The Vigilante Chronicles Boxed Set 1

by Natalie Grey

  “Also that.”

  “I’ll consider some strategies. You do the same.” Barnabas began to roll up his sleeves. “For now, you should probably leave if you don’t want to be part of the fight.” Gar left with a swish and a flick of his robes, and Barnabas smiled across the board at Shinigami. “First move?”

  “I’d insist on a coin toss if I hadn’t found that coin you made that has two heads.” She slid a piece out.

  “I wouldn’t have had to make it if you hadn’t clearly rigged the coin flip algorithm you were using.” Barnabas gave her a long look and considered the board.

  “Make a move, already. I swear you do this to drive me mad.”

  “Is it working? Are your servers melting?”

  “I’m far more resilient than that.”

  “I’ll just need to try harder, then. Would you like some tea?” He stood up and went over to the little half-kitchen beside the couch. “And don’t even think of tampering with the board while I’m gone.”

  He looked over in time to see it fuzz as several pieces moved hastily back into place, after which Shinigami sat in sullen silence until he returned. Barnabas set a cup at her elbow.

  “What is this for?”

  “You wish to behave more like a human, and this will enhance the illusion. Also, it’s polite—although it’s actually just a cup of hot water. One has to draw the line somewhere.”

  “You were already being insane.” Shinigami narrowed her eyes at a piece on the board which suddenly moved of its own accord. “Are you doing that with your mind? What, are you trying to convince someone who comes in here that you’re the holograph and I’m the real one?”

  “Think of the havoc we could wreak,” Barnabas suggested. He took a sip of tea and smiled at Shinigami over the rim.

  She tilted her head to the side, intrigued. “When would someone be on the ship?”

  “Well, someone tried to steal it recently. We could start there. Perhaps at some point, someone sneaks onto the ship, sees me lit like a projection, gets scared by someone they think is real—you’d be wearing armor in this scenario—and… What are you smiling at?”

  “Most of your plans center around deception. It’s an interesting character aspect in someone who is otherwise so morally ironclad.”

  “It is not… Oh, very well. Ploys. Tricks.”

  “Which are?”

  “Morally equivalent to lying.” Barnabas took another sip of tea somewhat grumpily. “Are you going to move?”

  “I’m considering. Also, I wanted to see how long it would take you to ask about it.” She switched to mental speech. Have you given any more thought to what we should do with Gar?

  Some. He watched as she finally made her move and went through the now-familiar habit of checking the board from multiple angles to make sure she’d moved the piece he thought she had. Both of them had tried variants on that trick recently and now Barnabas wore a special pair of glasses while playing.

  He never left them unattended.

  You aren’t suggesting anything, she pressed. Does that mean you’re at a loss?

  He nodded and sighed, then took another sip of tea. This is very good. Where did we get it?

  Carter was able to acquire some of it. It’s an herb the Ubuara use for seasoning. It has mild hallucinogenic properties, by the way. Are you seeing anything strange?

  Well, you don’t seem to be cheating yet. Does that count?

  She flashed him a smile. I didn’t bother to mention it because I assumed your nanocytes would take care of the more unusual aspects of the herb.

  They are. You should probably warn Gar, though. Although…I wonder if that’s why he spent all of last evening staring at his hands?

  From Shinigami’s sudden silence, Barnabas had the sneaking suspicion he was correct. His mouth twitched slightly. Gar had been such a quiet shipmate that Barnabas had assumed what he was seeing was some form of meditation.

  Apparently, he had been wrong.

  You should probably mention it to him before he does it again.

  It would be more fun if—

  Shinigami.

  Fine. You with your ethics and your moral equivalence and your… I’ll come up with a third thing, just give me a moment. She frowned at Barnabas’ move. That’s what you’re going with? Really?

  Barnabas frowned back. Since trash talk is a time-honored part of competition I won’t outright ban you from using it, but I really do find it a waste.

  She made her move without any further comment on that score. So, the way I see it, we have a bit of a problem. If we want to get more information out of Fedden without him catching on to who Gar is working for, we need to send Gar in alone. We should also find some way to mask my identity so that they don’t figure it all out.

  I could just fight my way past Fedden’s crew and take the information out of his head. That would tip our hand somewhat, though, don’t you think?

  Yes, but Gar had a good point that he’s rather…breakable. Barnabas made a move and wondered if Shinigami had figured it out yet. Her self-imposed limit of looking at probabilities only ten turns ahead meant that he had begun building strategies that hinged on twenty or thirty moves. It was an interesting exercise, and one that required a lot of improvisation.

  He enjoyed it a surprising amount.

  In fact, he enjoyed the entire process of the game they played around their game. Both he and Shinigami understood implicitly that in this battle of wits there was only one real goal: surprise the other person. Barnabas had opened by playing a game he didn’t intend to win and had continued with board modifications. Shinigami had retaliated rather spectacularly by making the board zap him every time he touched it, as well as by splitting the holographs so that each piece appeared in multiple places.

  Each used conversation to distract the other. Barnabas had succeeded more than once in capturing Shinigami’s attention with an interesting dilemma and then making his move while she was calculating probabilities and researching relevant background information. She, of course, had done much the same thing.

  Both Barnabas and Shinigami understood the same thing about strategy: there was no playing fair, and there were no givens. One’s opponent might have very different goals than expected, and might at any time decide to change the rules of engagement.

  Barnabas had an internal bet going with himself, wondering how long it would take before their games involved actual missiles.

  Poor Gar.

  Barnabas came to a decision after another minute. We’ll do a combination of operations. We’ll send Gar in and mask the ship—well, if he’s okay with that. At the same time, you will shut down outbound communications without them knowing about it. If things go south, I can clean up the place and we can go for their allies before anyone knows they’re dead.

  I like that. Shinigami nodded as she made her move. You can’t make that move, she added, when Barnabas moved his piece. There’s a piece there.

  There is not— Oh, son of a bitch. Did you change the color of your pieces? Also, they’re tiny now.

  Shinigami grinned. I look forward to your retaliation. I hope it will befit a worthy opponent.

  Barnabas narrowed his eyes at her. It would be a fitting retaliation. He just had to think of something first—something other than dumping his tea on the board and making it short out.

  He could keep that one in his back pocket as a last resort, though.

  Rald stepped out onto the bustle of the landing pad with a sigh of relief. Ignoring the shouted order to start unpacking cargo, he leaned his head back to feel the sunshine on his skin. After a week in that hellhole of a ship, he was about to go out of his mind.

  Apparently, the crews of the freighters were expected not to fight one another, not even for fun. Not even when the other person really deserved to get their face kicked in.

  It was ridiculous.

  He wanted a fight, and he wanted a drink. Ignoring yet more shouted orders, Rald picked up his pack and looked ar
ound for a transport.

  To his surprise, there wasn’t one. There was only a dusty road that led to the squalid bunch of buildings that comprised Tethra. The other passengers from the ship—very few, since it was difficult to get clearance to move to this place—had already set off on foot. The road wasn’t even paved, and in low places the surrounding swamp flooded it.

  There might be eels in the swamp. Rald licked his lips at the possibility. It had been a while since he’d had a proper eel. Nice and slithery—a true Shrillexian delicacy. No one prepared them correctly, though. They were best served raw. And alive.

  If there was no good food to eat in Tethra, he’d come back out here and try his luck.

  With a grumble, he hoisted his pack on his shoulder and frowned at the town. This was such a backwater that he wasn’t sure what Jutkelon had been doing here. Just because rich people had decided to claim towns in the middle of nowhere it didn’t make them good places to do business. What had Jutkelon seen in this place?

  When a nearby alien looked at him, Rald realized he’d been muttering aloud.

  “It’s not much to look at, is it?” the alien offered with a laugh. “But I hear they’ve got Coke.”

  “What is…’Coke?'”

  “It’s a fizzy drink. Humans make it. Damned good.” She nodded. “They do some things right, I’ll say that.”

  “Why are you here if you’re not a fan of humans?”

  “Eh.” She lifted her shoulders. “I’m curious, and my uncle was able to bring me here as part of his business. What about you?”

  “Just curious too. An old friend lived here. I figured I’d look him up.” Rald had a wave of inspiration. “He worked in the mines. Hated it there. Don’t know where he is, though.”

  “Well, if he hated it there you might find him at Aebura’s.” The alien nodded. “I hear that’s a place where they don’t like the mines very much.”

  Rald looked at her curiously.

  “There’s a division on Devon,” she told him frankly. “People who were on top before the humans came in versus people who are on top now. But it’s still a fight, and there are still some old grudges. I don’t care who wins; I’ll work with either. But if your friend didn’t like the mine owners, Aebura’s is a good place to start looking for him.”

  “Thank you.” Rald managed to force the words out, although his smile was a bit pained. He wished she hadn’t been so polite. He would have preferred a good brawl right about now.

  But maybe there would be a chance at the bar.

  A few minutes and some directions later he slid onto a stool and waited for the bartender to come out.

  “Coming!” A woman with blonde hair and warm brown eyes ran out of the kitchen. “Sorry, was just cleaning up. What can I get for you?”

  “A Coke, if you have one.”

  “Coke or…” She waited.

  “Are there different kinds?”

  “Coke it is.” She started filling a glass with a dark liquid.

  Rald smiled at her. “You Aebura?”

  “No, Aebura doesn’t run this bar anymore.” The woman smiled at him and put down the cup, which was foaming at the top. “My name’s Elisa. How about you? New here?”

  Rald smiled. “Just here briefly.”

  But he would be here long enough—long enough to make a lot of people very sorry.

  7

  Carter perched precariously on a wall at the edge of Tethra and shook the dice. He rolled them onto the wall and groaned as Oemuga hopped with joy.

  “Twenty more to me!” The Ubuara gleefully relieved Carter of some of his chips. “Today is not your day, my friend.”

  Carter shook his head and chuckled. He wanted to get to know his employees and their friends, so he had begun playing dice with the Ubuara during his breaks. Games of pure chance usually weren’t his style, but since the Ubuara could sense one another’s thoughts those were the only games they ever played.

  Luckily, they didn’t play for keeps. The set of chips was split at the beginning of the game, and whoever was ahead when everyone stopped won. The games were really just a way for the Ubuara to spend time together.

  Carter liked that. When he had come to High Tortuga, the young man in him had been excited by the idea of a town just getting off the ground; full of possibility…and maybe a little bit of danger. He’d lived a long life, but that part of him had never grown old. However, the husband and father in him didn’t want his family to be exposed to the type of violence that could be so pervasive in a lot of the less well-charted areas.

  Due both to the ethos of the original settlers and to Bethany Anne’s growing influence, Tethra was full of possibilities without the sort of desperate rivalries that usually formed in young cities. The citizens seemed to get along well enough, aside from the Luvendi at the edge of town—and they just kept to themselves as far as Carter could tell.

  The rest of the citizens seemed happy enough to interact, build businesses together, and spend their free time on games of chance and eel races in the local marsh.

  Carter never went to those. There was some mosquito-like thing in those marshes that loved his blood. He was still saving up money for forcefields around all the doors of the bar so he could have a mosquito-free oasis. In the meantime, he hunted the bastards with a single-minded determination that had given him several injuries.

  He called them war wounds.

  Elisa just rolled her eyes.

  Speaking of Elisa, he heard her voice. Carter frowned as he looked around, then pointed to one of the Ubuara on a nearby roof. “Leibura, you want my place?”

  The Ubuara chittered and ran down the roof to leap lightly onto the wall. She bared her teeth at him in a tiny grin. “With your luck? You haven’t given me much to work with.”

  Carter laughed as he hopped down. “My apologies. May the dice favor you more than they favored me.”

  “Now you’re wishing me bad luck,” Oemuga grumbled.

  “Never,” Carter promised.

  He waved to the Ubuara and jogged toward the main street, where he found Elisa looking for him. At the sight of him, she peered curiously down the alley and grinned when she saw the Ubuara.

  “Dice again?”

  “On a cold streak. That’s three games in a row. I’m starting to get nicknames.” He looped his arm around her shoulders as they strolled down the street. “Carter the Unlucky. Carter, the Dice’s Bitch.”

  Elisa gave a shriek of laughter. “No Ubuara is going to say something like that.”

  “Okay, I made that one up. But I promise you, one of these days I will be Carter DiceBane.”

  “Very impressive. I’ll have to beat the ladies off you with a stick.”

  “Could you? I’ll probably need a bodyguard. I’m sure I’m going to be quite the celebrity.” He smiled as they walked. “It’s nice to have these last few days of relative anonymity.”

  Elisa thumped him on the shoulder and grinned. “Stop it, you’ll give yourself too big a head to fit in the door. Anyway, I came to find you for a reason.”

  “Oh. Right. Yes?”

  She gave him a look. “There was a Shrillexian in the bar.”

  “Has he caused trouble?” Carter asked anxiously. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. He didn’t start a fight and he didn’t… You know, it’s just kind of weird and I wanted you to know what was going on.”

  “That is weird.” Carter considered. “Okay, no more bartending for you today.”

  “Carter.” She gave a laugh. “He’s gone already.”

  “Still.”

  “Stop being so crazy. Look, you can come back and hang out with us if you’re worried, but he already left. He doesn’t seem to like Coke. He said someone recommended it to him, but he just burped a lot and left without finishing it.”

  “Yeah, because Pepsi is—”

  “Not so loud!” She thumped him again.

  “Okay. So he came in and didn’t start any trouble? You served him a dri
nk he didn’t like and he still didn’t start anything? And he paid for the drink, even though he didn’t finish it?” Elisa nodded to all of the questions and Carter shook his head. “You’re right. The whole thing reeks of trouble. I don’t like peaceful Shrillexians.”

  “Do you prefer them when they’re being violent?”

  “No, I just really don’t like the trouble they bring. Hmm. Well, we’ll see if we can get a few Brakalons to just hang out and keep the peace. Aebura might know someone.” He shrugged. “You head back—don’t go in if he’s there again—and I’ll be there in a moment.”

  “Okay.” She kissed him and jogged away, and Carter hightailed it back to the alley.

  “Carter.” Leibura gave him a look. “Did you want to come back now that the dice are hot again?”

  Carter laughed. “No, this is a very different matter. Elisa just told me there was a Shrillexian in the bar who was behaving very oddly.”

  All of the Ubuara took notice. Everyone was wary of Shrillexians.

  “Anyway,” Carter finished, “just keep an eye out, okay? If he does anything weird—or if he heads out of town toward the mine—we should know about it.”

  As he walked back to the bar he told himself he was being stupid. There were tons of new people on High Tortuga these days. There were probably a bunch of Shrillexians and he just hadn’t noticed them.

  But for some reason, he couldn’t shake the bad feeling he had about this one.

  He’d been in good spirits when they’d left Virtue Station, but by the time Fedden got to the cave that served as the base’s mess hall he was in a foul mood.

  He and Tagurn had landed on Zahal over three hours ago, but a piece of landing equipment had buckled when they set down and they’d spent the time since then fixing it. Fedden was dirty and hungry, and he still didn’t have a contract or the information he’d wanted to sell.

  And their Luvendi contact was taking his sweet time getting here.

  He could feel the other ship captains staring at him. Unlike the parts of the syndicate that were planet-based the ships’ captains roved all over, taking jobs wherever they could. They came back between jobs to pay the syndicate leaders or just take a break and swap information on potential jobs.