The Vigilante Chronicles Omnibus

by Natalie Grey

  In this case, while the rest of the research facility was asleep.

  Feword activated his suit controls and began to make his way carefully through the halls. He had been very thorough in his patrols over the last week, and he had reviewed many hours of security footage from the labs. He needed to make sure that he understood every automated security system that was in place.

  So far, the scientists seemed to have been sincere when they’d said that they did not waste their time thinking about potential attacks. They did not seem to do even the most basic scans when they entered rooms, they did not make a point of checking the security feeds each day, and their logons to the computers were very simple. When they left the laboratories at night, they did not activate any motion sensors or other alarms.

  Feword would need to speak to Grisor about this at the earliest opportunity. He was here for now, and that would be good enough, but whoever had designed the security protocols should be fired—or executed. They couldn’t allow anyone who knew about the facility to survive, after all.

  And in the meantime, Feword would build new protocols and teach the scientists to use them.

  But that was not the purpose of tonight’s excursion. Feword took the stairs down from the sleeping quarters, making sure to use the set on the far side of the building. The echoes of his steps could be more easily controlled than the sound of the elevators activating.

  He did not want the scientists to wake up.

  He had known for several days now that he would have to do this. Almost immediately after arrival, he had realized that the facility was short-staffed, and he knew that was not a mistake the committee would have made. They had deep pockets and did not hesitate to spend money in pursuit of their goals.

  Which meant that part of the research team was missing.

  Feword had not bothered Grisor with this news. Grisor trusted him implicitly to resolve issues, and Feword did not intend to tell him anything until the mystery was solved and fixed. He had his suspicions, in any case. The scientists had been so casual when they spoke of what would happen if someone broke in to attack them.

  That must be because they had already survived an attack, Feword reasoned. And if they were not mentioning it to the guards, if they had hidden it from Grisor…well, what explained that?

  A partial mutiny. They feared that they would be held responsible for their fellow scientists’ missteps.

  Feword knew they did not have to worry about this, especially if they had fended off the attack. Grisor made a point of not killing underlings for circumstances outside their control. However, things were going well enough that he did not want to cause any more chaos with what would inevitably turn into an investigation, followed by an influx of new scientists.

  No. They were close with Jeltor. They did not have any time to spare. Feword would help, and when this crucial phase was over, he would tell Grisor what had happened.

  He gave a pleased ripple as his biosuit opened the door to the laboratory and turned on the lights. Feword thrived on action, not on the endless talking and planning that others seemed to enjoy. He had watched the scientists over the past few days, and even that phase of watching and waiting had tested his patience.

  Now he was ready to act. He looked at the central tank in satisfaction. Jeltor was sleeping, his body scarred from the chemicals in his tank and limp with exhaustion.

  Feword went to the tank’s controls and brought up the chemical and tape history. The scientists had given a demonstration for Grisor, but they had since been more gentle with Jeltor. They were apparently worried that the male would break, leaving only a husk.

  They were running out of time. It would be no use to convert Jeltor once the Navy realized what had happened. Feword gave a decisive nod, queued up the successive waves of chemicals and the tapes of Grisor’s voice, and activated the machine.

  In the tank, Jeltor’s body jerked. He thrashed in desperation and fluttered to one side of the tank, pressing against the glass. It was an instinctive act, and when it gave him no relief, he began to fling himself around the tank. Feword could see from the motions of his tentacles that Jeltor was begging for an end to the pain, but the audio output of the tank had been turned off.

  Feword shook his head slightly. The scientists were dedicated to their work, that much was indisputable—they never seemed to take breaks—but they were, like many civilians, emotionally weak. They did not want to listen to Jeltor’s pleading.

  That pleading, however, provided a clue as to Jeltor’s mental state, which Feword must know in order to convert him.

  When he was done here tonight, he would erase any trace of himself from the computers and leave the laboratory exactly as he’d found it. The scientists would do their work, unaware of his intervention, and during the nights, Feword would continue to break Jeltor.

  He switched on the audio, and the sound of Jeltor’s pleading echoed through the laboratory.

  “No! Stop! Please, stop it—make it stop, make it stop, make it stop—hurts—please—”

  Feword could see why the scientists had found this distasteful, but it had to be done. He linked his hands behind his back and began to pace, sighing as he did so. His job was not always pleasant, but he always had—and always would— do what he must do to help the committee.

  Like many others, Feword had found the committee through service to one of its members. When his first employer had been driven out of the Senate, Feword had taken his recommendation to work for Grisor. He was assured that Grisor was devoted to the cause of Jotun supremacy in the sector.

  At first, Feword had doubted this. Grisor did not make fiery speeches in the Senate, and he did not have as many enemies. How devoted could he be, if he was not publicly devoted to the cause?

  Over time Feword had come to appreciate Grisor’s methods, however. Grisor didn’t pick fights that he knew would lead nowhere. He did not waste his time with speeches that would not convince his opponents. Feword did not want to admit it, but Grisor made his former employer look foolish—a firebrand with spirit, but no strategy.

  And Grisor, once he had realized that Feword was capable and discreet, had promoted Feword to working for the committee. There he had found his true calling: doing his part to spread the rule of the Jotuns across the sector, and someday, beyond. The Jotuns were stronger and more intelligent than any other species, transcending their physical limitations with better technology than anyone else had.

  Of course, the Etheric Empire had seemed like it might become a problem…but they were a Federation now and were apparently not interested in aggressive expansion. The Jotuns would easily triumph against them, Feword was sure of it.

  In the tank, Jeltor’s pleading had begun to break down, and he was starting to echo the words on the tape. This seemed like a good sign to Feword. He returned to the controls, considered for a moment, and increased the intensity of the chemicals.

  He could not keep from rippling in happiness. Soon he would be able to contact Grisor and tell him that the conversion was complete. They would send Jeltor back into the nest of vipers that was the Admiralty Board, and Jeltor would begin to take the Navy down from the inside.

  Feword felt nothing but contempt for the admirals. They were the best and brightest the Jotuns had to offer, and instead of using their talents to further the cause, they were attempting to uncover the committee and destroy it. Feword could not understand their behavior.

  He did not have to understand it, he told himself. He only had to stop them.

  And Jeltor was the key.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Carter finished reading Barnabas’ message and smiled. Barnabas could certainly be scary if someone offended his sensibilities, but those same sensibilities meant he was also very courteous and kind. In this case, he was going to come back shortly for maintenance Carter knew he didn’t need, just to make sure Aliana hadn’t been offended by him rushing off.

  Carter would have written back and said that Barnabas d
idn’t need to worry if he thought it would do any good. He knew it wouldn’t, though. Once Barnabas had decided he needed to do something, he didn’t let anything stand in his way.

  Outside, shrieks sounded in the afternoon air. Aliana had given Carter and Elisa a break with childcare and was presently playing a game with the twins that seemed to be a cross between hide-and-go-seek, tag, and Aliana-is-a-jungle-gym. The three of them had promised not to bump into any of the fruit trees that were growing behind the bar, but everything else seemed to be fair game. Chairs had been tipped over, a table was being used as a barricade, and toys littered the ground.

  The kids were occupied, and Aliana was having a good time; those were the two things that counted. Carter had seen her unwind considerably since she’d gotten here, and he was hoping he could persuade her to quit her job and stay on High Tortuga. Cargo ship workers were a dime a dozen. Her boss wouldn’t have any trouble replacing her, and it was hardly going to be difficult for her to get a better job—even if she didn’t want to work at the bar.

  Carter headed down the stairs with a smile on his face and came out in time to watch Aliana flop dramatically to the ground and pretend to be dead while the twins clambered all over her, giving what Carter assumed were victory yells.

  “I see you’re winning,” he remarked.

  “Daddy!” The twins leapt up and came at him in a rush.

  Aliana propped herself up on her elbows and laughed as Carter pretended to fend off the attack. “A foolish mistake, Grasshopper. They cannot be defeated.”

  Carter grinned and allowed himself to be pulled to the ground and turned into a new jungle gym. “So, I heard from Barnabas.”

  Aliana had gotten up slowly, and now she kept her back to him for a long moment while she dusted off her clothes. When she turned around, her expression was polite and detached. “Oh?”

  Carter frowned at her. “Something wrong?”

  “No, of course not.” She gave him a smile and a shrug and came to help Samuel get up when he tumbled onto the grass.

  Carter kept frowning, but she didn’t look up. “Should I not have asked him to come?”

  Aliana looked up, suddenly worried. “Oh, no! No. It was really very nice of you.”

  “It just seemed like maybe you weren’t so happy to meet him.” Carter sighed. “I mean…was it too much? I know it seems like he’s some big deal, but that’s not how he acts. I thought…well, I thought you’d like to meet him, that’s all. I remember how excited you were to help, all those places you found yourself.”

  Aliana sat down. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and Carter could tell she was trying not to cry.

  “I’m sorry,” he said automatically.

  She shook her head. “It’s okay,” she said when she found her voice. “You did a really good thing to call him. I’m glad you have him and his friends to…well, watch over you.”

  “And be friends,” Carter stated meaningfully.

  She frowned at him in confusion.

  “Ali, do you have any friends right now?”

  “Of course I have friends.” She looked insulted. She crossed her arms—and then realized he was waiting for her to name them. “Oh, come on. I have… Well, there’s—” She sighed and rubbed her hair. “Don’t look at me like that! I mean, there’s Katie.”

  “How long has it been since you saw Katie? Okay, since you spoke to Katie. In any form.”

  She sighed. “Years.”

  “Yeah, see, that’s my point!”

  “What, that I’m lame and have no friends? Thanks.”

  “That you could maybe…stand to…” Over the years, Carter had learned the signs that he was on dangerous ground, and when Aliana crossed her arms and looked at him, he knew this was one of those times. “Look, you’re on some random job because it was all you could get, and I get that, Ali, I do. But we’re here, and we could give you a place to crash while you looked for something better. And there are a lot of people you could actually be friends with here, not just random coworkers who might or might not be low-level criminals on the run, you know?”

  She harrumphed. “Everyone on my present crew is… Okay, I see your point. I just don’t want to take charity, Uncle Carter. I really don’t.”

  “I know how that feels, but I think you established that by not calling us when Lawrence took your ship. You’re here now. Let us help you. Please?”

  “I want to get back at him,” she shot back.

  “I know,” Carter replied soothingly. “And you can. With a better job here, you’ll be able to do that, right?”

  Privately, he hoped that Aliana would get a good job here, make some friends, put down some roots, and forget about Lawrence. But even if she didn’t, he had made a good point about this being the best way to go about it.

  She frowned at him. “Look,” she said finally. “I can’t just leave them in the lurch. Let me check if they need me for this run, and then we can go from there.”

  Carter chewed his lip. He knew if he let Aliana go off on another trip, the odds were pretty high that she wouldn’t come back to High Tortuga afterward.

  So, with a silent apology to Elisa and to any deities who might care that he was lying, he pulled out the big guns.

  “Hey, Samuel, Alanna—you want some cake?”

  Delighted shrieks assaulted his ears.

  “Cool—. I think I saw Qaladra making one. Why don’t you go see?” They ran inside as quick as their tiny legs could carry them, and he took a deep breath and committed to the lie.

  He went to sit next to Aliana. “Look, I wasn’t entirely honest when I said I wanted you to come so I could tell you about the mine.”

  “What do you mean?” Aliana looked at him, worried.

  “You haven’t spent much time with Elisa yet,” Carter explained, “so maybe this just seems crazy to you, but I swear—this pregnancy is really hard on her.”

  “Oh.” Aliana swallowed. “I had no idea. She seems so happy all the time.”

  “She’s a rock star,” Carter agreed. “She’d never in a million years admit that she’s having trouble, but I can see it, and I guess I thought… Well, when you wrote, it just seemed like the universe lining up, you know? I thought, ‘Aliana and Elisa would get along so well.’ You’re great with the kids, and Elisa really likes you.” It helped that a good portion of this monologue was true because Carter wasn’t great at lying. “So I hoped that if you came here and saw the bar and everything, maybe you’d want to stay.”

  He looked at her. “I miss you. You’re seriously one of my favorite people in the family. Everyone else wanted to be homebodies, but I really felt like you got it, you know? Traveling all over, seeing new sights. I’d love to have you work at the bar. There are so many new people coming through Tethra every day, you’d never get bored…”

  “I had no idea,” Aliana repeated. She rubbed her forehead. “Why didn’t you just ask?”

  Because this is all a lie I made up on the spur of the moment? Carter plastered a smile on his face and shrugged. “I didn’t know how to. And, well, Elisa would kill me if she knew I was saying all this.”

  That part was definitely true.

  “Uncle Carter.” Aliana reached over to squeeze his hand. “Of course, I’ll stay if you need help. As long as you need me.” She smiled at him reassuringly. “And everything’s going to be just fine with the pregnancy, I promise. Uh…has she seen a doctor?”

  “Oh, yeah, they say everything is fine.” Carter, having been backed into a corner, scrambled to come up with a new lie. “It’s just, uh…you know, things can be fine but also really hard…emotionally…” Sensing that he was babbling, he shut up and smiled again, then remembered he was supposed to be sad and tried to remember how you looked when you were sad.

  Aliana gave him a quizzical glance. “Well, I’m happy to stay,” she said decisively. “But I do want to make sure my boss knows what’s going on. I’m going to go talk to him, okay? That’s the ship I came in on. He’s still at th
e docks.”

  “You need backup?” Carter asked. He’d had his share of bosses who liked to bluster and say he owed them one thing or another.

  “Oh, no, don’t worry.” Aliana gave him a quick hug. “I’ll go talk to him and be right back, okay?”

  “Sure.” Happy about his victory, Carter went off to find Elisa, and located her in the basement, swearing at one of the cider presses. She’d been determined to have cider in the bar and had insisted that they make it traditionally. She seemed to be regretting her choices.

  She wiped her forehead and gave him a smile and a shrug. “This cider press is possessed, I swear.” Her smile faded. “What did you do?”

  “What?” Carter asked innocently.

  “I know that look, Eastbourne.” She jabbed a finger at him. “You look guilty. You look like you did something bad. What was it? Tell me.”

  “Okay, okay!” Carter gave a little laugh. “So, here’s the story. Don’t be mad…”

  Aliana pushed her way through the crowd near the docks, slipping through the workers to get to the Palpari.

  She wasn’t entirely sure what she was going to say to Zinqued. The Shinigami was his “white whale,” as Tik’ta had said, and Aliana knew that Zinqued wouldn’t be happy she was giving up.

  He hadn’t paid her yet, though, and she was pretty sure she could scrape together enough money to pay him for the fuel it took to get here, even though he’d made a profit on their cargo run. She took a deep breath and entered the passcode on the door, yelling hello as she came into the ship.

  “You’re back!” Zinqued came out into the hall from the bridge. “I am so relieved. Do you know, I actually saw Barnabas here?”

  “Ah. Right.” Aliana nodded. “Yeah, I’m not surprised. Apparently, he knows people here.”

  “I was afraid he would recognize me!” Zinqued said. “But he did not. Lucky break, eh?”

  “Yep. Lucky break.” Aliana had a stroke of inspiration. “Apparently he’ll be back in not too long, though, so you should probably not be here then.”