Protector (The Vigilante Chronicles Book 7)

by Natalie Grey

  She gave them a delighted grin when she was finished. Since she was an android she was not even panting, something Gar looked vaguely annoyed by.

  “Come on!” she urged. “This way to Senator Scumbag!”

  Gilwar seemed to find this hilarious. He was still chortling as they took off down the hall.

  Grisor is now inside his panic pod, Tafa reported.

  Very good, Barnabas replied. His evil grin was back. I assume there are more soldiers mobilizing?

  They’re trying, but Gilwar has the doors locked down. They can’t seem to get them open.

  If the biosuit’d had a human face, Barnabas assumed it would look very smug. As it was, Gilwar was fluttering inside his tank in a way that reminded Barnabas of jazz hands. He stifled a snort.

  All right, we’ll do what we can before they get through—if they do at all.

  You’re coming right up on the office, Tafa told them. One more door, and…yep, that’s it.

  Thank you, Tafa. Barnabas wrenched the door open. Privately, he added one more command to Tafa. From her amusement, he could tell she knew what his plan was.

  He went into the room, holstering his guns, and was pleased to see that the panic pod was clear. Grisor could see them—and he looked quite smug.

  “Look who it is,” he began. “Barnabas…without Captain Jeltor.”

  “Mmm.” Barnabas grunted noncommittally. He did not want to give Grisor anything to fixate on when it came to Jeltor. “And you’re here in this piddly little glass thing. You know, there’s a human colloquialism about glass houses. It might even be considered applicable, in a broad sense.”

  “You think you can get through it?” Grisor asked smoothly. “You can’t. You could direct every ounce of firepower you have at it and you still wouldn’t even be close.”

  “Really?” Barnabas drew his Jean Dukes.

  This is a trap, Shinigami cautioned him. He knows it can withstand firepower, so he’s trying to tempt you into using all your ammo.

  I think so, too. But by playing along, we’re just filling the time so he doesn’t figure out our real plan.

  What is our real plan? Although I have to say, it’s nice to know we have one.

  Yes, isn’t it? And I’m not telling just yet. Everyone fire. Barnabas aimed and let loose.

  For almost a minute, there was no sound except deafening roars as everyone’s guns went off and kept doing so. When the smoke cleared, there were a couple of scorch marks on the box, but nothing else, and Grisor was wearing a smug smile.

  “Now you see how outmatched you are,” he announced. “Look at me, defenseless inside this pod…but you can’t breach it.”

  “We’ll find a way,” Barnabas told him, schooling his voice to sound arrogant. “Your soldiers are locked out. We can pry it open and get you out.”

  Grisor’s suit turned just slightly as if looking at something. Barnabas followed his glance and saw a strange device in the corner; something handheld.

  Apparently, Grisor wanted them to think that thing could open the pod. Barnabas considered, then went over and retrieved it.

  Shinigami?

  Not sure what it does—or if it does anything, actually.

  Safe to bring on board the ship?

  I’d say so. We’ll just— Then she realized. Oh, you are evil.

  I know. Barnabas gave her a smile and then looked up as the whole room shuddered and the roof began to peel back.

  Grisor looked up. “What are you doing?”

  “You’re right that we can’t get you out of the pod,” Barnabas said. “Not in short order, anyway. But what we can do? We can get the pod out of the room.”

  A large metal claw dropped through the now-open patch of ceiling and locked on. A current running through the claw managed to freeze Grisor in place when he put out an arm to steady himself.

  Barnabas didn’t want him using a self-destruct.

  As the pod began to withdraw into the sky, he nodded at the rest of the team. “Get ready for extraction. We’re not leaving empty-handed now.”

  He was still smiling when Tafa’s voice broke in, high with worry.

  Guys? We have a big problem.

  Chapter Eleven

  What’s going on? Barnabas demanded. Tafa?

  They’ve got ships warming up. Tafa was about five seconds away from full-on panic. They’re going to try to shoot us down.

  Fat chance, Shinigami said darkly. Let me at ‘em, and I’ll burn this whole fucking place to the ground.

  There are too many! Tafa’s voice was rising, fear vibrating into the Etheric. Get back to the ship, please? PLEASE! We have to get out of here.

  Another claw descended from the Shinigami’s belly, and the whole team darted over to grab it. Shinigami ordered it to ascend. Her cybernetic face was utterly blank as she focused on scanning the area around them to figure out where the ships were, and on making sure they would be safe inside before any ground forces got to them.

  They barely made it. They were just being drawn into the ship when a scatter of gunfire burst out below them. The hatch slammed shut under their feet, and they dropped onto the deck with sighs of relief—only to feel the ship shudder as Shinigami directed a few shots back.

  Radiating fury, she stalked over to Grisor. “You know what happened just now? Your guards decided to shoot at us; pick a fight for the sake of picking a fight. They started it—and I finished it. That’s how this whole fucking thing is going to go, just so you know. You decided to start something, and we are not going to be nice in how we shut it down.”

  Grisor glowed with smugness as Barnabas came to stand beside Shinigami. He smiled blandly into the panic pod.

  “She’s right,” he told the Jotun. “So all those dreams you’re having right now about dying gloriously and sparking a movement that brings the Jotuns to ascendance? That’s not going to happen.”

  He couldn’t read Jotun expressions perfectly, but from the sudden stillness of the jellyfish body, he knew he’d hit a nerve.

  “Gilwar,” He nodded at the other Jotun, “Gar will stay here to assist you in locking down this pod however it needs, and Shinigami will be available to make a plan.” Don’t let this cretin overhear you, he added. Use the Etheric to communicate. When both Gar and Gilwar nodded, he glanced at Shinigami. “Let’s go to the bridge. Tafa needs us.”

  She nodded as the ship shuddered again, and both of them took off. It was hard to believe that Shinigami had once been unable to take even a single step. Her competence had come along by leaps and bounds, and her running form was eerily perfect, especially on the smooth decks of the ship.

  The artificial gravity assisted them in keeping their feet, so elegant that it was a dizzying surprise to come onto the bridge and see the horizon dipping and swerving crazily on the screen. Tafa, wide-eyed and looking absolutely terrified, had her hands off the controls.

  Barnabas could only pray that meant Shinigami was controlling the ship.

  “How many ships?” he asked Tafa, keeping his voice businesslike. She needed to learn to focus on facts and keep moving through dangerous situations, or he was not going to feel comfortable putting her in combat.

  She gulped and looked at the screen. “Twenty…six? No, twenty-seven.” There was a storm of beeping, and she gave a little wail. “Thirty-two.”

  “All right.” This was admittedly not a great situation, but he wasn’t going to make things worse by telling Tafa that. Shinigami, tell me you have a plan?

  You’re the one who makes plans! Shinigami swerved out of the way of a whole wing of Jotun fighters. She determinedly did not look at him. Just tell me your objective, she said grimly.

  Take out as much of the science facility as you can and get us out of here. I want to keep him alive for a trial, but I don’t want to take the chance that someone else will deploy the plan in his absence.

  Roger that. She gave a small smile. Missiles priming and locked— Oh, hell.

  What? What is it now?

&n
bsp; More ships. A lot more ships.

  Shinigami—

  And they’re shifting the protocols in the satellites. Clever buggers—they had a whole new set of programs ready to go and loaded it in once we got here. We have to get out of here before everything comes online, which means going very fast in one direction, which means not taking evasive maneuvers, which means...

  Barnabas waited for a long moment. Which means we’re screwed? he asked delicately.

  She gave him a look. She’d clearly calculated the odds already because there were no ships on the viewscreen and the color was getting progressively darker as they shot toward open space. Yeah. Little bit. I’m not saying we can’t do it, I’m just saying they’ve stacked the deck real well.

  Then the alarms burst fully to life and Shinigami swore in several languages Barnabas didn’t know.

  “What the hell was that?” Tafa yelled.

  “Keep it together,” Barnabas told her crisply. He met her eyes and gave a brief nod. She could do it—if she was willing to. He looked at Shinigami.

  “They came out of nowhere.” Shinigami’s face was screwed up with determination. “We were getting out of range of the rest, but this one— Oh, wait.”

  “‘Oh, wait?’” Barnabas gave her an incredulous look. “Now is not the time for ‘oh, wait!’”

  “No, no, it really is.” Shinigami started laughing. “All right, let me just say we’re still heading into space and all that, but here’s what’s going on behind us.” She swapped the viewscreens and sat back in her seat, still chortling.

  The ship that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere was a Jotun ship, but it wasn’t on Grisor’s side. That much was obvious.

  Mostly from the way it was taking out ship after ship from Grisor’s fleet. Missiles were streaking this way and that in a dizzying array, flying out in formations Barnabas had never seen.

  “Holy…” He leaned forward, frowning at the screen. “What am I watching?”

  “You are watching,” said Gilwar from the door, “a thing very few people have ever seen: Admiral Yeneda Jeqwar at her finest.”

  “She’s on that ship?” Barnabas demanded. Losing Admiral Jeqwar would be a blow they could ill afford. If they went up against another fleet—or, worse, if she were captured—

  “I doubt it,” Gilwar replied. He nodded at the screen as he came into the room. “Remember, an admiral is able to control a whole fleet at once. She’s probably still on Jotuna. Hail her.” After a moment of hesitation, he added, “Offer the passcode, ‘clear waters.’ It means she’s being hailed by a member of Intelligence. I trust you won’t misuse that.”

  Barnabas nodded, pleased by his trust. “I won’t. Shinigami?”

  “One moment, just zapping a few— Ow, son of a bitch!” There was a hollow boom on the side of the ship. “Fucking satellites. Okay, bringing her onto a channel. Jotun ship Gedwaz, this is the Shinigami, hailing you under clear waters.”

  A moment later an amused voice came back. “I don’t mean to be rude, Shinigami, but I’m a little busy right now.”

  “I understand that, Admiral.” Gilwar had switched to a dialect of Jotun that was coming through slightly garbled in Barnabas’ implant. “We have a prisoner on board—Grisor. He will be brought to Justice at an appropriate time and place.”

  That was, in any case, the gist of what Barnabas was getting. The admiral spoke back, half the words not translating, and Gilwar nodded at Shinigami.

  “You can stop broadcasting.”

  “Would you mind rehashing that for me?” Barnabas asked wearily.

  “She’s taking care of cleanup and putting on a show, so they know exactly what they’re dealing with, as well as broadcasting a message that Grisor was taken by this joint mission. They have bugs in the Naval networks, and she wants to throw them off by making them think this was planned and they didn’t know about it.”

  “And Grisor?”

  “She’s pleased that we have him and that we didn’t kill him. She wants what you want,” he added wryly, “though perhaps not from a place of kindness. She was displeased that Jeltor was put on trial. I think she wants the same done to Grisor to drag his secrets out in the open and ruin him.”

  Barnabas gave a small smile. “I’m not saying I don’t want to ruin him, just that I also have other motives. I take it he’s secure, by the way?”

  “Yes. We can’t disable the pod yet, but he can’t send any signals, or get out of our cage even if he opens his.”

  “Good.”

  “This is interesting,” Shinigami commented.

  “What is?”

  “We have a pending notification from Victory Station. There’s a message waiting for us, and it’s tagged, ‘One-floating-motionless.’ I’m going to guess that’s Kelnamon. It seems like a good way of indicating the Srisa and how we first met him.”

  “Why is he sending a message that way?” Barnabas asked, frowning.

  “Oh, I think I have an idea of why.” She gave him a look. “Don’t you? Remember what Jeltor said? Remember where he said they were going to strike first?”

  Between their capture of Grisor and their escape, Barnabas had, in fact, managed to forget that. His mouth dropped open. “They’re already on Kordinev?”

  “I don’t know,” Shinigami said, “but I do know that if so, we have a source on the surface and any keys to thwarting them will be in that message. I’m setting a course for Victory Station.”

  Barnabas gave a single nod. “Do it.”

  * * *

  The ship was turning.

  Aliana looked up from her book with a frown and then got up to pad down the corridors in her stockinged feet. The Palpari was an exceedingly clanky ship, and she had gotten tired of sounding like a drum solo when she walked anywhere.

  Zinqued was alone in the cockpit, humming to himself, and staring out the window…

  “Is this Victory Station?” Aliana asked in confusion.

  “Yes,” Zinqued affirmed. He gave her the Hieto version of a smile, scrunching his nose. “You should put on shoes. We need to disembark and take our places, yes, before our target shows up.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “So…why are we here?” Aliana turned sideways to slip past a group of Leath missionaries. “Also, who were they? They’re religious now?”

  “Defeat tends to do that to people,” Zinqued told her philosophically. “Were you there for that?”

  “Er, not precisely. I mean, everyone was, kind of. It’s a long story.” Aliana waved a hand. “Look, you keep dodging the question. What’s going on?”

  “Just a bit farther,” Zinqued told her. “You’ll see.”

  Aliana scowled as she stomped along behind him. “I hate surprises. You know, you could just say you found the Shinigami and it’s here, or we’re going to see someone about the—”

  She stopped dead in her tracks a moment later.

  A woman was standing on the loading docks, staring at them. Small and fine-boned, she had dark hair and wide, long-lashed black eyes. Hers was the sort of delicate beauty that was set off well by an evening gown and diamond jewelry, but instead, she was wearing blue coveralls with plenty of grease stains, and her hair was drawn back in a careless bun.

  She met Aliana’s eyes, then went up the ramp to a beautiful ship. Her fingers hovered over the keypad next to the doors, and she entered a few keystrokes before heading back down. She looked back, gave a single nod, and disappeared into the crowd.

  She had unlocked the ship—or, rather, she had changed the codes to what they had been when Aliana first owned it. Because this ship was the Melisande, the ship she had scrimped and saved to buy with Harry; that she had fixed up with scrap parts and elbow grease until it ran like a dream. The ship she’d hired Ria to be the mechanic for.

  The ship Lawrence had stolen from her.

  Aliana realized she was shaking. She wanted to run away.

  “We have to move quickly,” Zinqued said. “Ria agreed to unlock the ship a
nd make sure it was unoccupied. She requested clearance for it to undock unexpectedly, so you’ll be able to get on board and get it off the station if you go now.”

  “What?” Aliana gaped at him.

  “Not everything has to be deep-space traps and ambushes,” Zinqued told her with a smile. “Go. Get the ship, and I’ll get in touch with you soon.”

  He made to disappear back into the crowd, but she grabbed his arm.

  “Wait! You can’t just go—”

  “You don’t have time to wait. The emergency clearance will expire soon.”

  “I don’t care about that.” Aliana held onto his arm. “You… Zinqued, you arranged for this? Why?”

  He considered. “You were sad,” he said finally. “I know what it is to miss a ship.”

  “I don’t miss the ship,” Aliana snapped. She saw the look on his face and sighed. “Okay, yes, I do. I miss it—a lot. Harry and I were married there—”

  “Do you have time for this?”

  “Just listen.” She could hear the pleading in her voice. “What’s been hurting so much is what Lawrence did to me, what he took—and that they all just went along with it. I hired them and they were my family, and they just let him kick me off my own ship and fly away and strand me in the middle of nowhere with no money. No nothing. It wasn’t about the ship, it was what they did.”

  “That one—” Zinqued jerked his head in the direction Ria had gone, “is trying to make it right.”

  “Yeah, well, little good it does now!”

  “It restores to you what should be yours.” Zinqued gave her a look. “Is that not worth saving?”

  “I don’t—” Aliana turned away, hands buried in her hair. “I don’t know. It isn’t just Harry; now I have all these memories of Lawrence, too. I don’t want to, but he’s part of that ship, and I kind of never want to see it again.”

  There was a pause.

  “Should I not have done this?” Zinqued asked finally. “I thought it would help.”

  Aliana began to cry. She wiped her nose angrily, then used her sleeves to dry her eyes. “No, it was nice. I just— It’s so nice. Why did you do it? We had a deal.”