Paladin

by Natalie Grey

  He was clearly waiting for Zinqued to say he didn’t believe it, but Zinqued was prepared for this—and he knew just how to play it. He laughed and leaned against the door casually.

  “Venfaldri Gar is the Luvendi’s name. They say he ran across Barnabas on some tiny ass-end-of-nowhere planet. Don’t know what they did to him, but he’s really something, isn’t he?”

  “You saw him?” Dretkalor looked intrigued.

  “Let’s say he’s one of the reasons I’m not just going to storm the ship,” Zinqued said. “The human isn’t any less impressive. He’s more impressive, actually.”

  The guards looked at one another, nodding. Zinqued seemed to understand what they were up against, and they approved.

  “So what is your plan?” one of them asked.

  “The human keeps pissing off the Yennai Corporation,” Zinqued explained. “He’s the reason Virtue Station is in chaos.”

  “Boss?” Tik’ta’s voice filtered over the intercom. “They say there’s an undocking fee, and it’s about the cost of our ship.”

  “That’s some bullshit,” Dretkalor spat before Zinqued could respond. “But they’re definitely going to stick to it if Jodu put them up to this. He’s worried about losing all his profits. Tell them you’re Yennai-affiliated. Give them this code.” He called out a few letters and numbers.

  Zinqued waited, intrigued, and it wasn’t long before Tik’ta’s voice came back: “That worked. Thank you, Dretkalor.”

  Zinqued looked at Dretkalor in interest. “You asked about my plan—it’s to stay hidden and tail the Yennai fleet until they find the human…and swoop in after the battle to take the Shinigami. So…anything else you know about Yennai protocols?”

  Dretkalor grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Chofal pulled her goggles down, soldered a piece of the circuit carefully in place, and looked at the result in disgust. It was as nice as she could make it on her own, which was to say, not nearly nice enough.

  There were a lot of tricks you could use to get around most high-tech things in this universe. Ships with state of the art scramblers, whose heading you couldn’t detect by normal means, were easily tracked by sight or a tow cable, for instance.

  In this case, however, Chofal was trying to fool the scanners of the Yennai Corporation fleet, and she knew clever tricks weren’t going to be enough.

  The Yennai Corporation had technology on a par with or better than anyone else she could name. They’d have good scanners, and she didn’t even have anywhere near enough information to fool them.

  When Zinqued came into the engine room, she looked up with a sigh.

  “I have no good news for you.”

  “That’s all right,” Zinqued said easily. “Because I have more than enough good news for both of us.”

  “I doubt that,” Chofal muttered, but she summoned a smile for Zinqued and the Brakalon with him. It wouldn’t do to be rude to their new crewmates—especially when those crewmates could crush her like a bug. “Dretkalor, was it? I’m Chofal.” She stuck her hand out with one thumb curled in, the way Yofu shook hands with other species.

  She realized too late she’d gotten grease all over his hand.

  “Sorry.”

  “Not a problem.” Dretkalor looked oddly happy. “Spent too long in those banks with everything being too clean. They think if the tables have no dust on them, their shit won’t stink. Or something. Clean everything—and as dirty a place as you’ll ever see.” He gave them both a meaningful look.

  Despite herself, Chofal was intrigued. For years, she had eked out her existence on small-scale pirate ships. Whenever she went someplace like Virtue Station, she longed to live in a clean and pretty home.

  Was it possible she hadn’t missed much?

  She realized Zinqued was talking and gave a shamefaced smile. “Sorry, I was thinking. What did you say?”

  “Dretkalor knows a lot of Yennai ship passcodes and frequencies,” Zinqued repeated. “He got us out of Virtue Station when they wanted to hold the ship hostage. I told him you might need his help.”

  “Do I ever,” Chofal exclaimed. She beckoned Dretkalor over. “Okay, see this? What I’m trying to do is make us not show up on the Yennai scanners, but hell if I know how to manage it. I’ve only ever worked at confusing one ship before. I think if we manage to confuse one, another may see us correctly.”

  “You’re probably right.” Dretkalor nodded. “Any Yennai system will network with itself to make sure each piece is receiving the same information. So if you manage to hack one security camera, for instance, another one picks up what should be on the first one—does this make sense?”

  “I follow. I think.” Chofal frowned. “So if any ship sees us, every ship sees us, and they’ll sound the alarm.”

  “Exactly.” Dretkalor gave a wry smile at her expression. “I’m guessing that’s not what you wanted to hear.”

  “Not really.” Chofal blew out a breath as she stared at the device.

  “So, they’re going to see us—unless you have some magical code that makes them not notice us.”

  “Not exactly,” Dretkalor said. He grinned. “On the other hand, I do have something that will make them think we’re supposed to be there…and will make them read this piece of junk as a Yennai frigate.”

  Chofal’s eyes lit up. “I can work with that.”

  “Yeah, I thought you’d be able to.” He looked around. “You might need some extra stuff, though. We’ll need a good, strong signal and a certain amount of cloaking capability. Basically, you need the structural read-outs to scan in at the expected weight, and for that to happen—”

  “We need a scan-booster and a cloak on the engine,” Chofal said. She chewed her lip. “All right. I can make it work…”

  “Good,” Zinqued said decisively.

  “But we need some parts we probably can’t afford to buy,” Chofal finished. She gave him a look.

  “Well, then, isn’t it good we know how to steal ships? Send me a list, and I’ll get us where we need to go to get it.” Zinqued grinned at Dretkalor. “You up for a little search and seizure?”

  “Signed on for it, didn’t I?” Dretkalor looked pleased. He nodded to Zinqued as they left, and Chofal heard his voice filtering back through the hallway. “It’ll be nice to steal something you can pick up and walk away with, you know? Rather than just watching rich people steal bits of computerized data from other rich people all day long.”

  19

  The rendezvous point, as given by Jeltor, was in the middle of an exceedingly empty patch of space buffeted by radiation from a few nearby stellar wrecks. An unstable quasar wobbled nearby, emitting plumes that Tafa and Gar watched from the lower decks.

  Barnabas came to get them, jerking his head toward the bridge.

  “Are you two coming?”

  “To what?” Gar looked around, confused.

  “To the meeting with the Jotun,” Barnabas said. “You’re members of this crew. You deserve to be there, weighing in.”

  When neither Tafa nor Gar said anything, he let his head drop back with a groan. “Oh, come on, don’t leave me in there alone with Shinigami. She’s terrible in meetings.”

  Shinigami appeared, arms crossed. She glared. “I heard that.”

  “Am I wrong? You make trouble!”

  “I say the things you want to say.” She leaned forward with an evil grin. “And by my calculation, it’s going to take you a minute and a half to get back to the bridge. That’s a minute and a half I now have alone with Jotun high command.”

  She disappeared. Barnabas yelped and sprinted toward the bridge. Tafa and Gar heard his voice drift back through the hallways.

  “Don’t. Start. A war!”

  Shinigami’s voice echoed through all the speakers, accented by the sounds of thunder, artfully added, “I make no promises.”

  Gar and Tafa laughed as they followed. Barnabas, panting and flushed, sat in the captain’s chair with a scowl while Shinigami sa
t at his side, the very picture of decorum. Jeltor stood nearby. He nodded to Tafa and Gar as they entered the bridge.

  “Our team is all present now, Admiral.” Barnabas glanced at Shinigami. “One of them may have to step out for a bit, however.”

  Try it. Just try it, buddy boy.

  Wreak havoc with an entire alien government and you won’t just have me to contend with, you glorified little toaster. Bethany Anne will back me up, and you’ll be managing the sewage system on the Reynolds so fast it’ll make your circuits short out.

  You’re bluffing.

  Just try it.

  Shinigami looked alarmed and decided not to push her luck.

  “As you know,” the Jotun admiral began, not being privy to the conversation between Shinigami and Barnabas, “Koel Yennai threatened to attack a Jotun colony, or a series of colonies, to take four thousand civilian lives. He believes he is owed this.”

  “Point of order,” Shinigami said.

  “Shinigami…” Barnabas began.

  I’m going to behave! “Koel doesn’t believe a thing he says,” Shinigami argued. “He may seem balls-out crazy, but all he wants to do is make us hurt. Really, he wants to hurt anyone who interrupts his plans. For decades, he’s dreamt of taking over the universe. Anyone who gets in his way is someone he wants to torture and then kill. But he doesn’t believe he’s owed those lives.”

  “Is this relevant, Miss…ah…”

  “Shinigami. Just Shinigami. And I think it is. Giving Koel any legitimacy or treating him like a madman is a sure way to underestimate him. We all saw that destroyer come out of nowhere. Koel has built an organization with incredible technology, and he’s absolutely prepared to use that against anyone standing in his way. He doesn’t give a damn if those people are innocent. He’s making the calculated decision that if he can hit enough targets of yours, make it clear you can’t protect your people, you’ll buckle.”

  Barnabas nodded. He had to admit that Shinigami had a point.

  The Jotuns were seriously underestimating Koel. Even after they’d seen his ships in action and seen that he was willing to destroy both human and Jotun colonies—after all, he had destroyed Coyopa, hadn’t he?—they still behaved as though he were a toddler throwing a temper tantrum: Oh, Koel is just angry there are no blue popsicles left.

  In point of fact, he was brutally effective and very dangerous.

  “She makes a good point,” said Commander Jeqwar. “Even though Koel didn’t know we would be there, he came in with part of his fleet cloaked. He’s made sure they’re as dangerous and well-trained as we are.”

  “The question is,” the admiral said, “where will he attack next?”

  “We’ve come up with some possibilities,” Barnabas said. He transmitted the work he and Shinigami had completed over the past few hours. “All of these are relatively undefended colonies.”

  “All of them are Jotun,” the admiral observed.

  “There aren’t many human colonies nearby, and the location of one, at least, is carefully hidden.”

  Beside Barnabas, Shinigami looked down at her hands and tried not to blurt out her fear. She had almost every piece of information there was about High Tortuga, from its atmosphere to the locations of its cities and the way its defensive systems worked.

  Yes, they could get word to the fleet, which would join them to repel Koel’s attack. They would probably win, too.

  But before they won, Koel would have plenty of time to destroy one or two cities—and get way more than his four thousand lives. Somehow, Shinigami didn’t doubt that he’d take as many as he could get.

  Barnabas must know that she had such information, but neither of them had mentioned the possibility.

  She screwed up her courage. We have to find out what Koel actually knows—if he realizes that the information he got out of my memory banks was a lie.

  Barnabas looked at her, surprised. The Jotun officers were debating the relative odds of strikes at various different points.

  Even if he knows it’s a lie, what could he find from it?

  High Tortuga. She looked at him. I was working on a project. You had wanted me to hide it. Well, we’ve all been trying. But that means I had all its facts in my memory banks. I gave him my false data, but some of it was… Look, it was lies—it was the fake file I was building—but what if there’s some clue there?

  Have you been over it to look for that?

  Of course I have! I’ve looked at it over and over and over again, Barnabas. She shot him a look, half-angry and half-scared. But I don’t know with them. I never know what Koel knows. I never know how their systems work.

  Shinigami—

  You don’t understand! You don’t have the first idea what it’s like to go up against someone and realize you can’t even guess what their capabilities are.

  He gave a small smile.

  What?

  Shinigami, do you realize that’s the exact experience of a human speaking to an AI?

  She paused, much struck by that.

  I’ve already told them to be ready, Barnabas told her. And you know there were plenty of people who knew of Devon. It would hardly be difficult for Koel to find High Tortuga. If he does, I’d say it’s million-to-one odds that he found it from anything you gave him. And yes, I am trying to make you feel better with terrible math.

  Shinigami nodded and tried to smile. She knew he was trying to make her feel better, and she had done the best thing she could to throw Koel off the true trail of High Tortuga—letting his engineers think they had the real data.

  But if she had gambled wrong and he did find it…

  There was nothing to be done about it now.

  An alarm wailed on one of the Jotun ships, and everyone looked at the screens anxiously.

  “A carrier is approaching Abassi,” the admiral reported. “It looks as though it will land and deploy infantry. The colony can defend itself for some time, but we should get there immediately. Shinigami, we will rejoin you—”

  “Transmit the coordinates.” It was Gar who spoke. “We’re coming with you.”

  “What?” The admiral asked in surprise.

  “He’s quite correct.” Barnabas smiled. It seemed Gar had faltered for only a little bit before finding his purpose. “No one on this crew is prepared to leave innocent people to die. We will meet you at Abassi without delay.”

  20

  Sandar dek Tor’ven had been with the Yennai Corporation since he finished his schooling some forty years ago. At that time, Koel Yennai was young enough that no one took his ambition seriously. After all, there was always a multitude of ambitious young people out to prove a name for themselves in business.

  Sandar had taken the only position offered, a security guard, and signed a great deal of paperwork he didn’t read. He then worked his way up from there. He’d become a night shift manager, then had catapulted up to head of security after thwarting an attempted break-in. He had gotten stock options but had paid little attention to them.

  Now he was in charge of a landing force for the YCS Hari, and he was richer than he had ever dreamed possible.

  He had also seen everything over the years, from jealous mistresses to protesters for everything under many suns, and nothing fazed him. It was the cornerstone of his reputation.

  When the Hari landed at Abassi, therefore, the soldiers streamed out past him with sharp salutes, ready for anything.

  Sandar followed them, sweating a little in his armor. He wished he didn’t have to wear it, but one had to set a good example for the troops. An undisciplined force was a dead force.

  That was his motto.

  Advance scouts had passed through the small forest outside the city and here at the edge of the trees reported to Sandar that the Jotuns had not tried to advance. They seemed to be fortifying the town in anticipation of the attack.

  “Any idea why we aren’t just bombing them, sir?” asked one of the scouts. He scratched his head.

  “Let me offer
you a piece of advice,” Sandar said. “When Koel Yennai orders you to do something, you do that thing to the best of your ability, trusting that he has a plan. That strategy has never failed me.”

  Questioning Koel Yennai was a strategy he had watched fail for many others.

  “Yes, sir,” the scout said hastily. “It’s just… Well, we’d have very little trouble bombing them, but regarding combat, their citizens have those powersuits. We don’t know their capabilities.”

  “Then we’ll have to plan for them to be far more resilient than we’d like,” Sandar snapped.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Sandar sighed. The recruit had asked a very reasonable question. The bombing had worked perfectly well on Coyopa, after all.

  “Your instinct to protect your fellow soldiers is admirable,” he told the scout. “However, Mr. Yennai undoubtedly has a reason for structuring the attack this way.”

  “What you should really ask yourself,” the scout on Sandar’s other side interjected, “is why you’re going along with any of this. You’re killing civilians. Doesn’t that weigh on your soul even slightly?”

  Sandar turned stiffly to glare at the scout. “That is quite enough, soldier. You will return to the Hari at once. Expect disciplinary action at the end of this fight and—” He frowned.

  He’d seen humans before, but he certainly didn’t think there were any in the scout force on the Hari. Sandar tried to keep very close tabs whenever a member of a new species showed up. They often required new allowances regarding food and lodging, and sometimes there were issues with established forces picking on the rookies.

  “Do I know you?” he asked finally. He tried to be as delicate about the question as he could be. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you before.”

  “You haven’t. My name is Barnabas.” He smiled. “You really should order your troops to leave. Carrying out these orders will strip you of any honor you had. The evil you do will not be able to be undone. Innocent people will die.”