by Natalie Grey
“What?”
“I have been wondering,” Ferqar said quietly, “if they want to turn the Brakalons into their mercenaries? Press all of you into servitude.”
“We would not fight for them,” Kelnamon argued.
“How can you say for certain what you would or would not do? They may have ways to compel you.” Ferqar shook his head. “But all of this is speculation. Better we go now, and—”
The gunfire came again, closer this time.
Much closer.
With an oath, Kelnamon looked around the corner—and gasped in horror. The Jotun turrets were advancing. He had thought they were fixed, but they had extended spidery legs and were creeping down the city streets toward the attacking force.
“They’re advancing!” he called back along the line. They’d been trying to keep quiet, but there was no benefit to stealth if it got them all wiped out. “Everybody run. Regroup two streets back!”
Their guerrilla force burst into motion and fled along the streets, some of the less fortunate dodging blasts from the turrets—which, sensing motion, had begun moving more quickly. Beside Kelnamon, a civilian stumbled and fell. He hauled the male up and kept moving, but a moment later another shot took the limping Brakalon in the head.
“Kelnamon!” Ferqar sounded horrified. “They’re running; they’re too fast!”
“Scatter!” Kelnamon yelled to the resistance fighters. “Confuse the targeting systems!”
He realized too late that he’d made a terrible mistake. With such quick targeting, the turrets could easily track multiple moving targets—and they did.
He knew what he needed to do. With a roar, Kelnamon charged back toward the line of turrets. They seemed to be either remotely controlled or possessing some basic intelligence. If he made himself a more dangerous target than his fighters…
“Kelnamon!” Ferqar yelled. “Stop! Don’t!”
But there wasn’t any other choice. Kelnamon knew that if he didn’t do this, none of the other fighters were going to get to safety. Just like he had out in the brush, he grabbed one of the turrets and hurled it to smash against a wall. The other turrets, sensing this new threat, abandoned the chase and swiveled to face him.
The turrets did seem to have prohibitions against shooting one another. That was interesting, and it gave him an edge. He grabbed another and bellowed in pain when it shot directly at him, catching him in the arm. He used it to bludgeon another—
Three shots hit him at once, and his whole world turned blood-red. He staggered, falling to his knees. He could hear Ferqar yelling something, but he didn’t understand. A turret was advancing on him, and its laser sights gleamed like a baleful red eye. Kelnamon looked up at it and had the vague thought that this wasn’t how he’d thought things were going to end for him. He’d made it through so much, escaped the Jotun death squad, and now, so suddenly, it was all going to be over.
Which was when the turret exploded. The rest of the turrets swiveled, trying to find the source of the new threat, but one by one, they were picked off.
“GERONIMOOOOOOO!” yelled a vaguely familiar voice.
Kelnamon heaved himself to his feet. He wasn’t sure what “Geronimo” meant, but he knew a battle cry when he heard one. Someone was here, and they were clearly on his side. He must have lost a good deal of blood, though, because the world spun crazily around him and the next thing he knew, he was on the ground again. He couldn’t feel his hands.
Then the human’s face swung into his field of vision, blue eyes worried and black armor already streaked with reddish dust.
“Captain Kelnamon?” Barnabas asked. Behind him, Kelnamon could see a dark-haired woman gleefully pulling a turret apart. “Captain Kelnamon, stay with me!”
Kelnamon tried to speak and he tried to hold onto consciousness, but it was no use.
The world went dark.
Chapter Twenty
Kelnamon lay in the Pod-doc, its dimensions almost outmatched by his brawny form. His vital signs had been failing fast by the time they got him to the ship, but the technology in the Pod-doc was unmatched and they had caught him before his life had faded from his body.
He was slowly but steadily improving. It had been the better part of an hour, and he was almost ready to be woken up.
Shinigami came to stand beside Barnabas, who was staring at the smooth white exterior of the Pod-doc. She linked her hands behind her back and looked at him.
“The rest of the mission was simple enough. The Jotuns had gotten into the building controls, as you would guess, so when the government officials tried to leave, they found out they couldn’t. We only had to override that, and they were able to get out. Ferqar is briefing them now, but it looks like a couple of them are missing.”
Barnabas looked at her worriedly.
“I know.” Shinigami shook her head. “I don’t know if they managed to land any equipment to convert them yet. I’m guessing they haven’t—that our attack on Grisor’s compound interrupted that.”
“They had a good plan,” Barnabas mused, “but it hinged on secrecy. All of it hinged on people not finding out and not being able to organize until the military leaders and bureaucrats were already converted. Now, as with Jeltor, the rest of them will know not to trust them.”
“There is that,” Shinigami replied, “but it’s not so simple. What’s been going on here is still known only to a few people. There are huge parts of Kordinev that are still unaware anything was wrong—and the people who were taken were knowledgeable about the defense networks and some of the remote colonies.”
Barnabas looked at her sharply.
“Even if it isn’t something they do gracefully and secretly, they could still pull it off,” she told him bluntly. “If they showed up today, they’d probably have enough information to march in and take over. They wanted to rule everyone with conversion, but they could do it the old-fashioned way for a while and convert people later.”
Barnabas dropped his head into his hands.
This was a nightmare. The Committee had sat in the shadows for years, gathering its strength, and now, even being forced into the open before it was ready, it was still dangerous. It was a viper, he thought, lashing out at anyone who dared challenge it.
They had struck at the Jotun Navy and at Kordinev so quickly. They were taking advantage of the fact that the Navy and the Senate did not trust one another. They thrived on brokenness and mistrust, and even if they failed, they would take hundreds of innocent lives with them when they went.
Rage was burning in his chest.
“Barnabas?” Shinigami sounded worried.
“I should have burned the whole thing to the ground,” Barnabas whispered. “I went to the Senate and told them to clean up their act, and I should have just locked them in there and dragged out every one of their secrets until we found out about this. If I hadn’t been so concerned about—”
“Don’t doubt yourself. You did the best you could.”
“It wasn’t enough!”
“So what? You’re not going to do the best you can?” Shinigami threw up her hands. “Listen to yourself. You’re not sloppy, Barnabas, and you’re not vengeful. You’re also not omniscient. You can’t punish people before they’ve done anything wrong. That’s Justice. It happens after something’s gone wrong, and yeah, it sucks, but it’s just how things are.”
“They’re going to kill people,” Barnabas argued. “How many of that force Kelnamon organized did they lose?”
She hesitated. “Twenty-two,” she said finally.
“And in the laboratories?”
“You’re not doing yourself any good,” she warned him. “You came here as soon as you knew something was wrong. You’ve been tracking the Committee, finding out all their secrets. What more could you have done? Not as some omniscient god, but as you? As a human being, Barnabas. What more could you have done?”
“I could have tortured Grisor until he told me everything,” Barnabas ground out. “I coul
d have bombed that facility to the ground instead of trying to protect Jeltor. How much time did I waste going back to get him out alive?”
“Barnabas.” Shinigami wrapped her arms around herself and sighed. She was looking at the Pod-doc, but her eyes were focused somewhere far away. “If you get to the end of this and you’ve sacrificed every principle you hold dear and every friend you had, what’s the point?”
“It’s just a few people,” Barnabas replied quietly. “Just us. If we do good things and take evil out of the world, will it really matter if we’re dead—or if our consciences are stained?”
“You know philosophy has no answer to that,” Shinigami told him. “You could argue it either way, couldn’t you? The ends justify the means…or the means are equally important, if not more so. You have to choose which way you want to go.” She gave him a hard look. “And in the time we’ve spent together, while we’ve been becoming friends, you’ve valued moral means. That’s the man I want to work with. If you decide you want to go rogue and kill, torture, and sacrifice the people you care about? Well, I can’t stop you, but you’ll be doing it on your own.”
Barnabas gave her a smile and looped an arm around her shoulders. “Thank you,” he told her. “Perhaps it was foolish, but when I see that I have failed—”
“Nope.” Shinigami cut him off with a shake of her head. “Don’t go down that road. You can’t save everyone. You’ll go mad if you try. Do the best you can, and let that be enough.”
Barnabas nodded, and both of them turned to the Pod-doc as it began to open. Its top tilted up and came, at last, to a stop. There was only the faintest whir of sound from the machine; it ran as smooth as silk, its workings hidden under the shiny exterior.
Kelnamon sat bolt upright a moment later, having woken suddenly. He was searching for a weapon, Barnabas could tell, then realized roughly where he was the next moment.
He looked at Barnabas suspiciously. “I did not think I would wake again, but I feel better than I ever have. Is this real?”
“Very real,” Barnabas assured him.
Shinigami stepped forward to offer him a hand out of the Pod-doc, her cybernetic body not trembling when Kelnamon’s weight rested on her briefly. He stretched and gave a wide yawn.
“I should get one of those,” he said. Then he looked around the room. “The others… If you saved me, surely you could save them.”
There was no easy way to tell him the truth. “My friend, I am afraid we could not,” Barnabas said quietly. “You were still alive when we got you to the ship. The others had already passed on. Their injuries were too severe.”
Kelnamon stood silently for a long moment. “I led them to their deaths,” he said.
Shinigami gave a loud sigh. “Will everyone in this room stop being self-indulgent for a moment? Actually, for a damned long while. We have a lot still to do, and the universe can’t afford to have everyone tying themselves in knots about their perfectly reasonable decisions. Look, I’m immortal. I promise when this is over, I will sit with you two for as many beers as it takes for you to get all the bitching out of your systems. Okay? Okay. Good. Now let’s go do something useful.”
Kelnamon looked like a massive deer in headlights. Barnabas laughed.
“I’ve found she’s generally right about these things,” he told the Brakalon. “Let’s go speak about what needs to be done. Most of the military and government officials have been freed, and we’ll need to get moving as quickly as possible to get the rest back and possibly quarantined.”
He led Kelnamon to the conference room, where the Brakalon squinted at Gilwar. “Ferqar?” he asked dubiously. “Did you get a new suit?”
“I am not Ferqar,” Gilwar told him. If he was annoyed, it did not show in his voice. “My name is Gilwar. I am presently assisting Barnabas. May I mention, your decision to attack the turrets directly was quite brave and saved countless lives?”
It was the right thing to say. Kelnamon’s shoulders settled a bit, and he gave a nod.
“Ferqar is on the surface,” Barnabas told him, taking a seat. “He is sending us reports as he gets the time. In the meantime, why don’t you tell us everything you know?”
Kelnamon sat as well, taking a stool that would accommodate his much larger body.
“It began a week ago or so.”
Their weeks are about the same as ours, Shinigami told Barnabas privately.
Thank you.
“Ferqar and I were out walking in the barrens beyond the city when we saw something fall, so we went over to see what it was. Ferqar said it was a Jotun device of some kind, and it shot at us. We managed to deactivate it, only for it to trigger a self-destruct. When we got back to the city, we alerted the military and bureaucrats.
“We heard nothing back.” He shook his head grimly. “I suspected at once that the Jotuns had gotten into our networks and were blocking messages. It took me two tries to get anything off-planet to you.
“Not only that, they had used an obscure protocol to make the officials relocate to those buildings you stormed with us. The protocol is to keep them safe if Kordinev is under attack.” From his tone, it was clear that the irony was not lost on him. “We created a fighting force by passing messages any way we could that wasn’t on the networks. People sent weapons and came to help.”
“You couldn’t get the Army?” Shinigami asked.
“No. The Army is always housed at bases well outside any of the cities. There was an…incident. It was far in our past, but we have never allowed our Army to be near government buildings since then.”
“Ah.” Barnabas gave a wry smile. “It’s a lovely idea, that one, until someone simply goes against it.”
“Julius Caesar?” Shinigami asked him.
“That’s the one.” Barnabas frowned. “I wonder—do those bases have easy access to ports so that the soldiers could be transferred to carriers?”
Kelnamon looked horrified. “Yes.”
Barnabas shook his head wearily. “I’d be willing to bet anything that the officials still missing can give the orders, and that no one on those bases is aware of the problems.”
“Same,” Shinigami agreed promptly. “They’re hoping to get the troops off-planet before anyone realizes what’s going on and hold their families hostage for their good behavior.”
“Ferqar said the same.” Kelnamon pushed himself up to pace. “I can’t believe this. It can’t be happening.”
“It is happening,” Shinigami said. “So you should definitely believe it.” She leaned back in her chair, pushed a little too far, and didn’t have the instinctive reflexes to recover. There was the much-too-loud thud of a heavy cybernetic body hitting the floor.
Kelnamon watched quizzically, and the rest smothered their laughs.
Anyone who laughed at Shinigami had to spar with her. That was the rule, and even Barnabas was beginning to get wary of doing so.
“What do we do?” Kelnamon asked Barnabas. “Whatever we destroy to get our officials out, we then can’t use against the Jotuns when they arrive. It’s a nightmare. They’ll have us bombing our own infrastructure.”
“It’s amazing,” Barnabas said philosophically, “how much damage you can do if you just behave like a total sociopath. Realistically speaking, the Committee can’t be more than twenty people. Even with their whole team of scientists and guards, it’s probably under five hundred. And yet, here we are.”
“So what’s your plan?” Shinigami asked.
“We’ve infiltrated government buildings before,” Barnabas said. “This will be not so much a smash-and-grab job as a don’t-smash-but-do-grab job. We get in there, get the hostages, and get out. On the other hand, I’m seriously considering having you bomb every one of the launch pads at the bases.”
Kelnamon made no protest, only considered this. “How long would it take you?”
“About an hour,” Shinigami said. “Assuming I’ve found all of your bases, which I think I have.”
Kelnamon groane
d. “We’re going to have to reset our entire defense infrastructure when this is over,” he said, frustrated. “But that’s not important. Hold off for now. We’ll do it if we have to.”
Shinigami nodded.
“Everyone get ready,” Barnabas told the team. “And come up with some way to use Grisor better than we have been.”
“We’ll see what we can do,” Shinigami replied.
The team left to get their armor on, and Barnabas gave Kelnamon a nod. “We’ll nip this in the bud,” he told the Brakalon.
Kelnamon nodded, but he didn’t look convinced.
Chapter Twenty-One
Qarwit stood in the center of Grisor’s ruined office and stared at the portrait of the former occupant on the wall. Grisor did not come from a distinguished family amongst the Jotuns, but he managed to convey the same stern air of authority as the old noble lines did in their portraits.
“Excellency.” One of the soldiers stood in the doorway, head bent to show deference. “We have acquired the target and are preparing to convert him.”
“Do it as quickly as you can,” Qarwit directed. He considered, then added, “Better we take the chance of breaking him entirely than they suspect what we’ve done.”
It was true. On the heels of complication after complication, loss after loss, Qarwit had launched a desperate gambit. What could not be achieved by one means would be achieved by another. They had been thwarted, but he swore they would not be defeated. So help him, they would reach Kordinev with the Jotun fleet, and they would do it soon.
Before anyone could mobilize to stop them.
They should already have been there, of course, to convert the captured Brakalons. He could only hope that they arrived in time to do so now that Jeltor had failed to entrap the admiral.
“No further orders,” he told the soldier.
The soldier nodded and left, and Qarwit returned to his study of the portrait.
