The Vigilante Chronicles Omnibus

by Natalie Grey

  At first, she had been fascinated. What was he doing? She analyzed his vital signs and found that his heartbeat slowed and his breathing became deep and even. He was not sleeping, however. His brain activity was off the charts. Some days it seemed to be pure thought, and other days a tangle of emotion so bright that Shinigami was surprised he wasn’t laughing hysterically—or smashing the ship to pieces with his bare hands.

  Later, she decided that simply not announcing her presence wasn’t enough. She would turn off her cameras whenever he went to be alone, and she would wait until he moved somewhere else in the ship to turn them back on.

  Now, however, she was fairly sure she needed to disturb him. She knew where he was—in a small alcove in one of the corridors, where a window showed the vast blackness outside. Today there was a particularly pretty cluster of stars visible from that window, one bluish and one a reddish-orange color.

  “Barnabas?” She projected her voice out of a speaker a little way down the corridor.

  The sensors there recorded him moving around and then he came around the curve of the corridor curiously. “Shinigami?”

  “I’m sorry to disturb you,” Shinigami apologized. “It’s about the server data from the syndicate.”

  Barnabas frowned. “Why did you not speak directly to me where I was?”

  Shinigami hesitated. She had so much data on human minds, but much of it was contradictory or illogical or both. She had no idea how Barnabas was going to respond to the truth. However…

  “When you come down here to sit alone, I turn off my cameras and speakers so you have privacy.”

  There was a pause. Barnabas said nothing for a long moment. By the standards of how fast both he and Shinigami thought, a very long moment.

  “Thank you,” he murmured at last.

  Shinigami was surprised by the depth of emotion in his voice. She looked for the signs of anger and found them deep below, as always, but the anger did not seem to be directed at her. There was also a hint of strain in his features that conveyed sadness.

  She wanted to ask him what he had been thinking about, but was not sure she should. After all, he could have spoken to her if he had wanted to do so. Instead, he had gone to be alone.

  “What did you want to tell me?” he asked finally. His face had cleared. Whatever his turmoil was, he had set it aside for now.

  “The crawler found its way into their communications hub and managed to get the data out to us. What I’m looking at suggests this is a much bigger operation than we thought.”

  “I’ll come up to the conference room.”

  Barnabas made his way through the corridors quickly. “Start at the beginning. You said ‘suggests?’”

  “It’s a fairly standard set-up for mercenary groups. They’re pretty independent, and they give a cut of their take to the syndicate leader. In this case, it’s a Shrillexian named Crallus. It’s very decentralized. They have the base here, and a larger one in a different system.”

  “Should we head there?”

  “Not right now. The syndicate leader was there when you met with Fedden.”

  “Fedden shot him. It’s why we left so quickly. Is he still alive?”

  “I haven’t seen any communications that would suggest otherwise.” Shinigami paused and Barnabas imagined her shrugging. “In any case, the other hideout is well-defended in terms of automated defenses, but it’s not the main stopping point for any of their ships. We could smash it, but it wouldn’t do us much good.”

  “Shinigami, you’re telling me that there is a large base that we could expend significant time and effort smashing to smithereens, with a lot of—what was it you called them?”

  “Pretty explosions!”

  “Yes. Pretty explosions.” Barnabas, who had always thought ‘pretty’ was supposed to refer to women, flowers, and unicorns, tried to keep his face straight. “In any case, now you’re advocating that we do not do this? I think that might be personal growth.”

  “I said not right now. If at some point our path takes us through that system and you want to make a little detour and have some fun? I wouldn’t complain.”

  “Add a bottle of wine and a movie and you have a nice evening,” Barnabas commented.

  “You and Stephen must have very similar taste in women.” Shinigami waited for the laughter and was surprised instead to see a sad expression cross Barnabas’ face. On a hunch, she switched to a scan and saw an echo, very faint, of the turmoil she had seen in him when they first began talking.

  She had a memory of mentioning Sarah to him, and she suddenly remembered the story Tabitha had told her about Barnabas’ past—a story the irreverent, terminally sarcastic Tabitha had told very solemnly.

  The expression was gone in an instant, however, and she had the sense that Barnabas didn’t want to speak of it.

  She switched the subject instead. “There’s not much at the base. Crallus only goes there sometimes. It was really set up by the person he took over from. Hard to tell who that was since he didn’t do much in the way of his own paperwork. Real old-school robber-baron.”

  Barnabas grimaced. “And Crallus was his protégé?”

  “It’s not something that shows up in any of their documentation, but let’s just say that Crallus took over very suddenly.”

  “Ah, the other kind of transfer of power, then.” Barnabas smiled tightly. He didn’t feel particularly sorry for Crallus’ predecessor. Mercenary syndicates were almost stereotypical in their propensity for this sort of thing. It was just what happened when you got a lot of people in one place who all made their living by killing for money. Of the people who ran mercenary groups, not very many ended up dying of old age.

  “Pretty much,” Shinigami agreed. “He isn’t super-important, except that he got the group hooked into something called ‘the Yennai Corporation.’”

  Barnabas let his eyes drift closed for a moment. He already knew what Shinigami was going to say, or at least, the rough shape of it. He’d seen enough of the universe to know that much.

  “Let me guess. The Yennai Corporation isn’t part of any particular industry. Its tendrils are hooked into almost anything you can think of.”

  “That’s about the size of it. So far I’ve tracked mentions of them to legal, semi-legal, and illegal weapons and drug trafficking, transport—that would be cargo and people—a few mercenary syndicates like this one, banking, some information brokers, agriculture, mining, station parts manufacturing, pharmaceuticals—”

  “I’m going to stop you for a moment.” Barnabas held up a hand. “Would it just be quicker to say that pretty much wherever we go and whoever we interact with, we can assume word might get back to them?”

  “Yes, probably. I was just impressed by how successful they had been so far.”

  “Corporations like this tend to be.” Barnabas shook his head and began to scroll through the information on the screens. “Like Crallus’ organization, it’s organic. They allow the syndicates a lot of leeway. They don’t waste resources overseeing after they give the initial cash infusion. They just let the cut trickle up to them, along with any information these people are able to provide. When things get going, that means they know all the emerging markets and also have a very good idea of where threats might emerge.”

  Shinigami considered this. “I’m going to hazard a guess that we count as threats.”

  “Your analytical algorithms really are top-notch.”

  “Sarcasm? Really? When I just found us all this information?”

  “That wasn’t very sporting of me. I apologize.” Barnabas paused at one and sighed. “So, the bankers I spoke with on Virtue Station?”

  “Ah, yes. Yennai has contacts in all those banks, as well as the company that provides security for the station and the company that built the station in the first place. I’d say someone from there has probably already read a brief about what went down while we were there. In fact, now that I think of it, it’s probably why Mustafee Boreir disappeared
.”

  Barnabas sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “And we weren’t cloaking who we were when we went there, either.”

  “No, we weren’t.” Shinigami sounded cautious. “Should I have?”

  “I didn’t ask you to.” He sat on the edge of one of the tables and stared into the middle distance. “Well, this might get interesting.”

  “Explain.”

  Barnabas cleared his throat as he considered. “When we started this quest I thought we were tracking down the dregs of the corporation Bethany Anne bought out—a few disaffected employees, that sort of thing. That was what we had with Lan. Then I figured, well, the mercenary groups that were on the planet probably tended to look for planets like that. I thought we would just organically track our way through various groups who would have known about High Tortuga and might have had a grudge. After all, you did all that good research on people who might have.”

  Shinigami was quietly pleased. Barnabas did not give praise unless he thought it was merited. However, she saw that Barnabas now looked troubled. He pushed himself up and began to pace, running his hands through his hair again. “I don’t like hiding. I don’t like skulking around and giving fake names unless there’s a very specific purpose to it, like with Fedden. If my reputation precedes me, all the better.”

  At last Shinigami understood. “But now we’ve pissed off someone we might not be able to take on by ourselves.”

  Barnabas nodded. He crossed his arms and looked at the screens.

  “Well, then maybe we consider this to be a good and very specific reason to sneak around,” Shinigami suggested after a moment.

  “Mmm.” Barnabas still didn’t seem entirely pleased by this, in her opinion.

  “I mean, it’s not completely bad,” she told him. “We found a gigantic corporation with hundreds of shadowy tentacles all over known space. We’re pretty outmatched.”

  “I think your language couplings might be experiencing a malfunction. Or your reasoning modules.” Barnabas frowned at one of the cameras. “Other than the fact that we know their name, it is completely bad.”

  A sniff came from the speaker closest to Barnabas. “I don’t think so. Hell, you shouldn’t think so, either.”

  Barnabas allowed a smile to slip out. He figured this was probably a joke, but he was enjoying Shinigami’s sense of humor. “Would you care to explain?” he asked with exaggerated courtesy. He sat in one of the chairs and nodded for her to continue.

  “We haven’t known each other for very long,” Shinigami began hesitantly, “so I might be way off on this as a personal assessment. However, there are a couple of things I’ve noticed about you. First, of the seven deadly sins, yours would be pride.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me. And second, you really like being sneaky.”

  Barnabas raised an eyebrow at the camera. “I assume there’s a point to all this?”

  “Oh, there is, and it’s this: we’re up against someone who can call on overwhelming force and might just do so if you piss them off enough. They’ve got virtually unlimited resources at their disposal. How satisfying would it be to set up a series of traps that result in you razing this company to the ground? They’ll never in a million years imagine that one human in one ship could do that.”

  Barnabas sat very still.

  “You don’t want to admit I’m right,” Shinigami gloated. “But you would just love that. One man taking down this whole rotten corporation. Of course, it would be impossible without his partner in crime, the Dread Ship Shinigami.”

  Barnabas’ lips quirked, but he went to the heart of the matter rather than tease her about the name. “We don’t know it’s all rotten. We should really do our due diligence—”

  “Oh, come on, we totally know.”

  “Yes, we do. All right, I admit it. You’re right. About all of it. Don’t tell anyone.”

  “That you’re proud of your sneakiness? Everyone knows.”

  “We’ll get back to that. After I’ve taken down the Yennai Corporation. In the meantime, I suggest we— What was that?” There was a beeping noise from the speakers.

  “Someone’s shooting at us,” Shinigami reported. “They all just appeared out of nowhere.”

  “All?”

  “There are four of them. Wait, five. No… Look, there are a lot of them, okay? Get to the bridge and I’ll start evasive maneuvers. And tell Gar to strap in. We might have to do some barrel rolls.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ergix Koyissa Get’ruz III, captain of the YCS Get’ruz, checked the position of the other ships in the formation and gave a decisive nod.

  “Begin the standard capture sequence and broadcast a message across all Yennai channels to stay out of our way.”

  He had started Get’ruz Shipping decades ago using the money he’d made after hijacking a cargo vessel full of nutritional algae and selling the cargo. The ship and crew he had used to start his own fleet of cargo vessels.

  His philosophy was very simple. Shipping was dangerous, and unprotected ships were liable to be stolen—by him. Anyone who worked for him could take any ship they wanted, after which they were responsible for maintenance, cargo contracts, and security to keep it from getting stolen again. In return, they got to distribute the goods and keep whatever profits they could.

  Ergix provided backup and negotiation when the people he’d stolen from got uppity, and now he sat at the center of a tidy little shipping empire.

  It was an empire, however, that had once been close to collapsing. A captain, too young and inexperienced to know what he could and couldn’t get away with, had stolen a ship full of ore meant for the Jotun government’s shipyards and their Imperial Fleet had gotten involved.

  The Jotun bastards might look like bags of jelly and they might keep mostly to themselves, but it had turned out to be a mistake to underestimate them. The bags of jelly had fine-tuned the practice of creating power suits for themselves and they also had a fleet of ships that were some of the most advanced in the universe—and Ergix’ damn-fool captain had fled directly back to headquarters with that fleet on his ass.

  Which was where Yennai Corporation had stepped in. Just when Ergix was sure he was done for, a few slim, agile ships had appeared between his base and the Jotun fleet. An encrypted conversation had ensued, and the Jotun fleet had dispersed without so much as a goodbye.

  The Yennai Corporation’s representatives had then offered Ergix and his ships membership. “Surely he could see the benefits of being part of their organization?” they had asked.

  He could.

  The thing was, they didn’t even ask for very much. Ergix sent a relatively minor cut of his income to them, passed along any news he thought was of note, and occasionally handled targets or provided security at their request. They never got in his face about how he ran Get’ruz, either.

  So when they said jump, he jumped—like right now, keeping an eye out for any human ship registered to the former Etheric Empire. He’d staked out the main routes leading away from where they had last been seen, and it hadn’t been long before they had dropped into his lap.

  “Sir.” Helix, his niece and one of the junior communications officers aboard Ergix’s flagship, swung around in her chair. “We’re being hailed by another Yennai-affiliated ship. It asks to be involved in the capture and reports that it is one hour away.”

  Ergix stared at her incredulously. “An hour? It wants us to keep this ship on the line but not capture it for an hour while it gets here? No. Close communications from it and give the information to Jeryx so he can keep an eye out for it. Whoever they are, we don’t need them interfering.”

  “Yes, sir.” She relayed the message and then pulled the earpiece away from her head with a wince. “He wants to speak to you, sir. He says it’s urgent.”

  “No,” Ergix repeated. “I don’t care what he wants. This was an Etheric Empire ship. The only way we’re taking it is with the element of surprise. Keeping
it on the hook for an hour is not an option. Shut down communications and focus on the operation.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Request denied,” said the female voice from the Get’ruz. “Communications are hereby terminated.”

  On the bridge of his ship, Fedden slammed his hand down and snarled in fury and desperation.

  He had to be there when they captured the ship. He had to be involved. Tagurn, who was never worried by the people in charge, had been afraid of what this Torcellan might do—and Tagurn’s instincts had helped Fedden steer clear of innumerable bad decisions.

  Fedden was one mistake away from being an example to the rest of Crallus’ organization, and he knew it.

  “Throw everything at this,” he told Tagurn. “I don’t care what safety protocols you have to ignore to get us there in time, just do it.”

  Tagurn, for once, did not argue.

  He knew as well as Fedden did that it was no use surviving the trip if they failed to take the Shinigami.

  “All passengers, please take your seats and brace for impact,” Shinigami announced in an artificially pleasant tone.

  “Impact?” Barnabas strapped himself into the captain’s chair, then glanced at the speakers. “Shinigami—impact?”

  “It’s only wise to be cautious.” She was still using the tone Barnabas remembered from airline stewardesses back on Earth.

  It made his teeth ache. That had been one of the worst things about flying. “Please stop talking like that.”

  In answer, Shinigami sent the ship into a barrel roll. Barnabas closed his eyes as his body pressed against the straps of the harness.

  “Was that really necessary? What about Gar?”

  “Gar is better off if the ship doesn’t get captured,” Shinigami replied breezily. “And yes, it was necessary. They’re not trying to shoot us down, they’re trying to capture the ship.”