by Natalie Grey
“And what did they tell you?” demanded his captor.
Shinigami, I’m running out of ways to pretend to defuse this thing. I’ve been fiddling with one screw for the past thirty seconds.
Yeah, I noticed that. I’m pretty sure it plays into the oxygen deprivation thing, at least.
There’s that.
Hang on just for a few more minutes, No one’s getting brain damage, I promise.
Right. I’ll do what I can. How are things with Gar?
Very, very good. I’ll show you video after this.
Barnabas hid a smile and tried to decide what would most unsettle this person to hear but not cause them to blow the station up immediately. A sudden stroke of inspiration came to him. He’d been a thorn in the side of the Jotun government so far, but he was just one human on one ship. If he wanted them to hold off, he needed them to think there was a much bigger threat for them to worry about.
And what was a bigger threat to a government than another government? He had seen alien bodies in the assassin’s thoughts. It wasn’t out of the question that another government would know of Huword and hire a Jotun to assassinate him. For all he knew, that was what had happened.
“They told me something very interesting.” He slurred his words a bit, still pretending to be out of air, but he smiled at the cameras. “Seems there’s another government interested in this wrongdoing.”
“What?”
“Yes. There was another ship they couldn’t shoot down, a ship they thought we were affiliated with.”
“A human ship.”
“That was the thing; they didn’t know. They just said they knew the look of black ops. You have that term out here, right? The sort of thing the government doesn’t want anyone to know about?”
Whoa, there, Hoss, you’re getting animated as the oxygen comes back.
Oh, is it back? How’d you manage that?
I just had to get a set of signals going to his ship so he’d think he was still sucking the air out. He doesn’t have accurate diagnostics on the station anymore, and the signals he’s sending aren’t going anywhere.
And?
And what?
And the bomb, Shinigami?
Oh, that’s also fixed.
So…do we need to keep this charade up anymore?
Actually, yes. Just for a few moments more.
Barnabas bit back a sigh. His opponent hadn’t said anything further, and he was intrigued to think what might be going on in their head.
“Hello? Are you looking up ‘black ops?’ Because I wasn’t lying about what it meant.”
Black ops. Biset’s surprise caused him to jet backward in his tank. He righted himself and shook with worry, his tentacles churning the water. Nearby, the fish huddled in their plants, gone absolutely still at this new threat.
Black ops. Someone knew. A government knew.
They knew enough to eliminate Huword but they hadn’t come after the committee yet, and what the hell did that mean? Where was that ship coming next?
To Jotuna, that was where. Biset knew it. Sooner or later, every part of this was going to come out—and not in the way it was supposed to. Not with armies and fleets under the command of the committee, but instead with trade wars and sanctions and accusations.
His fury swept the waters into a storm, sending ink and heat radiating from him as he thrashed and raged. He arrowed down to the corner of the tank and grabbed one of the fish, electrocuting it and tearing it to pieces with his tentacles. The fish struggled, the others fled, and he felt a savage sense of satisfaction as he hunted them down and destroyed them.
When it was over, the tank was filled with blood and random scales, and Biset knew he should be satisfied.
But he was not.
He needed to find the source of this disturbance, and find it soon.
The question was, should Biset let Norwun chase down the truth…or should he call in someone else and tie up that loose end?
The human was still moving slowly, slurring his words. He was getting ready—although he didn’t know it—to die.
Norwun couldn’t take any pleasure in that anymore.
Black ops. He knew the term; every government had its version. He was black ops, and had been for most of his career. The things he had done would shock the average Jotun to their very core. What had happened to Huword was child’s play. Norwun did worse pretty much weekly.
And now some other government, a government they could not even guess at—although it didn’t seem to be human—knew what was going on and had sent their people. Whoever the assassin was, the ship had picked them up and was long gone, and the Jotun government was still none the wiser as to what was happening here.
Norwun had a sudden memory of the senator and their worry. They feared that something would be uncovered, and Norwun had no doubts about what would happen to him if he failed to keep it hidden.
That was why they’d sent him to the Srisa—to figure out who’d killed Huword and why, and eliminate all witnesses.
Right now, Norwun was failing at that objective.
He’d known some of what Huword was—a spy who for years had fed information to the Senate about the mutinous rumblings in the Navy. Any number of issues had been quietly averted, the instigators promoted or shamed or put in the way of convenient missiles. That would have been enough to earn Huword’s death.
If this were a rival government, though, then Huword had been involved in something much more important.
Norwun fought the urge to send a message to his contact: You should have told me how much was at stake.
He didn’t. He didn’t have a death wish, after all, and sending that message would be asking to have his ship put on self-destruct. He knew his employers had ways to do that. There were probably failsafes in his suit as well, no matter how carefully he’d tried to keep himself free of them.
Now he had to figure out which government it was and what they knew, and take out anyone who could report on the information.
Step one was taking out Barnabas. He wasn’t important anymore. Norwun pressed a single button to detonate the bomb. Let the station try to figure out who’d done it; all trace of his ship was gone from their systems.
Nothing happened, however. Barnabas was looking around.
“Hellooooo?” The human waved his arms. “Anybody there?”
He was getting loopy, which Norwun would normally have enjoyed seeing but could only snarl at now. Loopy was not dead, and Barnabas very much needed to be dead.
Norwun pressed the button again. And again. And again. Why wasn’t it working?
The door slid open behind him, and he turned to tell Reqara to finish this herself. It wasn’t Reqara, however. It was, of all ridiculous things, an armored Luvendi. Norwun would have laughed if the ridiculous thing hadn’t been pointing a gun directly at his head.
“Talk, asshole,” it said.
Chapter Seventeen
Air pressure is stable, Shinigami reported, and…doors open. Gar and Jeltor are questioning our Jotun friend. All is well, but you should probably join them.
On my way. Barnabas turned on his heel and ran for the door.
Almost as soon as they knew a Jotun ship had docked, that same ship had managed to get into the station’s data and wipe any trace of itself. They hadn’t been able to figure out what bay it was docked at or any more specifics on it.
Shinigami and Barnabas had known that the ship’s interactions with Barnabas would allow them to trace signals directly back to the ship, and so Barnabas had gone in as a distraction. At the time, of course, they’d been expecting to find hordes of mercenaries.
Gar and Jeltor, meanwhile, had gone to the ship once Shinigami found it and snuck on board to figure out who and what they were dealing with. Between Gar’s unexpected skills in combat and Jeltor’s knowledge of the Jotun government, Barnabas was sure they could get anything they needed out of the crew.
But he hadn’t gotten this far in life by expectin
g things to go well, and he was going to be ready for complications until every member of that crew was restrained or verifiably, indisputably dead.
And then, given the self-destruct on that other government ship, he was going to expect some more complications.
Heads up—you’ll have company in a few. Shinigami sounded halfway between amused and impressed. Gor’rathi is sending soldiers in. I restored his access to the video feeds so he can see that people aren’t hurt, but he's cautious. You may have trouble getting out.
Tell him to send medics. Never mind, I’ll do it. Barnabas could hear the guards, and the next corner he skidded around, he saw the force. Composed of many different species, the group nonetheless had similar uniforms of blue and white that fit everyone well, and a set of weapons that looked unusually useful.
Many of those weapons came up at once. The guards seemed to view his high speed as suspicious, and Barnabas knew better than to run headlong into bullets.
“The bomb is defused, and all of the trapped people are safe.” He pointed back down the hallway. “The ship that was causing the problems has been neutralized and will not be able to harm any more systems, but I do need to go deal with the crew.”
There was the faint buzz of earpieces, and a few of them bent their heads to listen.
“Mr. Gor’rathi wants you to bring the criminals to the station jail,” one of the guards said.
“I’ll do that.” Barnabas doubted the people in question would survive long enough to be brought there, but he kept that to himself. He edged around the group, pointing them down the hall to the roomful of former captives, and took off again.
In the station, he was greeted with cheers. Aliens rushed forward to grab his hands and his coat, and Barnabas had to fight to extricate himself without throwing anyone across the room—and with his strength, he certainly could if he wasn’t careful.
God bless it, get them off me!
Nah, this is fun to watch. Besides, Gar and Jeltor are holding their own just fine.
“Holding their own?” Does that mean there’s a fight?
No. Well, yes. Don’t worry about it, though. They’ll do just fine until you get there.
Son of a bitch, Barnabas swore. He managed to pry himself out of the arms of a female Torcellan who was trying to kiss his cheek—or, at least, he hoped that was what she was trying to kiss—and took special care to unwrap a Luvendi’s fingers from his wrist, but by then, several more aliens had joined the throng. “I’ll, ah, I’ll be right back, I promise. I just have one more thing to do—”
Shinigami was laughing delightedly in his head.
Don’t laugh! This is a problem!
It’s not a problem; it’s just—oh. Oh, it is a problem.
Barnabas froze. What? What happened?
Get to Bay 52. Right now. Shinigami’s worry was palpable. They’ve called in reinforcements.
Barnabas stopped trying to be polite. “Everybody back!”
At his bellow, the crowd stopped in its tracks. People scattered away from him and he gave a little sigh of relief before taking off at high speed for Bay 52.
Hang on, Gar, I’m coming.
His worry tripled when Gar, who was normally full of pride in his fighting abilities and ready to take on the world alone, responded only, Good.
The fight had started well. Shinigami had gotten the doors of the Jotun ship open without them having the first idea about it.
And what a ship it was. If they hadn’t been trying to be stealthy, Gar would have whistled in amazement. As it was, he shook his head in silent awe, and even Jeltor looked impressed. If any ship could have given the Shinigami a run for its money—and a lot of ships had tried and failed spectacularly at that—it might be this one.
It was a frigate-class ship, clearly made for atmosphere as well as space, but there the similarities ended. The Shinigami was sleek and shining, painted beautifully and clearly state of the art. This ship looked old and battered, so much so that the casual observer probably wouldn’t be able to tell just how dangerous it was.
But if they knew anything about ships, the observer would know to be very, very careful of this one. Its shape showed the sleek lines of excellent craftsmanship, and the scars on it were bad enough that the ship should be in several pieces. The fact that it wasn’t was a very bad sign.
The amount of venting on the back suggested that the engines could burn harder than almost any Gar had seen. They belonged on a much larger ship, as did the missile bays. This ship was armed to the teeth, and it was fast.
Still, the lack of alarm showed that Shinigami had gotten into their systems with them none the wiser.
Gar and Jeltor crept aboard, weapons drawn. Gar went first, given that his species offered him the element of surprise in pretty much any combat encounter. Enemies tended to laugh themselves sick when they saw him in armor, which he hated. He had to admit it was a good distraction, though.
He made them sorry for it, too. He was Luvendi, yes, but it turned out that with reinforcement of the bone structure and training from Barnabas, a Luvendi could be exceedingly dangerous. Gar could hit hard enough to break the bones of most other species.
Most. He had yet to fight a Brakalon in hand-to-hand combat, and he wasn’t looking forward to the experience. But with Barnabas, you could be fairly sure that it would come at some point.
Shinigami said into his mind, and Jeltor’s suit, that the person sending the signals was in a control room at the center of the ship. She couldn’t sense any other signals aboard, and only one Jotun had gotten off the ship.
The doors slid open as the Jotun was speaking to someone—Barnabas, Gar expected. He could see the familiar shape on the Jotun’s screens.
“Hellooooo?” Barnabas was saying, waving his arms.
Tell Barnabas he looks ridiculous, Gar told Shinigami.
You have mental speech. Tell him yourself.
I’m too scared to do that. Barnabas would demand a sparring match, wipe the floor with him, and then ask if he’d learned his lesson about manners. Then he’d probably demand a rematch. Then, if he still didn’t think Gar had learned his lesson, there would be push-ups. Luvendi were not suited to push-ups. Gar hadn’t even known what they were until he’d met Tabitha, who had told him that they were a wager and punishment metric among the Rangers and Bitches.
He could believe it.
Right now, though, he had more pressing concerns. Gar strode across the room and, as the Jotun turned to look at him, Gar brought his Jean Dukes out to point directly at the thing’s tank.
“Talk, asshole,” he said.
You’re starting to fit in, Shinigami commented.
Thanks that means a lot. Gar smiled. “You aren’t talking,” he added to the Jotun. “Who the fuck are you? Start there.”
The Jotun looked at Jeltor and then back at Gar as if to see whether Gar was still there. While the biosuits didn’t show faces, Gar could tell from the speed of movement that disbelief was the primary emotion right now.
And then the Jotun’s arm shot out at an angle that wouldn’t be possible on most species and grabbed the barrel of Gar’s gun, dragging it sideways.
Gar took two steps along with the motion, and when the Jotun would think he was having success, Gar planted his feet and wrenched back in the other direction. Metal screamed in the biosuit, and the Jotun made an involuntary sound of surprise.
“Yeah,” Gar said savagely, “it’s like that.” Still holding the gun with one hand, he let go with the other to level a punch at the Jotun’s ocular display.
Jeltor had told him that one of the best things you could do in this situation was to take out the various sensory apparatus, leaving the Jotun to “see” from inside the tank with its more limited biological eyes and ears. The combination of water and air would cause the Jotun to misjudge distances, and being disoriented was never a good thing in a fight.
The Jotun knew what Gar was trying to do. It gave a yell and punched back while shaking the
barrel of the gun as hard as it could to try to make Gar let go of it.
“Fuck off!” Gar yelled. “You can’t even shoot this gun! I said, get off! Jeltor—”
“We have company!” Jeltor yelled back. There was clanking in the hallway outside. “The son of a bitch called for help.”
“There wasn’t anyone else on the ship! Shinigami said—”
I didn’t think there was! Shinigami sounded almost panicked. I’m still not seeing them. Are you sure that—
The door burst open, and four more Jotuns stood there, arms up to show the embedded rifles.
“Pretty damned sure, yeah!” Gar yelled.
Shit. I’m calling Barnabas in.
That sounds like a good idea!
Gar watched for a moment as Jeltor swung into action, leveling a flamethrower at the other Jotun, who swung their arms away for fear of the metal melting.
Gar didn’t waste any time. It was five against two, and the Jotuns were trained to fight hand-to-hand. He had to quickly even the odds. He brought his leg up over the back of the Jotun’s chair and bashed his knee into the head of the biosuit. The jolt that went through him hurt like hell, but he repressed the old instincts that told him to back down and plead for mercy.
Once, he’d had to think his way out of every situation. Now, if his thinking brought him to the conclusion that taking everyone down was the best way to go about things, he could do that instead of having to bargain and beg.
He’d sworn a vow that he was never going to beg again.
The Jotun staggered, but because it was in a biosuit and not a biological body, it didn’t let go of the gun like Gar had hoped it would.
He would take down the array first, then worry about maybe severing some of the connections to the limbs. Gar ignored the pain as he brought his knee up repeatedly, bashing it into the Jotun’s input and output array until the thing began to stagger, clearly disoriented and blind.
He’d have taken the whole thing down and finished it except for the yell he heard. Jeltor was being swarmed by the other four, who had knives and needles sliding out of compartments in their suits. Gar had seen the pictures of Huword’s body, so he knew what was coming next.
