by Natalie Grey
Crallus considered the Torcellan’s point. That, at least, made sense.
“Get’ruz’s ships were registered to us,” the Torcellan informed him pointedly. “If they noticed that, they know who we are.”
“Which means they’re coming for us,” Crallus finished. He accepted with reticence that his syndicate was part of the Yennai Corporation. It didn’t seem very fair that he’d sent in those profits for years and now he was being asked to go up against the corporation’s enemies, but that was just how things shook out when you weren’t in power.
Maybe he’d kill whoever was in charge of the Yennai Corporation and move up. It had worked twice now, so it might work again.
“Yes,” the Torcellan agreed. “We’ve seen how the humans respond to such things. Once provoked and attacked, they come after anything and everything their enemies own. We must be ready. They will either come for the central Yennai base as soon as they find out where it is, or yours. I have already ordered both to be placed on high alert, and we should withdraw there as soon as possible. I’m having both of them stocked with food and ammunition as well.”
Crallus sighed. “I’ll go tell the captains to leave this base. It can be cleared by tomorrow morning.”
“Give them six hours,” the Torcellan advised. “No more. Once they come for you, humans do not hesitate. That base is one of the few secure places they can go. If the humans catch them here or on one of their ships they’re as good as dead.”
“I’ll call Fedden back in, then.”
“No.” The Torcellan had stood and now he looked at Crallus, and the Brakalon had the sense of narrowed eyes. “Fedden must earn his way back into the syndicate or die trying.”
“He will die trying! If seven ships couldn’t take on the Shinigami, how is he supposed to—” Crallus broke off as he understood. “You never believed he’d survive it.”
“Of course not.” The Torcellan brushed a speck of dirt off his sleeve. “But allowing someone to earn redemption and have them fail is much less unpopular with the sort of people you employ. It was the only smart thing to do.”
Do you not care about anyone? Crallus grimaced and held his tongue rather than spit those words out.
He knew the answer anyway.
“They’re mobilizing forces,” Shinigami reported later that evening.
“Oh?” Barnabas looked up from the table, which was strewn with documents and the remains of dinner. He and Gar had been poring over lists of companies affiliated with the Yennai Corporation, and the documents were now covered in Barnabas’ handwritten notes. He’d rolled his sleeves up to work and he ran a hand through his already-disheveled hair as he waited for more information.
“They’ve given the order for about half their various guards to come to the Yennai HQ, which I have no idea how to find. The other half is supposed to form a unified fleet, I’m guessing to search for us, and Crallus has issued orders to his ships to go to their fortified base. They’re leaving soon. I’d say they’ll probably be backup for the fleet if necessary.”
“Ah.” Barnabas chuckled with great satisfaction. “Well, that’s just…convenient.”
“What is?” Gar frowned. “I’ve seen what this ship can do, but those bases are heavily fortified. It will be difficult to infiltrate them.”
“We don’t have to.” Barnabas was smiling now. “And indeed, we shouldn’t. A few centuries back—well, more than that, now—humanity would lay siege to cities. It would have been quite effective but for the fact that the army also required large amounts of supplies. The lesson, in short, is not to besiege cities. In this case, however…they’re going into seclusion on their own.”
“So?” Gar looked confused.
“He means we’ll just wait them out,” Shinigami interjected. She sounded pleased. “Bomb off, do something unrelated.”
“Bomb what?”
“She’s saying we would leave,” Barnabas explained. “Given her near-constant mentions of bombs being used for their intended purpose, I can see how you would be confused.”
“It’s not that. It’s the fact that your language is insane.” Gar crossed his arms. “I keep trying to learn things, and then you use words in ways that make no sense.”
“Mmm. In any case, she’s quite right. I propose we let these people hide away in their bunkers. We have all the time in the world, after all. We can let them drain their resources and begin to get complacent and go stir-crazy while we go after the parts of the corporation they didn’t bring with them. When they finally emerge and give us an opening, they’ll find that most of their corporation is gone—and in the meantime, they will have gotten rusty.”
“So they’re…they’re afraid of you coming to kill them, so they’re hiding away and you’re just going off to kill other people?” Gar reminded himself how little he wanted to get on Barnabas’ bad side.
“Precisely,” Barnabas agreed.
“And I’m guessing from his tone that he already has someone in mind,” Shinigami added.
“I do indeed. If you would bring up the files on the Boreir Group, please?”
“Ah, him again. He was involved in munitions, wasn’t he?” Shinigami whistled as she brought up the file. “Damn, he really is. You don’t think small, do you?”
The Boreir Group was presently owned by a third-generation employee named Mustafee Boreir, a Yofu male. The company provided munitions to several governments and major mercenary groups. Their production facilities, which were scattered across several sub-corporations, made them one of the largest munitions manufacturers in known space.
“They haven’t been sent after us and they haven’t been called to the base,” Barnabas informed them. “But I’m betting that if push comes to shove, Yennai is going to want more munitions to throw at us. I suggest we wait until we have confirmation that Yennai’s head honchos are in the last steps of their retreat to the stronghold. In the confusion, we attack the headquarters of the Boreir Group, and Shinigami takes up communications so that Yennai is unaware anything has gone wrong. From there we dismantle the whole damned thing. Over the course of the next few months, we shut down all of their facilities and sell them and offload any cargo ships they owned and any remaining inventory—as much as possible to the Federation—thus cutting off one of the most profitable and dangerous parts of Yennai’s holdings.”
Gar nodded. “At a few months per group, though, we’ll be here for quite a while.”
“We won’t need to have much active involvement day to day,” Barnabas explained. “Shinigami can handle most of it once the stronghold is secure without even taxing her processing powers. Isn’t that right, Shinigami?”
“Quite correct. I’ll also be diverting Yennai’s incoming payments into untraceable accounts. When they finally come out of their hidey-hole, they won’t have any money left.”
“Destroy them from the ground up,” Barnabas agreed. “I like it.”
“You want something else to like? I think I have an idea to get you into the headquarters…”
Chapter Seventeen
Two days later Rald headed out of Tethra on his way to the mines. He took no one with him, just a battered old vehicle and some supplies.
He wasn’t fool enough to risk all the forces he might call on just yet, but he had left instructions behind. Many of the miners, it turned out, had come to Tethra after their contracts were up, and they had built lives here. They were rebuilding the mine as their own now, so they had left their families and businesses unprotected.
Idiots. Rald smiled coldly. Did they not think anyone would figure out what they had done here? Did they not think they had put targets on themselves?
They were going to be too dead to learn their lesson, but others would see it.
As for the humans everyone was so afraid of…let them come over here if they cared. It was clear that this continent wasn’t their priority. They had freed the mines and then gone off somewhere else.
Rald was betting that they weren�
�t going to come back. He’d heard some stories of big battles on the other side of the planet. The humans were all occupied. They weren’t going to bother themselves with this, and by the time they did, their forces would be battle-weary and the people who really owned Devon would be strong again.
After all, he had the backing of the Yennai corporation now, didn’t he?
He thought he heard the distinctive chitter of one of the rodent-creatures nearby—what had the guards called them, ‘Ubuara?’—but when he turned to look he saw nothing. They seemed to make a point to stay out of his way, though he saw them everywhere.
Good. They knew he wasn’t to be trifled with.
The wheels of the truck squelched through the mud and Rald took a look over his shoulder at the weapons he had been able to buy in Tethra. He growled softly in disappointment. He preferred his own weapons, but even Yennai Corporation’s contacts hadn’t been enough to get those on-planet.
He could make do.
He thought of Jutkelon as he drove. The Brakalon had been a stubborn old bastard, not much like the other Brakalons Rald had known. They tended not to run their own companies, just take posts on other people’s ships—like a lot of Shrillexians.
Maybe that was why Rald and Jutkelon had gotten along so well. Neither of them had been sure that they wanted to run their own outfits; they just didn’t want to have to answer to rich assholes anymore. Jutkelon had eventually gone back to being part of a bigger group, but for a few years they had worked well together.
You couldn’t go through that many firefights with someone, escape that many close calls, have them save your back and you save theirs so many times, without there being an obligation. Other mercenaries—the ones Rald had fought with once or twice—he wouldn’t do this for them. However, he had spent too long fighting at Jutkelon’s side to let him be killed like this and not avenge his death.
They’d wanted to make a point, the bastards. They’d left that smoking crater at Jutkelon’s compound so no one would want to stand up to them anymore.
Rald’s growl got louder and he narrowed his eyes.
The first step was finding out what was in this mining town. Once he knew what was there, he would call in reinforcements and wipe it off the map.
Fedden ducked under a low doorway and gave it an annoyed look.
This space station had been made for some race smaller than Shrillexians, not to mention it was practically falling apart, it was so old. Hopefully there were some larger corridors somewhere, or Namkelon was going to have to crawl to get around.
That mental image, at least, was funny enough to make Fedden bare his teeth in a grin.
“You ready?” Tagurn asked from behind him.
Both Shrillexians ducked through another door. They could hear the clamor of voices from ahead. Fedden had called everyone he could think of to this meeting and he’d told Namkelon to do the same. The Brakalon was cautious by nature, so Fedden was sure he’d only choose people who could be trusted.
Besides, with Crallus retreating, what was he going to do if the ships’ captains started to do their own thing?
Nothing; that was plain.
Fedden wasn’t a fool. He’d seen the wreckage of the Get’ruz fleet. He’d put two and two together easily when Crallus and his mysterious Torcellan friend had withdrawn to the main base that Crallus had never used before now.
They were afraid of these humans. Clearly, they had sent Fedden to die.
He had no intention of doing that.
He came around a bend in the corridor and a guard at the main door nodded at them. Fedden recognized him as Namkelon’s first mate. So the Brakalon was cautious enough to have guards posted, then. The alien swung the big airlocked door into the main room wide, and as it opened the noise inside blasted into the corridor.
Fedden had seen how many ships were outside, but he was still impressed to see how crowded the space was.
They fell silent as he entered, and he noticed that they didn’t seem so much happy to see him as discontented with the way things were.
He could work with that. He made a show of greeting Namkelon and exchanging a few words with him, as well as nodding to a few of the other captains he knew well.
“You’ve gathered a large crowd,” he told Namkelon appreciatively.
“It wasn’t a hard choice,” Namkelon told him bluntly. “Get shut up like prey in a cage with that Torcellan, making no contracts, or stay out here? No one wanted to retreat except Crallus. And his favorites, of course.”
Fedden sighed. He had hoped that one or two of Crallus’ favorites might join them. Their ships were state of the art. It paid to be in Crallus’ good graces, but he’d chosen his inner circle long ago and it took too much ass-kissing to work your way in at this point.
Ah, well. They’d do this with or without him and his best ships. They had numbers on their side now.
And if those numbers were only here because they didn’t like Fedden’s rival? Well, he could work with that.
“Thank you all for coming,” Fedden called to the group that filled the room.
This main chamber had multiple levels with walkways around the edges of the main column, and those walkways were packed with mercenaries leaning down to watch him. He saw friends and rivals, new fighters and grizzled old ones.
They all had some of the same reasons, though.
“Things have really gone to shit, huh?” Fedden asked them.
There was a sudden burst of laughter and a few of the mercenaries nodded.
Fedden grinned up at them. “Crallus was never the best of us, but he didn’t get in our way, right? We had a place to come back to, exchange information, get some bigger jobs. Crallus didn’t take too much. It worked…but now he’s getting weird.”
No laughter now. The nods became serious. No one liked the way things had been going recently.
“When was the last time Crallus helped any of you get a job?” Fedden asked. “I’m not talking those shit ones guarding cargo ships, twenty guards for a whole damned hauler and no way in hell of making your bonus. I mean the good jobs.”
No one answered. Crallus hadn’t helped them out recently.
“But when was the last time Crallus called you up to bitch about how you were doing, how much of a take you were sending through, or ask you to go do a favor for him?”
Mercenaries called out answers. For most, it had only been a few days. Crallus hadn’t asked much before that, but he’d been insufferable for a while now. Everyone here was quick to see that this could easily become the new normal.
“Not to mention,” Fedden added with a grin, “when was the last time you got back to base, had some food, and thought it might actually kill you?”
They were laughing again.
“And while he’s always talked about raising rates,” Fedden finished, “he’s actually going to raise them this time. When he’s asking more of us than he ever has and giving back less!”
Their faces were angry now, and he knew he’d successfully tapped their discontent.
Now came the sell, and he could only hope he’d done enough.
“You know why he’s going back to his base, right?” Fedden looked at their expressions. They didn’t know. Good. Offering new information was one of the best ways to get allies. “He’s gotten the syndicate dragged into something bigger than he is. Him and his Torcellan? They’ve fucked up, and they were willing to throw us into the crossfire to fix it.”
There was a sudden furious silence.
“That’s right.” Fedden walked in a slow circle, his voice rising. “You remember Crallus sending those ships off to Devon? Getting those people killed? Well, he tried to throw me at them too. Turns out he never thought I’d survive. He’d just get to execute me without having to do it himself.”
“You shot him,” someone called from the gallery above.
“Like you never wanted to!” Fedden yelled back and there was another burst of laughter. Some of the mercenaries pound
ed on the railings in approval. “I tried it, it didn’t work. But I wonder—did he ever even ask if you wanted things to change? Did he ever even ask if there was something bigger behind the Torcellan’s plans? No, he just told you all to abandon your contracts and sit in a cage waiting for someone to come shoot at you.
“He’s pissed off someone bigger than you can imagine,” Fedden continued. “You know why he’s retreating? He sent those three ships and they got destroyed, so he and that Torcellan, they sent seven more ships. State of the art pirate ships. Get’ruz Shipping, not a small outfit. All those ships got destroyed too, and they were only trying to take on one.
“Well, now Crallus is running—him and the Torcellan. They want us to go with them so we can be security, just sitting there waiting. Does that sound like a good idea to anyone?”
Heads shook, and there were growls and a few derisive shouts.
“Doesn’t sound good to me either,” Fedden told them. “So here’s my plan: we lay a trap for this one ship rather than waiting for them to learn about our base and kill us all. I can get a message to that ship to tell them the terms—they won’t be able to resist coming to meet us. And when they’re dust, we’ll start a new syndicate. Half the fees of Crallus’, none of the bullshit he’s been pulling lately, and a hell of a lot more jobs when our clients hear who we managed to take out. Who’s with me?”
Only a few hung back; the rest called out acceptances. Fedden pointed out their captains with easy familiarity and beckoned for them to come down to join him.
“Come on down and I’ll lay out the plan. Let’s get this show on the road.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Okay, but are we actually sure this is going to work?” Gar paced around the bridge, throwing concerned glances at the viewscreen, where a ship was growing closer by the second.
“Of course not.” Barnabas sat quite composedly in the captain’s chair. “Nothing is ever sure. Take a seat, won’t you?”
