by Natalie Grey
“What would you do?” he asked Grisor’s picture. He began to pace. “I am as devoted to the cause as you are, Excellency, but I do not have your skill. I do not have your connections.”
Whatever orders Grisor had given in the event of his death, Qarwit had been immediately installed as the leader of the Committee after Grisor’s abduction. Some of the other senators had made snide comments, but the soldiers and scientists had not even commented on the change. Suddenly, Qarwit was “Excellency,” and they deferred to his judgment in all things.
The other senators did not quite dare to push their luck.
Qarwit had the sense that he should be grateful for this change. After all, unlike many in the Committee, he truly believed in its mission. He knew that many of the others simply wanted to have power, while some sought riches and many just wanted to be a part of something secretive.
There were not many, it turned out, who truly had the clarity of vision Grisor’d had.
Qarwit should feel pleased and proud to be overseeing this critical stage of the Committee’s plan. Things had begun to unravel when Huword was killed. Their plans had come into the light far earlier than they wanted, and they had to move now, before they were ready. But it was still possible to triumph, and the leader who did so would be remembered throughout the ages.
Qarwit, however, did not want to lead. He had not only believed in the mission of the Committee, but he had also believed in Grisor. He had watched Grisor’s speeches for years, picking up on the subtleties other senators missed. He had noticed who Grisor’s mentor had been.
He was not pleased to be taking Grisor’s place, not when the former leader was likely being tortured somewhere—or was already dead, having been killed out of hand by a human who operated outside the law.
Vigilante. Qarwit shuddered with disgust. Other species produced such chaos. They sent people like this human all over the universe, enacting some warped vision of justice, when anyone with sense could see that calm, steady leadership was best for the universe.
Humans, he had learned, highly valued free will. They were quite fanatical about it, in fact. Even when their choices caused them hardship and pain, they clung to the concept. If they would simply surrender some of their free will, they would be like Jeltor: calm, certain of their place in the universe, and equally certain of their purpose.
It was a good life, being sure of such things. Not being sure about them caused such pain. Why could they not see that?
Screams echoed down the hallway and Qarwit turned to look. It seemed that the soldiers and scientists were obeying his command, and were converting their new target with as much speed as possible.
He might break, it was true, but it was no loss to them if he did. And if he did not, if he was able to be converted and put back on Jotuna quickly enough, they might be able to use him to acquire a far greater prize.
In the meantime, there was work to do. Qarwit gave one last look at the portrait. “I will do everything I can to build the universe you wanted,” he told Grisor. “I would rather you were here, but I will not shirk my duty.”
In the main control room, he nodded to each of the deputies in turn.
“Tell me the status of our projects.”
“We have four machines ready to send to Kordinev,” one of the scientists reported. “The original research team had trouble converting Brakalons, but we think we can see some of the places they went wrong, and we are confident we will be able to convert the necessary personnel quickly as soon as we arrive.”
“If they’re still in our possession,” Qarwit said tightly. He looked at one of the generals. “Where do we stand after the attack?”
“We don’t know,” the general admitted. “We do know that our defensive networks were readying for an attack, but we have not been able to verify if the attack occurred, if it was successful, or who attacked.”
Qarwit ruffled himself in confusion.
“There should not have been any military personnel stationed in the city,” the general explained. “And no one should have known that the officials were trapped in those facilities. We kept any message suggesting such a thing from reaching its target. In order to attack, they would have needed to do so entirely outside any networks, and without their military. Or perhaps an outside force intervened.”
Qarwit could think of one such outside force, and it was enough to make his blood pressure rise.
“No one should have been able to get word off-planet,” he ground out.
“No,” the general agreed, “but it is possible…” His voice trailed off and he gathered his courage. “It is possible that Grisor told the humans where we were planning to attack.”
Qarwit shook with rage. “Grisor would never betray us,” he spat. “Never.”
“You should consider the possibility.” It was the same scientist who had admitted the loss of the devices to Grisor. Qarwit remembered her. “Jeltor was also strong-willed and principled.”
“His principles were—”
“Wrong, but he held to them strongly.” She was undaunted. “We do not know what sort of torture the humans have at their disposal. After enough torture, anyone could break.”
Qarwit thought this over. Every part of him was furious at the idea of calling Grisor a traitor, and yet he had to admit that this scientist might be correct.
If Grisor had betrayed them...
A plan was taking shape in his head, but he needed more information.
“Why do we not know how the attack went?” he asked.
The general looked at the scientist before answering him. “Our communications stream from Kordinev was interrupted before the attack began. We are not certain why. They apparently know our frequencies, however, and have blocked them.”
“They clearly realized something was wrong,” Qarwit said, half to himself. “And they were trying to stop us from knowing what was going on. The question, of course, is who ‘they’ are. It is possible that the personnel were able to shut something down from inside their bunkers.”
He considered further and came to a decision.
“We will proceed with the plan,” he ordered. “But we will be prepared to use alternate methods of persuasion. Plan for several strike teams to accompany our first landing force. These teams will find and capture the families of the officials we need. If their cooperation cannot be obtained via conversion, we will use their families to ensure it. And the first thing we will ask of them will be that they go into the conversion chambers.”
The others nodded, pleased by this plan.
Qarwit could hear the mutters of the other senators in the background, and he turned to give them a long look. They shut up, although they glared at him.
“Do you have any suggestions?” he asked. He forced himself not to snap at them. They might not believe in the mission of the Committee, but they could still be useful—and they would be more likely to support this initiative if they felt they’d had a hand in planning it.
They shook their heads.
Qarwit was beginning to understand why Grisor had been planning a round of assassinations. He turned back to the desk and considered what was in front of him.
“Make sure everything is ready,” he said finally. “For the return to Jotuna, for the strike teams, and for the equipment. We will need to move quickly. Whatever is happening on Kordinev, we must get there as quickly as we can.”
They nodded and left, and Qarwit went to one of the windows to look out.
So much of this operation had not gone as planned. Jeltor’s conversion, which should have been smooth and seamless and given them early entry into the top brass, had been sabotaged. Huword’s death had touched off meddling from the humans and exposed the Committee—and they, already involved in Jotun politics because of the debacle with the Yennai Corporation, had not simply walked away as they should have.
It was a nightmare. It would be easy to say that there was no way for them to win at this point.
But he refused to give
up. He was here because he truly believed that the Jotuns were superior and that a world ruled by his kind—with peace enforced by conversion—would be better in all ways.
For everyone.
He would make this work.
Another idea came to him as he went to leave the room, and he turned. “Send Captain Jeltor as well,” he said. “We all know that the human may be there, and he’s shown himself to be weak where Jeltor is concerned.”
The general gave a decisive nod. “Not to mention,” he added, “that Jeltor has been aboard the human ship and knows some of the human’s weaknesses. He will be a valuable asset to our strike teams.”
Qarwit nodded. Jeltor had failed to bring them the admiral, but he could still be of use. The key to being a leader was to be adaptable, after all—and never to forget the weapons one had at hand.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Barnabas was impressed when they arrived on the surface of Kordinev. Not only had the Brakalons been efficient in freeing their leaders and planning a rescue operation, but they had also worked closely with Ferqar to determine any salient details about Jotun technology.
The Brakalons who had died in the rescue attempt were laid out under shrouds in one of the Brakalon temples, being overseen by several priests. Although Barnabas was not familiar with any part of Brakalon religion, some things transcended religion or species—and an elegy was one of them. The pure, raw sound of it made the hair on his arms stand on end, and he paused to say a silent prayer of respect before following Kelnamon into the makeshift headquarters of the resistance.
“General Vidrelor,” Kelnamon said respectfully. “This is Barnabas, the human who helped—”
“I’m aware of his exploits,” Vidrelor interrupted. Tall and stone-gray, he had an unmistakable set of scars and walked with the faint asymmetry of someone who had sustained injuries and long ago learned to live with them. His grip, when he shook Barnabas’ hand, was warm and certain, and he made sure not to crush Barnabas’ fingers. “I’ve read up on you,” he explained to Barnabas. “Whenever someone shows up in the sector and starts wreaking havoc, it’s good to know more about them. I’ve read a lot about your Etheric Empire—and about you, although some of it is clearly a load of horseshit. Did you know that some of the writing on you says you were a cleric once?”
“Er.” Barnabas took his hand back and gave a polite smile. “Well, you can’t believe everything you read, I suppose.” The truth seemed too complicated in this case. “Rest assured, I hope to work with the Brakalons in this case, not on my own. I hope to work with the Jotuns, too,” he added.
There was a pause as not only Vidrelor but also everyone else gave him a wary look.
“Not with the faction that is trying to conquer Kordinev, I assure you,” Barnabas continued, “but with the portion of society that respects the rule of law, and which will oversee justice proceedings against this rogue faction.”
“Heh.” Vidrelor’s snort was contemptuous. “You’ll be disappointed, human. You have too much faith. I think perhaps your species has not spent long enough among others. When the crimes are against a different race, the society will excuse anything.”
“That’s one possibility.” Barnabas refused to worry about that right now. “But we have more to deal with than that right now. Who is it we need to rescue?”
“General Fedranor,” the general said promptly.
“And the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders,” added Ferqar patiently.
General Vidrelor snorted again.
Ferqar was undaunted. “All three of them are valuable targets with a great deal of knowledge and power. The general can order troop mobilization, but the other two have knowledge of many classified things, and also of many aspects of Brakalon infrastructure that would be very useful for the Jotuns to know.” He paused. “Is there something we can call this group other than the Jotuns? It’s a bit awkward.”
“They’re the Infrastructure Revitalization Committee,” Barnabas explained absently. “Apparently, their idea of infrastructure revitalization is to take over other planets’ infrastructure and use their populations as slave labor.” He considered. “That, or they just picked the most boring name they could in the hopes that no one would pay attention to them.”
Everyone nodded in agreement.
“Very well,” Ferqar agreed. “The Committee, then. Now, Brakalon protocol, if I understand it correctly, was that the highest-ranking military and political officials would relocate to a series of bunkers like this one. The top echelon would be removed to even more remote and secure locations.”
“Interrupting for a moment,” Barnabas interjected. “We’re sure the Jotuns are not still in the system, right?”
“Very sure,” Shinigami replied. “I found an old backup, wiped the entire system, and reinstalled. I was able to isolate the pieces that had been changed. From the programs I found on the turrets, I think they were dual-purpose. They likely started landing more than a week ago and made their way into the cities, embedding programming into everything they could find.”
“And who are you?” General Vidrelor asked her dubiously.
“I’m Shinigami,” she said, giving him Bethany Anne’s patented “bureaucracy sucks” smile. “I’m not human.”
She didn’t elaborate further.
“Right,” Barnabas said before anyone could ask more questions. He knew Shinigami well enough to know she would give accurate answers in the most unsettling way she could. “So, where are these people?”
“General Fedranor is in this facility, about fifty-five jilwa outside the city.”
A jilwet is about five kilometers, Shinigami translated before Barnabas could ask. I swear, their plural form makes no sense. It’s worse than Latin.
Thank you. You’re invaluable. Also, Latin has its uses.
I know I’m invaluable, and no, it doesn’t. She flashed him a smile.
“The facility is entirely locked down, but we’ve been able to recover traffic camera data and other assorted pieces of information that would suggest they’re still alone in there,” Ferqar reported. “Now, it’s not a certainty, so we have a few people working on how we might determine if they’ve been converted.”
“I can do that,” Barnabas offered.
Everyone gave him curious looks.
You’re in it now, chief, Shinigami told him.
I know, but I’d rather they know what I can do. Coming up, it’s going to be damned useful.
And if the Committee finds out?
I’m not sure that would be bad, actually.
Barnabas looked around at the group and gave a somewhat guilty smile. “I can read minds,” he explained. Hoping he could move through this explanation quickly, he added, “Part of the conversion is to create strong loyalty to Grisor and the Committee. A converted individual will likely know to say things that make them seem normal. They can lie and pretend just fine, but if we ask them about Grisor, their feelings about him will show the truth.”
There was a long silence.
“You can read minds?” Ferqar asked delicately.
“Er, yes.”
“So when you were aboard the Srisa,” Kelnamon said, “investigating Huword’s death…”
“Yes.” Barnabas smiled tightly. “Jotun thoughts are difficult for me to read, but I knew from your thoughts, Kelnamon, what the scene had been in Huword’s rooms—and there was no similar memory in Ferqar’s head. What confused me, of course, was the strong feeling of guilt I was getting from Ferqar.”
“What is the meaning of this?” Vidrelor rumbled. “Do we have a murderer here?”
“Yes,” Ferqar admitted without preamble. “As you may know, the Srisa—Kelnamon’s ship—was stopped after a fellow Jotun naval captain was murdered. Although I did not carry out the murder, I arranged for it and made sure Huword would be somewhere the Jotun government could not easily reach.”
“What he’s not telling you,” Barnabas added a moment later, sighing, “is wha
t Huword did. He was attacking remote alien colonies and torturing the civilians. Ferqar was disgusted by this and helped arrange for Huword’s death so that he could not continue the practice. It was murder, yes, but there was an element of Justice to it.”
“I see,” Vidrelor said after a moment. “Humans and Jotuns are both eager to take the law into their own hands. Brakalons are not like that. We respect laws, even when they are inconvenient. Ferqar should have brought his colleague to stand trial, and you, human—you should have stayed out of it, or brought Ferqar to his government.”
Barnabas hid his smile as he nodded. Now did not seem a good time to have a debate on the merits of vigilante Justice and wide-scale government corruption. He could tell from the general drift of Ferqar’s thoughts that the Jotun was thinking the same thing.
“Shinigami,” he suggested gravely, “can you assist General Vidrelor in coming up with a strategy to release the Jotun hold on the building where Fedranor is being held?”
“Of course,” Shinigami replied demurely.
Barnabas knew her better than to think it was anything more than an act, but no one else here did.
They set about making a plan, and within an hour, they had finalized their strategy. Ferqar knew that Jotun autotargeting had difficulty in both twilight and rain, and it was possible that they would get both this evening. Even if they were to attack at dusk, it would still give them an edge.
They didn’t want to wait any longer than that.
“I will assemble the strike team,” Vidrelor stated. He gave Barnabas an annoyed look, “As your crew member Shinigami is an integral piece of this operation, I will allow you and she to assist.”
Barnabas didn’t want to push his luck, but his team had put too much effort into this not to be allowed to participate. “Two more members should be involved.”
Vidrelor growled but nodded. “We leave two eta before dusk,” he said shortly. “Be at the city gates, or we will leave without you.”
“Well.” Barnabas looked at Shinigami. “I think that went as well as could be expected, don’t you?”
