Paladin

by Natalie Grey

  “Captain, how are you doing?”

  “Our engines are online,” the captain reported, “and we’ve made contact with our escort. We’re ready to move at your signal.”

  “It won’t be long now,” Shinigami reported. “Just don’t move as soon as the struts are gone. There may be more fighters.”

  “Noted.” The captain signed off without any wailing or gnashing of teeth, for which Shinigami was grateful. He might be a civilian pilot, but he was impressively composed.

  Three more groups of fighters appeared on her scanners, and Shinigami cursed fluently in Latin. When it came to expressing discontent, few demographics were more eloquent than former monks. Apparently, they also had filthy imaginations.

  Shinigami directed her next shots at the three remaining struts, orbiting them in a tight circle. She had to wrap this up fast. The more enemies she had, the more chances for the civilian ship to get caught in the crossfire.

  Two of the struts gave way, and there was only one more remaining, already damaged. Shinigami sent a burst of fire at it, then swung to face the tiny window that her scans reported led to the bridge. As the fighters swarmed to get between her and it, she sent a message to the Jotun captain.

  “Go, go, go!”

  The captain wasted no time responding. His engines flared, and he was gone in an impressive burst of speed. Shinigami caught some chatter on the Yennai channels, but her focus remained on the ships before her.

  Her turrets swung in a broad semicircle and fighters spun out of formation, hitting one another. A few tried to follow the civilian ship, and she shot those down coldly. From the looks of that ship, it clearly was not armed—they knew very well that they were shooting at people who couldn’t fight back.

  They deserved to die.

  Shinigami, are you close?

  Shinigami looked through Barnabas’ eyes and saw the tableau—Koel standing behind the pane of glass, and the bodies of the soldiers around Barnabas. You mean, can I get Gar in there as a backup if you really piss him off?

  Yes, Barnabas admitted.

  I’m dealing with a few contingents of fighters here…

  Fine, fine.

  She was dimly aware of Koel and Barnabas’ conversation as she kept firing. Ships darted in close, spraying her with fire, but her hull held against their smaller rounds, and they didn’t dare use anything larger while they fought inside the belly of their own ship.

  “You should die by inches,” Koel was saying to Barnabas. “But you’re too dangerous, you see. I know of no way to make sure you won’t escape.”

  She should disengage now. If Barnabas’ theory about Koel held true, Barnabas was going to need her in just a moment.

  She sent a round of missiles that required extensive attention from the fighter pilots and banked away. This ship was a clever design, really; she had to give them that. Made to hold another ship captive and hack it. In fact, it occurred to her that it was the sort of ship someone would build if they wanted to catch more impressive ships than a civilian transport.

  Ships like her.

  She turned to dive, but it was too late. A new set of struts leaped from the walls to grip her body and a paralyzing dose of energy flooded through her, blanking her circuits as the struts attached.

  On the Avaris, the landing bay doors opened, and she felt the sudden blast of cold air against Barnabas’ skin.

  Barnabas!

  But she couldn’t move. She couldn’t get to him.

  Beside her captive self a docking tunnel extended, carrying Yennai soldiers toward the ship.

  14

  As the bay vented and he was sucked into the darkness, Barnabas had one thought: get to Jeltor. He grabbed for the powersuit and missed, tumbling head over heels and praying that he would not hit the walls or the door on his way out.

  Shinigami, we need you here now.

  Silence was his only answer.

  Shinigami?

  There was a burst of static, then nothing. Barnabas’ eyes snapped open.

  Jeltor! But without Shinigami to translate the Etheric message into a communications channel, Jeltor could not hear him.

  Barnabas was not worried about Jeltor. Of all of them, Jeltor was probably the best off. Jotun powersuits were made to function in space. Jeltor could probably maneuver, and would likely be able to make his way back to the fleet—possibly with Barnabas in tow.

  But Shinigami… Shinigami would not have left them here with no word unless something was very wrong. Barnabas’ eyes fixed on the giant shape of the Avaris blotting out the sky above, and he felt the slow creep of panic as the oxygen ran out in his blood.

  He had reserves.

  But those reserves had only been enough to last until the Shinigami arrived.

  The lights flickered and went out, and Gar turned from the window, brow furrowing. The battle between the Shinigami and the fighters had been interesting enough to watch from here, but nothing penetrated the icy stillness in his chest.

  He did not want Tafa’s words to be true, but they were.

  Gar fought to punish the people who had laughed at him and believed he was useless. He fought out of hatred for what he had been.

  His shame at that was so crushing that he found it difficult to move.

  Now, however, there was no time to think about it. He moved out of instinct, nothing more. The ship had stopped, and the systems were going off-line.

  He had only one thought now: he had to get to Tafa with a space suit. She was new, so she didn’t know where they were stored. He pounded through the corridors with his breath coming short in panic and skidded to a halt in front of one of the cases. The red emergency lights were on now, bathing the hallways in an eerie glow.

  The palm lock was disabled—electronics again—and he gave one heartfelt curse before slamming a fist into the glass. It shattered around his hand, and he fumbled for the space suits.

  “Tafa? Tafa, where are you?”

  “Gar?” Her voice was distant. Hesitant footsteps came closer, and he heard her start to cry. “I can’t see anything in these lights. Gar—”

  He followed the sound of her voice, trying to hop his way into a space suit at the same time, and took her by the shoulders. “I’m here. You’re safe. You have to put this on. Let me help you.”

  It was just as well that she already couldn’t see because the helmet had definitely been made for someone with their eyes in the front. The suit didn’t fit very well, but Gar managed to get her into it, folding one thumb in on each hand. He switched on the old-style radio receivers on the suits.

  “Can you hear me?”

  “Y-yes.” Her voice wavered, but she was trying to keep it together.

  A thud and a clank reverberated through the ship. The lights came on briefly, then died again.

  “We have to find a place for you to hide,” Gar urged.

  The ship was clearly captive, and if they hadn’t vented it…that could only mean they were being boarded.

  Jeltor cursed as his powersuit spun into the darkness. The suit wouldn’t stabilize on its own until it detected it was no longer being buffeted by escaping air, and in the meantime, he was in the unenviable position of being a tiny disoriented speck in the middle of a fleet.

  You didn’t realize just how big ships were, or how great the distances were between them until you were in the middle of it all.

  After what felt like an interminable amount of time but had surely only been a few seconds, the suit righted itself with tiny jets of propulsion and Jeltor turned to look at the Jotun fleet.

  They weren’t attacking yet. Perhaps they did not know what Koel had done. They would be waiting for Shinigami or Barnabas to give them a signal.

  He sent a signal to the fleet, encrypted and with a series of codes he hoped would convince them to act, not run: Personal mission failed. Attack.

  Shinigami. Barnabas. Jeltor scanned around and found one faint life sign.

  “Shinigami?”

  He hear
d a burst of static, then nothing, and he didn’t waste another second. He directed himself toward Barnabas and grabbed the coat.

  There was no good choice now. If he made for the Jotun fleet they’d be caught in the crossfire, and Barnabas would almost surely be dead by the time they arrived, anyway. Their only other real choice was to try to find the Shinigami…which was clearly incapacitated in some way.

  And probably also surrounded by things that would shoot at them.

  Barnabas’ hands clenched on Jeltor’s suit, and his lips moved. “Shinigami.”

  Jeltor nodded, hoping Barnabas could see. His eyes were unfocused. Barnabas might not even be sure it was Jeltor who had him.

  Jeltor had to get him to a pressurized place, and soon. He pushed his suit’s propulsion to the limit and zoomed through the Yennai fleet. The Shinigami was supposed to attack the hollow ship, he knew that much of the plan, but had she ever gotten there? Was she still there?

  He circled the outside of the hollow ship and hoped that no one looked particularly closely through any windows.

  At the bottom of the ship’s hollow center, he made a quick scan. A set of fighters flew by at high speed. They probably felt no need to re-dock if the battle was about to be joined. No other ships seemed to be moving inside.

  Jeltor maneuvered closer and grimaced. The Shinigami was held captive just as the civilian ship had been. It was gone, and the shattered bits of metal suggested that it had been freed by force—but the hollow ship had been made with backup measures.

  An airlock tunnel was attached to the Shinigami’s main docking entrance. Jeltor muttered a brief prayer and circled the other side of the ship to a smaller docking tunnel he had noticed when he’d scanned the ship during his stay.

  He held Barnabas in place as he worked on the screws.

  “Shinigami, I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m opening your bottom port airlock. I have Barnabas with me.”

  “Please don’t kill me if you get your systems back online.”

  An overwhelming amount of energy ran through Shinigami’s circuits, and she struggled against the restraints with everything she had. There was clearly some governor on the engines, the steering vents and tabs were also disabled, and every system she possessed was under attack.

  And Barnabas was alone, without her to pick him up in a tiny, all-too-fragile body.

  For the first time in her life, Shinigami felt panic.

  It was only for a split-second, then rage followed it. Cold determination came next, and she released a pulse through all her systems to disrupt their signal. It was an old trick, nothing fancy, but it worked well enough for her to take a couple of her defense systems entirely offline.

  Better offline than corrupted.

  A flicker of clarity showed her Tafa and Gar running through the hallways in borrowed space suits. They were headed for some of the rooms at the aft of the ship, hidden behind doors that didn’t look like doors. It wouldn’t keep them safe forever, but it was a good hiding place. They would be all right even if the ship were vented.

  The airlock tunnel pressurized and there were the clanks of many pairs of feet. Yennai Corporation soldiers marched through to pry her doors open and flood into the halls.

  She vowed she would kill every single one of them.

  Every. Single. One of them.

  Shinigami—

  “Shinigami?”

  Jeltor. Barnabas. Both of them were still alive.

  She reached out to tell them she was still fighting and that they had to run—and another wave of Yennai signals coursed through her and everything disappeared into white noise.

  Koel’s return to the bridge of the Avaris was greeted with smiles and cheers. He gave no acknowledgment, sweeping along the walkway to the main window.

  Walking a half-step behind him, Lotar thought he saw Koel’s jaw clench slightly. He had killed Barnabas, yes, but how victorious could he truly feel? Barnabas had destroyed Koel’s family, and no revenge could undo that.

  As if he felt Lotar’s gaze, Koel turned to look at him, and Lotar felt a sick tangle of despair and dread in the pit of his stomach. For one moment, he saw past the mask Koel always wore.

  There was nothing—only a void. A gaping maw that wanted more and more. It was grief and darkness and hatred that would gobble up anything it could and corrupt the rest—

  Koel broke eye contact, and Lotar drew in a shuddering breath.

  “Has the Jotun fleet made any move?” Koel asked.

  “No, sir.” The admiral had already moved aside to let Koel take his place. “They seem to be waiting for a signal.”

  “The Shinigami was supposed to give it, I would bet.” Koel smiled now. “How is the capture going?”

  “The crew is boarding now.” The admiral brought up a series of small images—videos taken from the helmets of soldiers inside the ship. “Our computer engineers say the systems are difficult to hack, as expected, but they are making progress.”

  Lotar noticed that this was a good way of saying nothing. There was no way to know if any of his words meant that things were going well, or poorly.

  “Sir.” One of the officers swung around from his desk. “Jotun fighters are launching, and it looks as though the carriers are arming weapons—larger missiles.”

  “Respond in kind.” The admiral looked at Koel. “Mr. Yennai, any further orders?”

  Koel was silent for a long moment. He was frowning at the Jotun fleet, or so Lotar thought. Then he realized that Koel’s gaze was directed at the surface of the planet beyond—the surface that was a mess of lava and roiling atmosphere, and while those two things made it difficult to see any particular detail…

  Lotar was willing to bet that there was no colony there.

  Lies. All of it had been lies.

  Koel found a smile somewhere.

  “There were supposed to be thousands of civilians there,” he remarked. “I think that’s several thousand lives they owe me.”

  The admiral said nothing, but Lotar saw him swallow. No one was looking up now. No one wanted to catch Koel’s attention.

  And Lotar already knew that none of them were brave enough to stop whatever was coming next.

  In the second-to-last storage room, Gar’s fingers curled around the grip of his gun. He couldn’t hear the footsteps yet, but it wouldn’t be long—and they would be found. He had no doubt of that.

  There was a tap on his shoulder. He jerked around and saw that Tafa had removed her helmet.

  “You need to put that back on,” he told her.

  “I can’t see with it on.” She hesitated, then squared her shoulders and held out her hand. “And I need to see if I’m going to shoot. Give me your rifle.”

  “You can shoot a rifle?” Gar looked at her eyes, warily.

  “I’ve been taught,” she replied enigmatically. “And if they’re going to hijack the ship and kill us, I don’t think we have anything to lose. Do you?”

  Gar shook his head and handed the weapon over.

  “For Barnabas,” he whispered.

  “For Barnabas,” Tafa echoed.

  When the first footsteps sounded nearby, they readied their weapons and waited.

  15

  Tulass Boceon squinted and moved his hand very, very slightly to press against the cover of the AI core. It opened, and he nodded to another engineer as the two of them lifted it off carefully.

  He held his breath. They had been told to expect anything and everything when it came to booby traps.

  A gigantic shock ran through the panel and jolted the other engineer, who cursed and dropped his end of the panel. The clank, artificially loud in the silent red-lit ship, made the soldiers jump, and one even shot a burst into the empty hallway before laughing nervously.

  “Boarding group, report. We heard shots fired.”

  The soldiers looked at one another shamefacedly, and finally the officer in charge cleared his throat. “False alarm. No danger.”

  There was onl
y silence from the other end of the line, and Tulass shook his head as he went back to his work. Idiots. He hated working with these soldiers. Trigger happy, the lot of them.

  He was glad they were here, though. Who knew if there were crew on board? The scans had shown nothing, but still… He was glad that he could see their soldiers as they swept the ship, shouting to one another.

  A nice, thorough sweep. They had already found several compartments that appeared not to have doors. Nothing would get past them.

  The other engineer had recovered enough to affix a device to the edge of the AI core. This was one of the tricks they had learned over time. Most cores had devices that would self-destruct, wipe, or otherwise damage the core or the people removing it if it were removed.

  If someone had the time simply to leave it in place, many of those functions wouldn’t activate.

  The AI was one of the best Tulass had ever seen. It resisted everything they threw at it so far—at least, for the most part. It was only a matter of time, though. It couldn’t withstand them forever, not with the various mechanisms chipping away at its defenses. The more they learned about it, the more chances they had to thwart its programs.

  Tulass looked up, frowning. Something had caught his attention, but he wasn’t sure what.

  Then he heard one of the distant calls, slightly more cautious than usual, and he realized what it was: the call hadn’t been answered the first time.

  The shout came again, and for the third time it wasn’t answered. The soldiers around Tulass and Evgen gripped their weapons a little tighter and exchanged glances. Someone had hidden away after all.

  Now two other groups checked in with one another. Tulass heard the calm in their voices and knew they had a protocol for this. They weren’t worried.

  He went back to his work with a bit more speed this time. Best to get as much done as possible in case they needed to withdraw for a while. If he could get enough devices onto the core, he could control the process remotely. He and Evgen worked in near-silence, passing tools back and forth, murmuring voltage readings and any code techniques necessary.