annoyed. They would decide to attack now, those two. It just had to be during dinner.
He would remember this when it came time to give out yearly bonuses.
He muttered to himself the whole time he suited up in his armor and weapons. When he returned to the cockpit, Tik’ta had begun to warm up the engines and their prey was just in sight.
Chofal and Dretkalor both laughed, but Zinqued swore. “That? That’s the ship you’re going to steal from?”
“Yes,” the two of them said in unison.
“It’s a bucket of bolts,” Zinqued said dangerously.
“Look at the engines,” Chofal pointed out. “You only get that greenish tint from hyperwave propulsion. They tried to mask it, but once you know what to scan for, you can see they’ve got a good ship under there.”
“And there,” Dretkalor added. “They’ve put false plating over the hull.”
“And that’s not too new?” Zinqued was grumpy. He should have seen all of that. In fact, if he’d been a little less hasty, he would have. Now he looked like an idiot in front of his new crew.
“Most of the hyperwave propulsion ships were built years ago and upgraded,” Chofal explained. “Their parts are very adaptable.” She smiled, looking almost wistful. “This is a jackpot. I could work on it for weeks. If we stripped off its power couplings—”