by Natalie Grey
Lotar was rising fast, and nothing had ever felt more satisfying in his life. Let the rest of them eat their hearts out. They’d tormented him for being the newbie and not knowing the ropes, for being too cautious, and making his reports too detailed.
Well, here he was now. He was still smiling when the fleet came out of hyperspace…
And everyone on the bridge gasped. Koel’s mouth drew back in a snarl and Lotar pressed his hands against the window, mouth open in shock.
It was the Jotun fleet—and if it wasn’t the whole fleet, then it was damned close.
They should have known where the fleet would be. Their sources in the Jotun senate had gleefully reported that most of the top brass were under investigation, news that had spread all through the Yennai analyst corps, and then…
Nothing. Clearly, the Jotun Navy had realized they had a leak. And now…
“Unveil the captured ship,” Koel ordered.
“Yes, sir.” The admiral relayed the orders.
The hollow ship slid forward from the center of the Yennai Corporation fleet, accompanied by a contingent of destroyers. Almost a sphere, the ship had a large open space in the center where mechanical arms held the civilian transport in place.
“I thought we’d only be using this against Barnabas,” Koel said softly. “But it will work well for them, too. They’ll pay for this.”
Lotar said nothing. His fear of Koel rushed back.
“Sir, we’re being hailed by the Shinigami.” The admiral looked at Koel, and Lotar recognized the same fear in his eyes.
Koel turned to him slowly, then nodded for him to play the message.
“They say they are sending Barnabas and the Jotun who attacked our headquarters.” The admiral tapped a few keys and highlighted a shuttle flying close to the human ship. “To speak with you, sir.”
“To speak with me.” Koel smiled. “Yes, send them in.”
He looked at Lotar.
“The thing about Barnabas,” he said quietly, “is that he doesn’t really understand his limitations.”
Lotar swallowed. He’d heard the stories of what happened at headquarters. He didn’t think Barnabas had limitations, and he was suddenly afraid that Koel would get them all killed.
Koel saw his fear and his smile grew. “Barnabas expects me to want to kill him,” he said. “And I do. He expects me to throw overwhelming force at him. And I will. He’ll defeat them, but I have more tricks up my sleeve than just that.”
“Are you sure this will work?” Jeltor asked nervously.
“Not…precisely.” Barnabas cursed the ethics that kept him honest. “Let’s just say I think it’s a good bet.
“Bets are all we have in battle,” Barnabas continued. “It’s one of the reasons we don’t go into battle often.”
Jeltor nodded glumly at that. “All the same, if you had asked me which fleet we feared most, I would have said this one.”
Barnabas nodded. The Avaris was so big it blotted out the stars as they approached. They continued past the hollow ship with its captive transport and Barnabas took a long look, letting Shinigami watch through his eyes.
She had to know what they were up against. As soon as the shuttle docked she would cloak the ship, leave a buoy in her place to make it seem as if she had stayed in formation with the Jotun fleet, and rescue the civilian transport.
When Barnabas had regretfully told Gar that he would have to stay on the Shinigami, Gar had reacted better than Barnabas had expected. He only nodded. Barnabas would have to think about that later.
Koel was going to throw everything he had at them as soon as they docked. In fact, Barnabas was surprised that the Avaris hadn’t simply tried to shoot the shuttle out of the sky. He’d used a scrambling technique that Shinigami devised to make the shuttle show up in a slightly different location on scanners, which would buy them a few moments if they needed them.
But missiles or not, Koel definitely had something up his sleeve.
An officer with a completely expressionless voice guided them to the main landing bay, which appeared to be entirely empty.
“Get ready,” Barnabas warned grimly. He looked around. “I see doors every ten meters or so, and if I had to guess, I’d say we’ll be surrounded within moments of stepping from this shuttle.”
“You’re betting they won’t kill us,” Jeltor guessed.
“Yes—both because they’ll be ordered not to, and because we won’t let them.” Barnabas looked at him. “Jeltor, being on one of your ships was also a gamble. You know that.”
That at least made Jeltor relax slightly. He nodded. “Yes, I know that.”
The shuttle jolted as it set down. “Good,” Barnabas finished. “Because we’re here.”
“I’m going to regret this.”
“Oh, stop being so dramatic. It’s going to be fun!”
“Has anyone ever told you that humans have a very strange idea of fun?” Jeltor grumbled as they exited the shuttle. “Or is it just you?”
“It’s just him,” Shinigami reported, making use of the communications channel to speak to Jeltor as well. “Although really, the whole upper tier of the Etheric Empire had a few screws loose.”
“One of whom you’re modeled after,” Barnabas ground out.
“Were we talking about me? We were not.”
“We’ll have to continue this another time, unfortunately.” Barnabas watched as the doors opened. “We’re about to have company.”
The soldiers who entered the landing bay were fast and deadly. They immediately took cover, firing well-targeted shots in the direction of Barnabas and Jeltor, as well as the shuttle itself. They moved easily in their armor and shouted commands to one another.
Barnabas rolled behind the shuttle with Jeltor. He grinned at the Jotun. “Well, this is a nice surprise. It’s always a treat to fight someone competent.”
“You’re crazy,” Jeltor grumped. He ran a scan. “I make it eighteen of them. Four are up in the rafters, waiting to pick us off if we make too much trouble. You approve of that, don’t you?”
“Oh, very much. It feels unsporting to kill people who don’t have a fighting chance.” Barnabas studied the readout on Jeltor’s suit’s screen. “All right, I’ll take the two on the left, you take the two on the right.”
They emerged, and Jeltor shot tiny missiles at the two snipers on his side. A small spread—minuscule at this range—covered a range of a few feet in either direction, and though both snipers dove, both were struck. Their bodies tumbled from the rafters and hit the floor with a thud.
Barnabas’ shots left two smoking holes in the rafters. He smiled at Jeltor as they ducked back behind the shuttle, shots ringing out overhead and ricocheting off the ground nearby. “Jean has a way with weapons.”
Jeltor snorted in amusement. “I hope so, because we’ve really pissed them off.”
With a roar, the fourteen remaining soldiers hurtled over the barriers and rushed them, shooting. There was a crash, and the window of the shuttle shattered. Barnabas swore.
“They would. I guess we’ll be finding another way out of here.”
“Only you would say that,” Jeltor muttered. “As if fourteen elite soldiers weren’t enough to contend with.”
Barnabas rolled a grenade into the mass of soldiers.
BOOM!
“There aren’t fourteen of them anymore,” he said cheekily. “See you on the other side. Speaking of which—swap sides with me.”
He slid out and vaulted to the top of the shuttle before flipping off.
The soldiers tried to stop and turn, but they were too late—and those on this side of the shuttle had expected Jeltor. Barnabas picked off two of them before they managed to turn properly, and leaped again as the other soldiers headed toward him.
Behind him there was a roar, then a few screams.
Jeltor gets to use a flamethrower and I don’t? Shinigami demanded.
Not now, Shinigami!
Barnabas dropped his shoulder a
nd pivoted on the ball of his foot as a soldier rushed him. A shot passed harmlessly through the space where his torso had been, and a moment later his foot caught the soldier in the temple. The fighter toppled sideways, and Barnabas’ shot finished him as he stumbled and fell.
Barnabas charged forward as the rest tried to regroup. They surrounded him, but hadn’t planned for this and did not want to shoot one another.
Too bad. He grabbed one’s rifle and pressed the finger on the trigger, dragging the soldier past him. The shot took a fellow soldier, and Barnabas’ teeth ripped into the shooting soldier’s throat a moment later.
They had counted on guns and knives, but not teeth.
He made short work of the rest. Two fired as he ducked, and he shot them both in the shins and, as they fell, in the head.
The last tried to run. Barnabas caught him at the doors and sank his teeth into his neck. He threw the lifeless body to the ground.
“Jeltor?”
“All good.”
Jeltor had just clanked over to him when a section of the landing bay lit up. Behind a reinforced pane of glass was the control center, and there…
“Barnabas.” Koel’s smooth voice came over the comm as he swept into the control center. He wore white robes which accented the pallor of his skin, and his hair was unadorned.
Barnabas’ eyebrows went up at that. He had only seen mercenaries and pirates go without the traditional Torcellan hair adornments. Someone like Koel, who had all the status and money anyone could want and who certainly took care with his appearance, should have very ornate decorations in his hair.
Then Barnabas remembered. Koel was likely in mourning.
It was an elaborate act. Of that, Barnabas had no doubt. Koel curated his public appearance very carefully. He would not show anyone his emotions unless he believed they were useful.
Barnabas nodded sardonically. “Koel.”
A figure at Koel’s side stirred. It was an Ixtali.
“You will address him as Mr. Yennai,” the figure said. “Or ‘sir.’”
Barnabas gave a slight smile. “I think I have been extraordinarily polite, considering.”
Koel laughed. He strolled closer to the window to look Barnabas in the eyes.
“I wanted to see you fight,” he said. “You destroyed the headquarters, but I did not get to see what happened there. Still, I knew what you were up against. Ilia had told me how she was fortifying the place. Now I see how you got through.”
Shinigami, are you close?
You mean, can I get Gar in there as a backup if you really piss him off?
Yes.
I’m dealing with a few contingents of fighters here…
Fine, fine.
Barnabas looked Koel in the eyes. “Uleq died well.”
Koel’s fingers spasmed, and he locked them behind his back. It was the first time Barnabas had seen him lose his composure.
“He was going to do exactly what I did,” Barnabas continued. “Rob you of your legacy. Kill himself, kill Ilia, and destroy the base. He threw a bomb into the reactor. He was going to kill me, too, of course. But if he was going to die, he was determined to die on his own terms and make his enemies hurt.” He studied Koel. “I expect you’d approve of that.”
Koel gave a thin smile. “I do. Uleq was not my heir—Ilia was always better—but he was a child of my blood. I raised him well.” He gave a curious look. “I don’t suppose it’s worth asking how you survived that.”
You never taught your son to gain the loyalty of his followers, that’s how. But instinct told Barnabas not to explain. “No, it’s not.”
Koel nodded once. “You should die painfully,” he told Barnabas. He nodded to one of the Torcellan officers standing to the side, and she entered a code on the keypad beside her. Alarms wailed in the landing bay. “You should die by inches,” Koel continued, looking at Barnabas now. “But you’re too dangerous, you see. I know of no way to make sure you won’t escape.”
He nodded once more to the officer.
“Barnabas—” Jeltor began, his voice panicked.
Then the landing bay doors opened, and both were sucked into the black.
Behind the pane of glass, Koel looked at Lotar. “You wanted to know my plan, Mr. Venn. You were worried. Perhaps you were right to worry, but as you can see, I was not blinded by my need for vengeance.”
13
Alien species had a variety of different capabilities, but one thing was true of all of them: their unenhanced eyesight could not make out detail over the distances at which a space battle took place.
Shinigami wasn’t too worried about the big window on the bridge of the Avaris, therefore. She had no doubt that some admiral stood there looking impressive and kept an eye on the battle, but they could probably only make out the larger ships.
Which left Shinigami free to get close to the civilian ship.
She left the buoy in place and dropped to circle around the back of the Jotun fleet, then up. She intended to come down almost vertically through the Yennai fleet, head under the hollow ship again, and disable the struts that held the civilian ship in place.
All this gave her plenty of time to find an encrypted channel to the civilian ship. She had no doubt that its communications were closely monitored, but she hoped to be able to relay some instructions to it.
The plan had been built hastily, and two Jotun destroyers had lagged behind the rest of the fleet. When the Yennai fleet came out of FTL, they had unwittingly placed themselves between those destroyers and the rest of the Jotun fleet.
That arrangement would be used to wreak havoc if time permitted, but the destroyers’ first mission was to escort the civilian ship to safety once it was freed.
Then, as the whole battle kicked off, Shinigami would proceed to wreak havoc from within the Yennai fleet. Without an organic pilot, she was nimble enough to avoid the Jotuns’ missiles and any Yennai countermeasures.
Her arc behind the Jotun ships and over both fleets was slow. She continued to work through the signals she found. There was a great deal of static emanating from the hollow ship, perhaps intended to disable any ship that came close.
In the pilot’s chair, her avatar smiled. Maybe some pilots couldn’t fly without their scanners and their guidance systems, but she wasn’t “some pilots.” She was the ship.
At last, she picked up what sounded like a Jotun ship and she double-checked, delving into the system to make sure it wasn’t a decoy.
When she was sure, she sent a brief message to the Jotun pilot. It would sound like a standard check-in transmission from the Jotun fleet if they were being tapped, but embedded in the message was a code that meant she was a non-Jotun entity with security clearance and another code that instructed the captain not to respond if the channel wasn’t secure.
She waited as she slipped through the Yennai fleet. It was amusing how they didn’t even see her. Their ship-to-ship chatter was entirely about the Jotun fleet, with the captains receiving orders about which ships to target first.
And then, “This is Captain Haejra. To whom am I speaking?”
“This is the human ship Shinigami,” Shinigami replied. “I will be attacking the struts that hold your ship in place. Are there any other measures keeping you captive? An electronics override?”
“Yes, but we figured out how to get around that a few hours ago.” He sounded smug. “We can disable it whenever we need to.”
“I’ll give you the signal, then. As soon as you’re free, drop below the fleet and head away from the Jotun ships. There is an escort there to take you to safety.”
“Thank you, Shinigami.” The voice was heartfelt. “We appreciate your help. You are putting yourself in danger to help Jotun civilians. We won’t forget this. We’ll make sure our senate knows what you did today.”
“The pleasure is ours.” Shinigami tried to keep the amusement out of her voice. The Jotun senate wasn’t going to be happy about any of this, especially not Jotun civilians procla
iming how wonderful the humans were.
That just made this whole thing sweeter.
“All right, I’m coming up under the ship now,” she reported. “Hang tight, and we’ll have you out of there soon.”
As she emerged into the hollow space inside the Yennai ship, three separate alarm systems went off. Internal turrets pointed at her position, the electronic interference in the air ramped up, and docking bays began to slide open to release fighters.
Shinigami gave a delighted laugh. Good, it was a challenge.
She had been made to evade all methods of tracking, and usually, her systems did that with ease. The Yennai Corporation, however, had developed stealth and scanning technology that operated entirely differently from any system she had ever seen.
They seemed to have the same problems with her technology, at least, which amused her. It threw an unexpected variable into her strategic calculations—now she must have multiple strategies she could switch between at a moment’s notice.
It made things interesting, and she liked that. She hated boring fights.
Seven struts held the Jotun ship in place, each emitting pulses that would override a function of the ship. It was an elegant system, and one she would have to remember not to get on the wrong side of.
She directed a missile at one of the turrets and a second missile at the aft-most strut. Hopefully, that would allow the ship to warm up its engines.
A contingent of fighters emerged nearby, and Shinigami pulled the ship into a tight loop. The end of the ship flipped around and just barely stopped before crashing into the interior wall of the hollow ship as she shot downwards at the fighters. She sent another missile at the struts, but it was intercepted by one of the fighters.
Damn it.
Shinigami scattered fire at them and began to maneuver, leading them around the interior of the ship. She needed them to zero in on her and treat her as the only target. If she could...
She saw another set of bay doors open and picked up speed. She shot past the opening just as the second set of fighters emerged, and saw the satisfying flicker on her screens as the dregs of the first group crashed into them.