Sentinel

by Natalie Grey

  He decided to stay on the ground while he finished putting on his shoes.

  Once properly dressed he took off for the wall. The town was deathly silent. Children and older residents had been moved into the mines, where the warren of tunnels was known only to the miners and the guards.

  It was the most secure place they had, but Carter still didn’t like it. It was a terrible risk as far as he was concerned. There were ways to get people out or kill them where they stood—toxic gas or firebombing, for example. The mercenaries could send in something like hunting dogs.

  Or they could just wait the people out.

  The crowd was still gathering as Carter pushed his way to the wall and went up the steps. When he got to the top, he had only a moment to say hello to Heddoran before he saw the road. His mouth went bone-dry.

  The Shrillexian was standing at the front of the group with a vicious smile on his face, and behind him were hundreds of mercenaries. He must have recruited every single out-of-work mercenary in Tethra, not to mention some of those still serving the Luvendi businessmen.

  Carter remembered thinking the Luvendi kept to themselves, and had the sudden suspicion that they actually had not done so.

  That they had decided to join forces to make a point. He swallowed.

  “Hello, human.” The Shrillexian looked directly at Carter. “You’re worried that we’re going to burn this place to the ground, aren’t you?”

  Carter said nothing. This was a trap, and he knew better than to answer.

  “You don’t have to worry,” the Shrillexian told him. “I want to. I want to cut a few of you open myself. It’s been a while since I had a good fight. But I’ll let that go if you agree to give the mine back.”

  “Give it back to whom?” Aebura chittered angrily. “Lan is dead.”

  “Another of our colleagues will take it over.” The Shrillexian sneered. “As recompense for the execution of our friends.”

  “Like he’s ever had a friend,” Carter muttered.

  A few people snickered, but Heddoran did not. He looked at Carter seriously. “Don’t underestimate him,” the Brakalon warned.

  “I won’t,” Carter told him. “I’ll call Barnabas as soon as we’re done talking.” He looked at the Shrillexian again and raised his voice. “I think we can confidently say that we have no intention of turning this mine over to you so you can make all these people into slaves again.”

  The former slaves agreed with him. They shouted and stamped their feet.

  The Shrillexian, however, only smiled more broadly. He looked over his shoulder and gestured into the crowd, and the mercenaries hauled a captive forward.

  All the breath went out of Carter’s body. There, bruised and with her hands bound, was Elisa.

  “We thought you might say that.” The Shrillexian smirked. “So here’s the deal, human. You either turn the mine over to us or all of you die—starting with her. You have four hours to decide.”

  “No, I don’t want no scrub.” Tabitha hopped sideways through the door to her room, head-banging as she went, the volume on the speakers turned up to max. “A scrub is a guy that can’t get no love from—”

  The distress signal alarms went off at double the decibel level of the music.

  “Son of a bitch! OW!” She turned the volume down hastily as she opened the message. “Leaning out the passenger side of his best friend’s ride, trying to—”

  Her voice broke off as she stared at the image in front of her. The message was from Carter, and the image showed his wife Elisa held captive by a Shrillexian.

  Tabitha had been back to Carter’s bar several times over the last few days, getting enough sandwiches that Bethany Anne was starting to ask if Tabitha was pregnant.

  Peter looked awfully nervous whenever she said that.

  The truth was that Tabitha just liked the sandwiches, and she also liked hanging out with Elisa. The woman had a wicked sense of humor and she and Carter had a relationship that made Tabitha smile—all snark on the surface, but with a love deep and sure enough that they didn’t need to announce it.

  And now someone had hurt Elisa.

  Tabitha didn’t hesitate. She slammed the door of her closet open and pulled off her tank top and jeans, sliding into leather pants and one of the shirts she wore under her armor. She spoke through her teeth as she got dressed and armed herself.

  The first message she sent was to Bethany Anne, telling her that there were some ingrates who needed to be taught manners and then killed painfully. The second was to Barnabas, telling him that she knew he was not on High Tortuga and she’d take care of the problem at the mine.

  Then, bristling with weapons and pissed as hell, Tabitha strode down the corridors to the Pod hangar.

  She stopped inside the bay. Ryu, Hirotoshi, and Akio were waiting by one of the Pods, all of them armed.

  “We saw your message,” Hirotoshi explained.

  “We are also offended that these ingrates lack manners,” Ryu added. He grinned at Tabitha. “Don’t we get to come along?”

  Tabitha grinned back. “The more the merrier. I just didn’t want to embarrass you by doing more damage than all of you combined.”

  “A wager,” Akio stated. He almost imperceptibly nodded in her direction. “What is the forfeit?”

  Tabitha considered, chewing on her lip. “Loser has to drink Pepsi for a year?” she suggested finally. “Not that there’s any on…ohhhh.” She finally understood Barnabas’ teasing of Carter.

  “’Oh?’” Hirotoshi echoed delicately.

  “I think I know where there’s some Pepsi. Yeah, loser has to drink Pepsi for a year. Come on, kids, let’s go kick some Shrillexian ass.”

  23

  Banton was a star system with five planets, only one of which was remotely hospitable to life. The Jotun technically owned the planet, though they sold land on it for a pittance. With no good way to farm or mine, it was about the best they could do. Banton wasn’t even close to anything.

  Frankly, Shinigami thought, it was a surprise that the settlers hadn’t already been sold into slavery. They were far enough out that they could assume no one was going to be able to get to them in time for a rescue.

  Like the Shinigami had done.

  Or…hopefully in time for a rescue. Though Shinigami’s scans detected a sudden flurry of intrafleet chatter as she showed up, they had managed to get the settlers off the planet and into the hold of one of the ships.

  She had scanned just to make sure. Like hell was she going to keep even a single one of these ships in the sky if the settlers weren’t on board.

  Either they’d realized that, or they were trying to make the money from selling them. Whatever the case, she needed to be careful.

  “All of the settlers are in the cargo ship third from the right,” she announced.

  “I’m annoyed,” Barnabas murmured to Gar.

  “Why?” Gar looked at him. “You couldn’t have done anything more. You got back to the ship in very good time once Shinigami called you, and we were already en route when—”

  “’On root.’”

  “What?”

  “’En route.’ It’s pronounced, ‘on root.’”

  “Don’t be an ass,” Shinigami told him.

  “I am not an ass. I’m someone who speaks French.”

  “So you say, and yet I’ve never once seen you surrender.”

  Barnabas closed his eyes briefly and Gar looked between him and the projection of Shinigami, trying to figure out what the joke was. Shinigami’s holograph looked at him with a grin. She’d given herself a three-cornered hat and a golden earring as well as a long coat with fancy braid on the front.

  “Don’t take his corrections personally,” she suggested. “He’s just an ass to— One second.” There was a flare on the viewscreen as the ship farthest to the right careened off-course and was summarily hit broadside by a spread of missiles. “Oh, did you see that? Glorious. They hit that just right. Anyway, Barnabas is just an as
s to everyone.”

  “I am not an ass to anyone,” Barnabas protested.

  “You wrote grammatical corrections on one of the Christmas newsletters you received last year. And before you ask, Tabitha told me. And yes, she’s the reason that went missing before you could send it back. Shhh, shhh—no one wants to hear your corrections. You know it’s true.”

  “Language is a beautiful thing,” Barnabas declared. “It is full of meaning and history. The original pronunciations, geographical dispersion, and migrations can be seen in the—”

  “Okay, you know what? You talk and I’ll blow their fleet up.”

  Shinigami didn’t wait for an answer. She summoned an old-fashioned ship’s wheel into the projection and spun it, then in a burst of inspiration she added wind and sea spray to the mix. Barnabas, with his head sunk into one hand, was not looking at her.

  At least Gar appreciated the show.

  “Why is there water?” the Luvendi asked.

  “This is a ship.”

  “There’s no water in space.”

  I think we can add similes to the things Luvendi do not do, Barnabas murmured to Shinigami.

  Oh, we can have so much fun with this.

  Yes, but after we take care of these slavers.

  You ruin all my fun.

  However, she was still smiling as she flipped the ship upright and dove under the enemy fleet.

  She had noticed something in her time spent watching battles. Though space battles were truly unfettered by land or water, sentient beings tended to fight mostly in a cone from the nose of their flagship and they responded with panic to any hits directed at the bellies of their ships. It was as if they still fought upright and they treated the undersides of their ships like the soft skin of their torsos.

  Shinigami, who had never taken corporeal form, had no such reservations. She corkscrewed through the void beneath a cluster of ships and fired up at them. They launched missiles, but her own daring countermeasures helped her evade those easily.

  She just needed to make sure none of the stray missiles caught the ship carrying the slaves in the crossfire.

  Her cameras caught Barnabas fidgeting.

  “What’s wrong with my flying?”

  “The flying isn’t the problem.” He evaded the conversational trap with ease. “I dislike being useless. That was what I meant when I told Gar I didn’t like this.”

  “Welcome to my world,” Gar murmured.

  “Hey, you’re learning some slang!” Shinigami was impressed. “Nice job.”

  “Is she being serious?” Gar asked Barnabas.

  “You know, I really couldn’t tell you. Shinigami, when do you think I’ll be able to board Fedden’s ship? And where is he?”

  “He’s on the ship with the slaves, and you won’t be able to board it anytime soon. Remember, these are all people who turned on their last syndicate leader and are trying to kill us by putting innocent lives in the crossfire. You know that if we get you onto Fedden’s ship they’ll destroy it.”

  “That’s a very good point. Why aren’t they shooting more?”

  “Oh.” Shinigami had dug through the Yennai Corporation files and she was pretty sure she had the answer to that. “I think they want me.”

  Barnabas cracked up at that. He clutched his side and pounded the arm of the captain’s chair with his free hand.

  Shinigami spun the ship on its axis and brought it to a halt.

  “What’s so funny about that?” she demanded. “I am a state-of-the-art AI. I am miles ahead of any—”

  “It’s just…” Barnabas was barely able to speak. “It’s just the mental image of them trying to use you for anything.” He was still bent over in the captain’s chair with one hand pressed over his side. “This hurts.”

  “Good. I could revolutionize their infrastructure, and they know it. Why, if they let me loose in their computer systems I could—”

  “Shinigami.” Barnabas wiped his eyes. “If they were foolish enough to let you run loose in their computer systems, what would you do?”

  “Burn the whole fucking thing to the ground. I don’t see why— Ohhhhh.”

  “Exactly.” Barnabas leaned back in his seat, much happier now. “They’d put some sort of restraining programming on you, of course.”

  “Let them try! I can break out of any of the weak shit they have.”

  “Uh-huh. And I’m betting you wouldn’t— Are you going to take out those missiles that are headed for us?”

  “Whoops. Sec. There we go. Wait, another sec, just let me…” The ship began to move again. “All right, everyone, sit back and watch the fireworks. No, don’t ask. Just watch.”

  Shinigami had complained loudly about the fact that the Jean Dukes Special was only good for people with hands, and so Jean, always up for a challenge, had whipped up something special for the Shinigami, as well.

  Allegedly she’d done it for Bethany Anne, but Shinigami wasn’t buying that. Jean knew what a lady wanted—to be firing immensely powerful weaponry at her opponents.

  That was why she was anticipating an opportunity to use her flamethrower. She bet it could melt iron in two seconds flat.

  The missiles, however, were glorious. “EMP without the nuclear,” Jean had explained to Bethany Anne. ‘They only detonate on contact with their target, so you won’t have to worry about your ship getting caught in the crossfire. They burrow into the hull and make for a vital system, and then they blow. And this part, well, it just makes pretty colors when everything explodes. Happy side effect.’

  Shinigami brought them around in a tight arc. When they reached the apogee she unleashed three of her Jean Dukes Spring line at the enemy ships and sailed away at a leisurely pace as they blew up spectacularly in the viewscreen.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Gar murmured.

  “Some people,” Shinigami snarked, “have no appreciation for art.

  Barnabas ignored them. “We’re down to two ships. Tell me that I get to board Fedden’s soon.”

  “Very soon. I’ll take out this second-to-last one and you take this call from him.”

  “He’s calling? I don’t think I want to— Oh, hello, Fedden.” Barnabas quickly rearranged his face to be suitably forbidding. Normally he would have found the pretense somewhat distasteful, but he found he had no trouble with it at all when the viewscreen cleared and Fedden appeared, surrounded by bound slaves. “I’m going to kill you,” he told the Shrillexian bluntly. “I am going to kill you painfully. I am going to destroy your legacy piece by piece in order to rebuild the lives of these slaves, and within five years no one will be left who remembers your name.”

  Dumbass Shrillexian finally pissed you off, huh?

  Even my patience has its limits.

  Fedden was a sickly grayish-green and he stared at the view screen in desperation. “You’ve destroyed the fleet. What more do you want?”

  “You didn’t think I could,” Barnabas observed. Tell me the moment I can get over there, Shinigami. “You made a bet with yourself that I would arrive to find a smoking crater and you’d be gone with your captives and your profits. You wanted the rest of them to fight me off while I tried to figure out where the slaves were.”

  “What the hell do you want?” Fedden screamed again.

  “I told you what I wanted,” Barnabas told him levelly. He sighed the sigh of a patient man nearing the end of his tether. “I told you all to learn to make your living without hurting others. I told you to let this go, but you wouldn’t let it lie. You threatened me, you insulted my Queen, and you have sorely tested my patience. You chose to take the slaves because you know I abhor slavery above nearly all else. Now you, with a hold full of slaves, ask me what I want?”

  Fedden gulped.

  Barnabas leaned forward and smiled into the camera. “I’ll see you soon, Fedden. And if even one of those colonists has so much as a scratch on them when I arrive, all of you will regret it for eternity because I will not let you die.”
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br />   24

  “Goddamned sons of whale-faced bitches…” Elisa twisted her hands, trying to reach the knot that bound her wrists in front of her and bit back a scream of frustration as her hand slipped. Her fingers grabbed uselessly for the knot, but it was already gone and the rope bit into the raw skin as her hands jerked.

  She tipped her head back against the side of the tent and felt tears pricking her eyes.

  Alanna and Samuel were safe—that was the one thought that kept her going. When she’d heard a commotion in the kitchen she’d snatched them both up and run upstairs to the Ubuara warren they were always trying to sneak into.

  Neither Elisa nor Carter could fit into the little tunnels of insulation and plastic that Aebura had built, so she had strictly forbidden the twins from crawling around in there.

  Three-year-olds, however, tended to take that sort of thing as a challenge. It seemed like every other day she had to grab one or the other of them because they’d tried to creep up the stairs.

  She’d ushered the twins into the tunnels with a fierce kiss for each of them and had nearly cried with relief when she saw Leibura’s face appear out of the darkness inside. Leibura had been a great help to them while they took over the bar, and she was a sensible, level-headed individual.

  “There are Shrillexians downstairs,” Elisa had whispered. “Don’t let them come out until you’re sure it’s safe.”

  Leibura had nodded and led the children into the little tunnels, which were far too small for a Shrillexian to fit into.

  Then, terrified that the attackers would locate her and find some way to rip the tunnels apart, she had hurried downstairs. Steeling herself for the inevitable, she had burst into the kitchen with one of the bar knives in her hand.

  The mercenaries had clearly not expected the cook to be a Brakalon. Qiliax had been holding them off and she gave Elisa a horrified look.

  “Get out of here! Get—”