The Vigilante Chronicles Boxed Set 1

by Natalie Grey

  Gar dragged him close. “Manners!”

  Oh, Lord, he’s beginning to talk like you.

  I sound like a prat.

  Since you bring it up—

  We’ll discuss this later.

  The Hieto struggled and choked.

  “The people you let get away are mass-murderers,” Gar said angrily. “You mock me when you did not stop them, either. They would gladly sell you into slavery. They abandoned hundreds of their own to get massacred just last week. And instead of taking the time to learn any of this, you decided to mock those who were attempting to bring them to Justice.”

  “Who the hell are you?” the Hieto spat.

  “I am Venfaldri Gar.”

  “How did you—”

  “None. Of. Your. Business.” Gar released his fingers and let the Hieto drop to the floor. “Apologize.”

  “No.”

  Had he not said that one word, things might have gone differently. Gar could have made a suitably dramatic exit, and the Hieto wouldn’t have spent the next few weeks in a body cast.

  But again, everyone agreed that the story was much better this way.

  Gar paused, tilting his head to the side much the way Barnabas did. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said no. You come from a weak race.” The Hieto hauled itself up. “Your people are weak and useless. They’re grifters. They make nothing of their own.”

  Gar let loose. His knuckles slammed into the Hieto’s face over and over, blocking the Hieto’s strikes easily.

  I should probably—oh—do something about—OH—breaking this up. That one had to hurt. Lesson learned: Hieto scales sound awful when they crack.

  Ewwww, Shinigami agreed.

  The Hieto was sprawled on the floor, hissing in defiance but clearly defeated, and at last, the anger drained from Gar.

  “You’ll get yourself killed if you keep doing that,” he told the Hieto. He turned and left, shaking his head as Barnabas followed.

  He threw a few coins to one of the other dock workers. “Get your friend some medical help and talk some sense into him.”

  The dock worker said nothing, and Barnabas hurried Gar along to the Shinigami.

  “Why are we running?”

  “Because someone’s going to call the guards,” Barnabas said. “That’s what tends to happen when there’s a fight. Especially after a fight where several station-hired guards get killed.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes. Oh.” Barnabas was glad to see Tafa and Jeltor already on board as they arrived. “Any problems?” he asked them.

  “Tafa bought half the station and made me carry it,” Jeltor said in tones of deep martyrdom.

  “That is not true.” Tafa gave him an annoyed look before looking at Barnabas. “I got some paints! And boards and notebooks and brushes and—oh. We saw people running and heard gunshots.”

  “Yes, that was us,” Barnabas admitted, his amusement evident. “Everything is fine. Although we should probably leave before someone calls the authorities.”

  “Already undocking,” Shinigami reported.

  “Good.” Barnabas nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Zinqued was forcing his way through another cup of Stim-Drink when the message flashed up on his screen.

  SHINIGAMI SPOTTED AT VIRTUE STATION. JUST UNDOCKED. HEADING FOR QUADRANT 982.

  Zinqued gave a cold smile and sat up straight, his exhaustion forgotten. He punched in the coordinates, and his smile grew as the ship began to turn. Paun probably wouldn’t notice for a few hours, and by then they’d be well on the way.

  Easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

  14

  “There’s a warrant out for our arrest at Virtue Station,” Shinigami reported. “Of course, not exactly for us.” Her avatar was leaning against the wall as Gar and Barnabas warmed up on the mats. “Also, is painting in a gym a normal Yofu activity?”

  “Hmm?” Barnabas, who was stretching, looked up curiously.

  Tafa, who was painting in the corner, looked up at the cameras with her left eye. “They inspire me.”

  Shinigami snorted to show what she thought of that. Jeltor agreed with a mechanical-sounding sigh.

  “Anyway,” Shinigami continued. “It turns out that the guard captain for Jodu’s bank was a real piece of work. He would just go around murdering people. They knew that it was a human and a Luvendi, and they have the security tapes, but once people heard that Gar was the one who’d killed the guard captain, they started going to the guards and claiming they knew stuff. You know, adding in details. So the report out says that Gar was wearing a disguise but was actually a Leath. You’re a Torcellan, apparently. We have a crew of Shrillexians, our ship name is really the Calcifer, and we’re legendary for starting a blood feud that ended with us wiping out an entire family of bankers.”

  “It’s like Robin Hood,” Barnabas said drily. “Except with less distribution of wealth and more wild lies.”

  “You think Robin Hood just stole? He totally killed people. But I think you two have really hit on something here: you kill bankers, and all the normal people are just going to claim they didn’t see anything.”

  “That won’t really work,” Gar interjected. He was limbering up as he stared at Barnabas and tried to come up with some strategy that wouldn’t result in a great deal of pain.

  “You should look up Charles Floyd in the history banks,” Shinigami suggested.

  “We are not becoming petty criminals,” Barnabas declared.

  “Of course not. We don’t steal $20 bills. We murder people.”

  “We judge people.”

  “Legally speaking—”

  “Yes, yes,” Barnabas said hastily. Under his breath, however, he added, “With you egging Gar on.”

  “There were reasons for what I did,” Shinigami said in lofty tones.

  “See?” Gar told Barnabas. “There were reasons.”

  Barnabas gave him a pitying look. “Ask her what they are.”

  “Uh, Shinigami—”

  “It was hilarious.” Shinigami was completely unrepentant.

  “You said it was because he insulted me!”

  “And it would be hilarious if you beat him up. I was right, too. It was hilarious. You’re a hero now. All of a sudden, a Luvendi is going around beating up awful people and helping out the little guys. And trust me, your species could use some good PR. I’m helping.”

  “Your help is entirely incidental,” Barnabas said. “Come on, Gar. Time to spar.”

  Gar groaned—this was going to hurt. Every time they sparred, Barnabas gave him more pointers, which Gar dutifully put into action.

  The thing was, he still never came even close to winning. Sidestepping one hit didn’t keep him from being hopelessly outmatched in speed, strength, and tactics. Barnabas just repeated that Gar was learning important things.

  Gar kept pointing out that learning didn’t really help him if he never had a chance of winning.

  But, for reasons he could not figure out, he kept coming back, and it was entirely on him—Barnabas never asked about sparring. He simply went to the gym each day as he always had and trained on his own. If Gar showed up, Barnabas was courteous. It was only if Gar stepped onto the mats and asked to spar that Barnabas would do so.

  So Gar had only himself to blame for the bruises he was about to receive.

  He gave a little sigh as he bounced on the balls of his feet and considered if he should circle or just rush Barnabas—

  He wasn’t entirely sure what happened, but he opened his eyes to find himself looking up at the ceiling. “Ow.”

  “Get up.” Barnabas was clearly trying to control his amusement. “And spend less time thinking when you’re in the ring.”

  “Mmf.” Gar pushed himself up. This time, Barnabas’ attack dragged Gar across the mats and slammed him into the wall. Barnabas had his hand at Gar’s throat, and his blue eyes had a twinkle of amusement, which somehow managed to be almost as intimidating as hi
s red-eyed, blood-covered battle incarnation.

  “This is great.” Tafa’s brush was dancing over the twin canvases. “Keep it up, you two. I haven’t been this inspired in ages.”

  Even Barnabas looked a little unsettled by that.

  “I say we just put a kill switch in her,” Shinigami suggested.

  Gar gave a wide-eyed nod at her avatar.

  “Chief?”

  “I’m not going to agree to that.”

  “I notice you do not disagree, either.”

  “Well, no.”

  Shinigami chuckled in their heads as Barnabas released Gar and the two started to circle again. “Also,” she said over the speakers, “we should talk about those programs at Virtue Station.”

  “Which— Oh, the ones that kept you out?” Barnabas shot a quick frown at Shinigami’s avatar.

  “Mmm. I may not have been entirely honest at the time.”

  Barnabas said nothing. He simply waited as Gar launched a flurry of kicks at him. He blocked each one, pointedly not looking at Shinigami until she cleared her throat hastily—an amusing mannerism that seemed as natural to her now as Tabitha—and explained.

  “Their systems aren’t sentient, but they’re very aggressive, and they’re partitioned into multiple distinct servers.”

  “What, physical servers?” Barnabas launched himself up, pushed off the wall, and flipped over Gar’s head. As Gar whirled around, confused, Barnabas grabbed him and spun him around the axis of his shoulders before setting him back on his feet and knocking the wind out of him. Gar wobbled, turned around in a circle, and fell with a squeak.

  “This is great,” Tafa murmured again. She poured out some new paints onto her palette. “Green. Definitely green.”

  “You hear that?” Shinigami asked, flickering across the room to lean over Gar. “Your pain is green.”

  “Blrgle.”

  “Up,” Barnabas commanded. He took Gar’s hand and hauled the Luvendi to his feet. “Again. This time try not to let me throw you.”

  “That sounds doable.”

  Barnabas fixed him with a look. “It is doable. You’re convinced you can’t beat me, but that’s not true.”

  “It’s true,” Shinigami, Tafa, and Jeltor said in unison.

  “The three of you aren’t helping, you know.”

  Gar, however, seemed galvanized by their disbelief. He shook his head to clear it and nodded. “No, they’re right. I can’t…yet. Let’s go again.”

  “Mmm.” Barnabas sank into a crouch and began to circle.

  Again, Gar charged, and again, Barnabas launched himself toward the same wall to push up. However, this time Gar changed direction sharply and punched his leg out to catch Barnabas just as he landed. Barnabas staggered sideways and grabbed for Gar’s leg, but Gar was out of range, circling again.

  “Good,” Barnabas called. “That was good. Now, this time—”

  Gar didn’t wait for the rest of it. He charged, dodged Barnabas’ first attempted throw—

  And wound up upside down against the far wall, barely catching himself with his hands before he crashed to the floor.

  There was the distant sound of an alert and Shinigami’s avatar fuzzed briefly out of existence. When she came back, she was frowning. “We have company.”

  “I’ll be on the bridge.” Barnabas grabbed his towel and made for the door. “Tafa, Jeltor, you secure yourselves in your rooms. No, Tafa, leave the painting.”

  “But it’s some of my best work—”

  “Nope.” Barnabas ushered her out the sliding doors. “Gar?”

  “I should have stayed on Luvendan,” Gar said, staring at the ceiling with a look of poetic sadness. “And been eaten by the Essekan.”

  “Mmm.” Barnabas ushered Tafa and Jeltor out, hiding his smile, and left Gar in peace.

  Shinigami’s avatar flickered over to lie on the floor with Gar. She even had her legs up the wall, the same as his. She pillowed her hands behind her head and pursed her lips. Whistling came from the speakers.

  “I can’t tell you how comforting your friendship is in this painful time,” Gar said. He was trying to be sarcastic, but his lips were twitching in a genuine smile.

  “Ahhhh, you’re laughing. Go on, you know you want to. Come on, get up.” She pushed herself up and offered him a hand, then snatched it away. “Sorry, I always see people do that. Forgot my hand’s not actually there.”

  Gar pushed himself up with a laugh. “Right. I didn’t fracture anything, did I?”

  “Nope. You’re good to go as soon as we deal with these asshats.”

  “Oof. Take your time, then.”

  On the bridge, Barnabas slid into the captain’s chair. “Are Tafa and Jeltor in their rooms?”

  “Yes.” Shinigami appeared and sat as well. She looked at him to see what he thought of the human mannerism and smiled when he nodded. It had become one of their games for him to assess how human her movements looked. She settled back in the chair. “Tafa is still complaining about that painting. If we can get out of this without doing any barrel rolls, we really should. I don’t want to listen to her moan on about losing it.”

  Barnabas smiled slightly. He sensed that the truth was that Shinigami did not want to hurt Tafa’s feelings by ruining the painting. And when Shinigami willingly chose not to use fancy battle techniques to protect someone’s feelings, that was a high compliment to them indeed.

  “So, what’s going on?” Barnabas asked. He knew if he mentioned Shinigami’s kindness, she would only get embarrassed and prickly. “What was the alert for?”

  “There’s a ship following us.” She pulled up the video feed.

  Barnabas squinted. Strangely, even in plain vision, the ship was barely visible.

  “They’re good at this,” Shinigami observed. Her face was watchful, eyes slightly narrowed as she considered. “They must suspect that we did a visual check on the debris last time, so they’re following somewhere they won’t be easy to see, either by the naked eye or on our sensors. If I wasn’t built as well as I was...”

  Barnabas looked at her for a moment. Rarely did Shinigami refer to the ship as her body, but it must feel that way to her. He wondered what that must be like.

  “So what’s their plan?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” She arched a single eyebrow, so like Bethany Anne in her mannerisms for a moment that it was jarring.

  Then he noticed the avatar looked a little different. He wasn’t sure—but her features were a touch less aquiline, her skin closer to a healthy human shade, and the hair was silver now, not pure white.

  Interesting.

  There was a pause while Barnabas squinted at the ship. “I don’t suppose we’ve seen this one before.”

  “Not that I know of, and it isn’t balanced the way a warship would be. That’s the good news. The bad news is that there are a lot of ships like this and they tend to have a rather nasty suite of tricks to steal other ships.”

  “Steal?” Barnabas looked over at her sharply. “There was that net a while ago.”

  “Mmm. It’s definitely a nice coincidence, but these outer quadrants are filled with people who steal ships for a living.”

  “I told Tik’ta to spread the word that our ship was not to be preyed on,” Barnabas groused.

  “And while she may have done exactly as you asked, it’s possible that other people took that as more of a challenge than a warning.”

  Barnabas groaned. “I always forget how stupid people are.”

  “This ship is incredibly valuable. There will always be people who go for the most difficult thing. I understand a lot of people used to climb Mount Everest despite the risks.”

  “A good point, although—”

  There was a flicker on the screen.

  “They’ve launched something,” Shinigami said.

  The two of them leaned toward one of the screens and watched as the object grew closer. It was so small that even their sensors hardly picked it up.

&n
bsp; “A bomb?” Barnabas asked.

  “I don’t think so. And frankly…” She looked at him with a sharp-toothed smile. “I’m curious. I say we let it do whatever it wants to do.”

  “Risky, Shinigami.”

  “You want to know just as much as I do.” Her smile said checkmate.

  Barnabas grumbled, but the truth was that he did want to know. “Close the blast doors, then, and make sure it hits somewhere there aren’t passengers. We’d better hope this isn’t EMP.”

  “I can deal with EMP.” Shinigami looked over as the bridge doors slid open and Gar limped in. “Good of you to join us. We’re about to be hit.”

  “By what?” Gar hurried to strap himself in.

  “There’s a ship,” Barnabas said, gesturing to the screens. “Shinigami, what’s the ETA on— Never mind.” A loud thunk echoed through the ship.

  A moment later, Shinigami announced, outraged, “It’s drilling through my hull!”

  “Yes, well, you wanted to see what would happen. Is it trying to vent the ship?”

  “No, it’s stopping near the first circuit of electrical—ohhhhh.”

  Barnabas raised an eyebrow.

  “They’re trying to hack us,” Shinigami said. “The device clamps on, drills in, and tries to get into the system. Oh, that tickles.”

  “Tickles?”

  “It’s like my mind itches.” She wrinkled her nose. “Oh, they’re so cute. They think they can hack me. Have they never heard of Etheric Empire AIs?”

  “Most people haven’t. It’s not something we try to spread around.”

  “So you’re telling me I can’t give them a big speech about how they fucked up.”

  “Pretty much. Just deal with them.”

  Shinigami sighed. “Fine.” She frowned for a moment and closed her eyes in a spot-on impression of a human meditating. A few moments later, her eyes snapped open and she spoke.

  Even knowing that she was not speaking to them, Barnabas and Gar shivered.

  “Your pathetic little device is not even close to hurting this ship,” Shinigami said. “It is so pathetic, in fact, that I cannot even bring myself to shoot your ship down. It would be dishonorable to do so. Go eat some paste and reconsider your career path.”