Justiciar

by Natalie Grey

  Ferqar was standing at the window, but he swiveled in his tank as Barnabas came in and gave a little bob that Barnabas thought might be a Jotun nod of greeting.

  I think you can see their emotion in how they ripple, Shinigami said a moment later. I want to collect a data set and then go to Jeltor to confirm some things.

  Good plan. Something tells me we’re going to be interacting with more Jotuns before this is resolved, and I want to be able to tell when they’re trying to hide their emotions. Although Barnabas could simply read the mind of any sentient being, he learned a lot from the interplay between the emotions they showed and what was going on in their mind.

  He sat, and Shinigami took the seat beside him. Ferqar sat across the table, while Kelnamon let himself out of the room and closed the door behind him.

  “So,” Ferqar began, “what is this about? Not that I don’t have my suspicions.”

  “Interesting turn of phrase,” Barnabas commented. “I also have…well, guesses.”

  The mechanical head swiveled, and Ferqar bobbed in the water. “And what are your guesses?” Not much movement could be seen in either the jellyfish body or the tentacles. He was waiting, and his mind was surprisingly tranquil. There was no more fear—and no more guilt.

  Barnabas took a moment to study him before answering, “I know you didn’t kill Huword. I’ve spoken to the one who did. But it interests me that you had such an ironclad alibi, and it interests me, too, that you and Huword were out here where he wouldn’t have access to backup.”

  Ferqar said nothing, although his mind went into overdrive. Make sure you don’t know anything, a voice said in his memory. Make sure you don’t see anything. Barnabas remembered the flavor of this memory, although the last time he’d felt it, it had been lost within the swirl of anger and fear in Ferqar’s head. Then, Barnabas had not managed to catch the words.

  He found himself getting angry now. “Oh, come now.” He stared Ferqar down. “I am interested in Justice, not laws, and Huword deserved this. I have no intention of turning you over to the Jotun Senate—who, it has to be said, would not know Justice if it bit them.”

  Ferqar considered this. “I think I may have a mistranslation,” he said finally. “What is a ‘Justice’ in your language? In our language, it is akin to retribution, and it cannot bite.”

  “It’s a colloquialism,” Barnabas said, realizing his mistake. “I simply meant, the Jotun Senate is so corrupt that they could not possibly enact any true Justice, and I doubt they have a use for the concept or even remember what it is.”

  “Ah. That’s quite true.” Ferqar sounded amused. He considered for a moment longer. “You want to know if I was part of the plot, then.”

  “Yes.”

  “May I ask why?” Ferqar sounded curious. “You say you know who did the act, and you must know, now, what he did. Why does it matter—”

  “I don’t know what he did,” Barnabas explained. The fact that he was able to keep his voice level despite his rising anger was due to centuries of practice. Not only that, it was risky, laying his cards on the table like this. But he avoided half-truths when he could, and there had been far too many lies already. He was in no mood for them when he and Ferqar were on the same side.

  This surprised Ferqar. He’d gone fluttering back against the edge of his tank, and the biosuit turned its head a few times as if he did not know what to direct it to do.

  “I know Huword betrayed the Navy in the mutiny, and even before it,” Barnabas said. “That much, I know. I thought that was why he’d been killed, but when I spoke to the assassin, I learned there was more to it, although she didn’t—”

  “Don’t tell me who it was,” Ferqar broke in quietly but with force. “I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know anything about how it happened. We agreed it was best if those among us did not know anything about each other.”

  Barnabas nodded. It was nothing to him either way, and it had probably been a wise precaution. It made sense of the memory he had seen, and the words Ferqar spoke now had the ring of truth to them—there was no deception in his thoughts. “In any case, the assassin told me that it was not her information to provide, but that Huword had done a lot more than I knew.” He sighed. “And then, when interacting with the team the Senate sent—the team, I’m guessing, that Kelnamon moved the ship to avoid—I hit upon another truth: that other species, other governments, would be very angry about whatever it was Huword was doing. I don’t know why, but I’m right, aren’t I?”

  Ferqar was quiet for a long time. When he spoke, he sounded broken.

  “Even I don’t know all of it,” he admitted. “I am sorry. I wish I could tell you everything. I’ve tried to make sense of what I know, but from what I can see it is simply… Is there a word in your language for someone who enjoys causing pain?”

  “A sadist,” Barnabas said precisely.

  “Then that’s what he was,” Ferqar said. “A sadist. That’s all I can think.”

  Barnabas was beginning to understand the shape of this. “He hurt other species.”

  “Yes.” Ferqar wasted no time prevaricating. “I learned of the things he had done after—I don’t know where to start. I think…hmmm. Let me start with this: I didn’t lie when I said that my posting was a demotion. It wasn’t anything big, as such things go. There wasn’t a scandal. I just never got along with Admiral—well, it doesn’t matter which one. It was enough that every time I was up for a promotion or someone else was up for my job, I was the one who got moved. I fought it for years, but in the end, I got moved here, to this posting. And there’s no coming back from this one. Other captains will live out their lives knowing that when we had to defend our people, they were there at the mutiny. They risked everything and fought our enemies. I was too far away. I’ll never be able to say that. I’ll never do the things I dreamed of. I’ll be forgotten.”

  Barnabas could say nothing to this. The raw hurt in Ferqar’s voice was almost too much to bear, and he could imagine all too well how it would have happened. It would have been little things here and there; never an overt abuse of power, simply repeated disregard for Ferqar’s achievements over the years. I don’t know why I’ve just never liked him much—Barnabas could easily imagine the conversations.

  And so Ferqar had been passed over time and again, and the tiny cruelties had robbed him of what should have been his victory—a victory he shared with the rest of the Navy.

  Shinigami said quietly, “I am sorry.”

  “It is done,” Ferqar said. “It is over. I have to make my peace with it.”

  She nodded.

  Ferqar stirred, then. “So what I told you about how two captains might talk when they were demoted—that was true. I would have done that for him…if things had been different.”

  “You already knew something about him,” Barnabas guessed.

  “I did,” Ferqar confirmed. “I was talking with another scout once, one of the ones who control their craft, just them. It’s…not a life for everyone. It gets lonely. But the ones who do it, they love it. He said he’d been out near the border with—” He broke off. “Is the captain listening?”

  “No,” Shinigami answered. “He left, and there aren’t any listening devices in this room. He’s the type who doesn’t want to know intrigue.”

  “Thank you,” Ferqar told her. “The scout said he’d seen a ship near the Brakalon border.”

  “Huword’s ship,” Barnabas guessed.

  “Yes. And he shouldn’t have been there—well, it wasn’t his mission to be there. The scout didn’t engage. Those ships fly cloaked, and he wasn’t going to break that cloak by sending a message. The ship wasn’t even doing anything, just flying slowly through a few systems. It could have been a classified mission. It could have been open knowledge, him hunting down someone who’d hurt him. It could have been nothing, but the scout said he followed them anyway because something felt off about it.”

  Barnabas waited, worry rising in his chest.
>
  “There’s a Brakalon colony in one of those systems,” Ferqar said. “It was attacked not long after. I was the one who found it out, not the scout. I heard about it, and I decided to do some investigating on my own. There weren’t any survivors at the colony, and it was made to look like Skaine had done it. Who would doubt that? But I know our weapons.” The sensory plate turned in Barnabas’ direction and stared at him unmoving. “I knew it was one of our ships, and I knew whose it had been.”

  “The Jotuns wanted the colony,” Barnabas guessed.

  “If they did, they haven’t done anything with it. And they aren’t all dead, the civilians. Some are missing.”

  Barnabas, who had been about to guess mining, closed his mouth.

  “I looked up the rest of his missions,” Ferqar continued. “He’s had a lot, and his ship hasn’t been where it was supposed to be very often. A lot of things like this. It took some doing, but I found other places where he’d done the same thing. I couldn’t prove it, of course.”

  “He’s taking captives?” Shinigami asked.

  “So it would seem. A few on each colony, and he’d done things to them.” Ferqar’s revulsion went so deep he could barely form the words. “He is a sadist,” he said again.

  “And so another government might well have sent a black ops team to kill him,” Barnabas mused. “But...”

  “But it doesn’t explain how the Senate is involved,” Shinigami picked up. She looked at him.

  “Exactly.” Barnabas shook his head. He looked at Ferqar.

  “When I was contacted by—I don’t know who it was—I knew exactly how to get him onto this transport,” Ferqar said. “I made sure he knew that there weren’t any Naval sources on board to listen in on this. I told him that we had to stick together through these demotions, through all the tedium—through all the stupid border patrols past meaningless little alien colonies. I told him a little about my last few routes and mentioned remote alien colonies. All the details were made up, of course.”

  Barnabas shook his head slightly. Ferqar had, indeed, set the perfect trap. Huword must have thought he could pump the other captain for details on vulnerable remote alien colonies.

  “His move wasn’t a demotion, was it?” Ferqar asked. “That was what I couldn’t understand. I thought the admiralty board knew about it, and… I don’t know what I thought. But it was the Senate who had him moved, wasn’t it? They were sending him to kill these people. Why?”

  “That, I don’t know.” Barnabas shook his head. “But you have to hide. You’ve seen far, far too much, and the people who came after us on Gerris Station were looking to tie up any loose ends.”

  “We’ll hide,” Ferqar said. “Kelnamon’s no fool. He knows people are looking for the Srisa or anyone who was on it. We’re going dark after this. He didn’t even want to meet with you, but I wanted to know whose side you were on—and, if you were on ours, I wanted to know what you would do. Now…I hope you’ll hurt whoever Huword was working for.”

  Barnabas gave a small smile. “I’ll find out who they are,” he promised. “And I will bring them to Justice. Thank you for your help.”

  He and Shinigami left with a brief goodbye to Kelnamon, and it was only when they were back on their ship that Barnabas said, with feeling, “What the hell was this guy up to?”

  Even Shinigami looked lost. “I have no idea.” She looked disturbed. “But it was nothing good.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “All right.” Barnabas sat down in the conference room, adjusting the fit of his vest minutely before bringing up several systems and images. He looked at Jeltor’s wife. “This will involve highly classified information regarding your government, which may be…distressing. If you’d like not to see it, I understand.”

  “Thank you, but I will stay.” However Jotun biosuit voices were chosen, hers was a pleasing contralto. “When Jeltor was taken as a hostage, I thought it was the worst thing that could befall us. Then I learned he was walking willingly into more danger at your side, and I was even more afraid. And then the Senate condemned him for what he’d done, and I realized I had known nothing about my own government. Whatever they did, the least I can do is see it.”

  Barnabas nodded silently.

  “And,” she added wryly, “I’d at least like to know where he’s running off to the next time he goes.”

  Jeltor gave a strangled, guilty-sounding noise.

  “He gave me a big speech just before this,” his wife explained, “telling me that he was only going to provide you with information, and definitely not go charging off. Given past experience, I have to assume that ‘charging off’ is exactly what he’ll do.”

  Gar was trying to stifle his laughter, but Shinigami didn’t even bother. She chortled as she sat back in her seat.

  “She’s got your number, Jeltor.”

  “Yes, well.” Jeltor made the same, embarrassed sound again. “I suppose we’d better get on with the planning, then.”

  Barnabas hid a smile. He might not have let the meeting stray into the weeds like this, but the truth was, he wasn’t looking forward to going over this information again. Shinigami had found the incidents Ferqar’d mentioned and had passed the highly graphic information to him with no comment. Even she was disturbed, and she did not get disturbed easily.

  Barnabas sighed now and nodded to the screen. “We still don’t know who hired the assassin,” he said. “I’ll put that out there. For all I know at this point, it was a foreign government. Ferqar took precautions to make sure he wouldn’t know who he was working with.”

  “Ferqar was in on it?” Jeltor asked interestedly.

  “He…was the one who got Huword into position. He knew some of the things Huword had done and was somehow connected to whoever hired the assassin.” Barnabas shrugged helplessly. “There are a lot of blanks, so here’s what we do know—and, again, this will be disturbing, and I won’t think less of any of you for not wanting to see it. Leave if you need to.”

  The rest of the room settled into anxious silence as he brought up the list of colonies. There were Ubuara, Brakalon, Yofu, Jotun, Torcellan, and even Skaine colonies.

  “These colonies,” Barnabas explained, “were attacked, and most of the inhabitants were taken elsewhere. Some of the civilians were killed in various painful ways—there are pictures, but take my word for it—and their bodies were left. The attacks were pinned on slavers and pirates, but we can be fairly certain that all of them were either perpetrated by Huword or somehow enabled by him.”

  Jeltor’s wife made a surprised sound. Jeltor floated to the very edge of his tank, close to her, and she moved closer to him, as well. Although they could not touch, they seemed to take comfort in each other’s presence.

  “We don’t know his purpose,” Barnabas explained. “Ferqar suggested that it might be a personal thing on Huword’s part, but I can’t believe that to be true. Huword’s ship had a crew aboard it, and surely someone would have spoken up if they were doing things like this. Moreover, the Navy did not react to the fact that Huword’s ship was rarely where it was supposed to be or doing the things it was supposed to be doing.”

  “These are all border colonies,” Jeltor said suddenly. “And Huword had just been demoted—we thought. It wasn’t a demotion, was it? They were sending him to do this.”

  “So it would seem,” Barnabas agreed. “Which begs the question of who else in the Navy was in on this, because it certainly seems that Huword was acting in the interests of the Senate, instead.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Burn the whole thing down,” Shinigami suggested finally, “and start over.”

  “At this point, that might be wise.” Barnabas rubbed his forehead. “That was a joke,” he told Jeltor.

  Jeltor, however, was unamused. “Maybe it shouldn’t be,” he said grimly. “Maybe she’s right.”

  There was silence after his words. He had fluttered away from the wall of his tank and was now on the other side
of it, away from his wife’s presence.

  “Jeltor.” She spoke quietly.

  He said nothing.

  “Jeltor, the Navy has many good captains.”

  “We thought Huword was a good captain!” he flared angrily. “And now there’s another traitor. The Senate can’t be trusted, we’ve been abducting people and torturing them, and gods only know what else—”

  “Every species fights corruption.” Barnabas cut him off. “Every one. On Earth, humans did horrible things to one another. They would say it was in the name of science or progress or any number of good things they warped to serve their purposes, and the process of fixing all of that was messy and difficult. But it can be done.”

  No one said anything for a while.

  “We should focus on what we’re going to do,” Gar suggested. “By which I mean, where we’re going to look for information. We don’t know the whole story yet. You know what I learned, working as a bureaucrat? Bureaucracies are big. It is genuinely possible that no one in the Navy noticed what Huword was doing.”

  “Or that several of them noticed at the same time,” Barnabas agreed, seeing a chance to bring them to his next point. “We’ve been contacted by one of the admirals. We don’t know which, but Shinigami believes that’s who it is after having traced them. They say they have information about Huword.”

  “It’s worth noting,” Shinigami pointed out, “that this could easily be fake.”

  “Which is why we need a plan,” Barnabas said smoothly. “We stood against the Yennai fleet and took their headquarters with hundreds of mercenaries trying to stop us. We’ve already stopped one of the Senate’s black ops teams. We can assume that if this is a trap, it will be a good one—given that they successfully got us to think it was an admiral.”

  “Yeah.” Shinigami nodded. “If this mission had been going another way, I wouldn’t even question it. The way this one is going, let me tell you, I checked to see if it was fake. I checked a lot. I found nothing. I’m still suspicious.”