by Natalie Grey
“Are you all right?” Zinqued asked her cautiously.
“I…will be.”
“Are you sick?” He hung back. If she were sick, he’d have Chofal take care of her. In a crew with multiple species, it was best to make sure that diseases didn’t have a good vector.
She gave a tired smile. “No, not like that. It’s just, now that we’re here… I remember what happened the last time I was here.”
Zinqued realized what she must mean. “You never came back after the first time you encountered the Shinigami?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Why would we? Nothing legitimate goes on here, and he told us we had to be doing legitimate things, and…” She closed her eyes. “Klafk’tin was an ass. Why do I care that he got killed? He deserved it.”
Zinqued remembered the sea of dead bodies he’d seen in the Yennai Corporation headquarters. “I know what you mean, though. This guy is dangerous.” He smiled at Tik’ta as he stepped into the airlock and let it close behind him. “So’s the Yennai Corporation. That’s why we’re letting them battle to the death while we come in and pick up the stuff they leave behind.”
She looked a little brighter at that. “That’s a good point. It’s a smart plan. We don’t have to pick a side, we just have to swoop in and get all the things they won’t be using anymore once they’re dead.”
“Exactly,” Zinqued agreed.
The alert announced that decontamination was complete, and the airlock opened into Virtue Station’s docking bay.
“Should I keep the ship warmed up?” Chofal asked over the channel.
“There shouldn’t be any need,” Zinqued told her. “Just stay put and be ready to run background checks on any names I give you. I’ll want to hire them immediately if I can.”
“I’ll be ready.”
Zinqued and Tik’ta forged their way into the docking bay. To Zinqued’s surprise, it was incredibly busy—and most of the people seemed to have suitcases and packing crates.
“What the hell is going on?” he asked Tik’ta in an undertone.
“I don’t know.”
“They’re leaving,” Chofal reported. “The transports out are booked for the next week, and more transports are being called in. There are whispers that the Yennai Corporation is about to fall apart, and since they basically run this place…”
Zinqued whistled and shook his head.
People could be so stupid sometimes. After all, when something like the Yennai Corporation failed, there was chaos and a power vacuum—and that was the best time to turn a profit.
He shouldn’t complain, though. The more people who decided to run, the fewer people he’d be competing with to find new employees.
And now that he knew there was a panic, he was prepared to be bolder.
“Let’s go to the main level.”
“Us?” She looked down at her coveralls. “They’ll never let us into any of the banks.”
“We don’t need to go in,” Zinqued said. “Not exactly. You’ll see when we get there.”
Koel Yennai sat back in his desk chair and smiled. The new employee had done well. Koel had seen him a few times and had been told that he was expected to do good work, but in the chaos of the past few months, there hadn’t been much time for business as usual.
It turned out they’d been correct about him, though. Lotar Venn had found something very impressive indeed.
A small planet in orbit around Waler’s Star was being adapted for human settlement. There wasn’t much in the way of direct detail, just rumors and whispers. Lotar had successfully seen through all of it, though.
Koel was reminded of himself when he was younger. He’d always been able to see patterns no one else could.
And now he would put that skill to use, as he had so many times before, to stop his enemies in their tracks. When the humans saw the wreckage of their colony and thousands of their civilians dead…
They would break and run.
He opened a channel to the bridge. “Admiral Frist.”
“Yes, Mr. Yennai?”
“I’m sending you coordinates,” Koel told him. “Begin moving the fleet immediately.”
The Brakalon at the door of the main bank was one of the biggest aliens Zinqued had ever seen. His skin was a deep bluish-green, and his eyes never stopped moving. He looked endlessly suspicious, not relaxing his vigilance even for the rich clients who swept past him in their jewels and expensive clothes. He seemed to hate them.
He was perfect.
Zinqued approached him, catching his eye and nodding decisively.
“What do you want?” the Brakalon called, not sounding friendly in the least.
“To offer you a job.” Zinqued stopped a few feet away. “You have time to talk?”
“I’m on the job.” The Brakalon scoffed. But he looked inside the bank, where the rich clients were all shrieking that they needed their money at once, and his lip curled. He headed over to Zinqued a moment later. “Fucking idiots, the lot of them.”
“There’s going to be a lot up for grabs if the Yennai Corporation falls apart,” Zinqued observed. “A lot of rich people abandoning a lot of property. A lot of places where anything we want could be ours. Of course, we’d need some good talent in case other people had the same idea.”
The Brakalon started to smile. He nodded.
“Yeah. You would. You’d need someone who could fight.” He looked at Tik’ta. “Doesn’t look like she can.”
“Damned good pilot, though,” Zinqued replied equably. “And the best engineer I’ve seen. You’d be the fourth—you and anyone else you’d recommend.”
The Brakalon thought this over, then smiled. “Yeah, I think I know some people. I’d get a cut for bringing them on, right?”
“Of course.” Zinqued shook his hand and tried not to wince at the Brakalon’s bone-crushing grip. “Meet us at Bay 27. One hour.”
“Will do.” The guard stepped back, talking into his communications unit in a low voice, and Zinqued turned to Tik’ta with a smile.
“And we have some fighters.”
She grinned at him. “Good. Because he’s right, I’m not one for the front lines.”
“And I’d guess he can’t fly the ship,” Zinqued added with a laugh. “Doubt he could fit in the cockpit. We’re getting a good team together. We have a good shot at this.”
10
Lotar Venn had just about managed to recover from his last meeting with Koel Yennai when he was summoned to the patriarch’s staterooms.
“I don’t think I can go,” he told Era, his closest friend on the ship.
“You want to get thrown out an airlock?” She gave him a look, then rolled her eyes at his expression. “I’m kidding. God, you’d think you’d never been part of an organization with a trigger-happy megalomaniac at the helm.”
Lotar looked around nervously to see if anyone else was listening.
No one seemed to care.
“It makes me nervous when you talk like that.”
“Everything makes you nervous.” She flipped over a tile in her game and rolled her eyes again. “Go away, Venn. He’s moving the fleet, nothing’s stopped. He probably wants to promote you.”
“That—”
“Makes you nervous. Yes. We all know. Go away before someone punches you.”
Lotar left and considered it a win that she’d said it instead of just punching him without giving a heads up first.
Koel waited by a window that took up one whole wall of the apartment. It was so clear that Lotar had a feeling of vertigo. Staring into the black, it wasn’t like there were references that would show how big it was.
But you knew. You knew when you looked at it.
He gulped, said a quick prayer, and walked over to where Koel stood with his hands linked behind his back, staring at the fleet.
“Mr. Yennai.” Lotar ducked his head as far as he could without making it a bow. He didn’t want to be a kiss-ass, but he didn’t want to piss Koel off eith
er.
Koel’s pale, cold features were arranged in a smile. He seemed deeply pleased with the state of things.
“What do you think of the fleet?” he asked.
“It’s a very nice fleet,” Lotar said automatically. Then his brain caught up with him, and he flushed. “I mean, ah, it’s nicely balanced. And these ships are the most advanced of any out there.”
Koel gave a wry smile. “Perhaps.”
“It could defeat any other fleet,” Lotar insisted.
“I hope it will never have to,” Koel told him. He went to one of the couches and sat, gesturing for Lotar to join him. “Do you know, I have read the great philosophers and military strategists of every species, and they all say the same thing. To defeat an enemy on the field of battle means you have already failed. It is better to have your enemy surrender to you before your armies ever meet.”
Lotar had never thought of that before. He perched on the edge of a couch and tried not to look too out of place.
“But if you never use your army…” His voice trailed off, and he flushed. “My apologies, sir. I am clearly not a military strategist.”
“Not yet,” Koel agreed. He picked up a tablet from the table beside him. “This tablet has the books I mentioned. I want you to read them, and then I want to discuss them with you.”
Lotar took the tablet with wide eyes. “I… With me? Why?”
“I see much of myself in you,” he declared finally as he surveyed the fleet. “The Yennai Corporation needs a future, Mr. Venn. Perhaps you will be that future. Who can say?”
Lotar could not speak, he was so shocked. He hugged the tablet to his chest and ducked his head. “Thank you, Mr. Yennai.”
“Now, come with me to see the pride of my fleet.” Koel stood and gestured for Lotar to follow him to the window.
He pointed to a strange, almost hollow-looking ship. “You see her? She is one of my greatest achievements.”
Lotar studied the ship. “Where are its weapons?”
“You mean missiles, but it has none.” Koel smiled confidently. “Nonetheless, that ship will be our victory, Mr. Venn. The schematics are also in your tablet, as is an inventory of the ship’s contents. Return tomorrow to tell me what you think.”
“Yes, Mr. Yennai.”
“The Yennai fleet is moving,” Shinigami reported. She had watched the communications of the fleet for days before the order had been sent. “Should I relay word to the Jotun high command?”
Barnabas looked up from his book. “Use the personal channel Commander Jeqwar gave,” he instructed. “We’re still not sure where Koel has bugs in the Jotuns’ systems—unless they’ve gotten back to you on that.”
“Not yet.” Shinigami’s avatar flickered into being. She sat at the pilot’s chair and positioned her hands over the controls, moving them as the ship began to turn.
“A good illusion.” Barnabas smiled. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were flying the ship with those gestures, not from inside the computers.”
“I could do it, too, if you would give me a body.”
“For one thing, you’d need to pick a look and stick with it,” Barnabas said, amused. “For another…no. You don’t get a robotic body. That’s just asking for trouble.”
“ADAM is getting one!”
“Not yet. And I think it will be a mistake if he does. For one thing, you’d be pestering me to come on combat missions if you got a body.”
Shinigami had to work hard not to smile. She didn’t want to let Barnabas see her satisfaction, because that would put him on his guard. But the fact was, in a few short weeks, she’d gotten him from a simple “no” to debating the idea on its own merits.
And she really, really wanted her own body. She got to walk around the ship, but that was nothing compared to seeing all the places Barnabas went.
When she looked through his eyes, it just wasn’t the same.
She was determined to get him to agree to it. For now, she dropped the subject with a smile and went back to Koel. They could bond over how much they hated him.
“So this motherfucker thinks he’s going after an undefended colony full of innocent bystanders, huh?”
Barnabas’ face went absolutely cold. “Yes. He does. And we are going to make sure he learns how much of a mistake that was.”
Shinigami tried to swivel in the chair, cursed internally when the chair didn’t move, and flickered over to the other side of the room to make her avatar lean against the wall.
“What if he finds out about the Jotun fleet in advance?”
“Then we’ll know there’s a spy in their high command,” Barnabas replied. “He may have advance notice, which would not be optimal, but regardless, he’ll have an entire fleet to face down.” He frowned. “I hope the Jotun fleet knows what they’re doing. They’re confident, but…”
“Their track record suggests they’re good at small-scale engagements, at least.” Shinigami brought up a few reports on the displays. She had spent considerable time verifying the capabilities of the fleet.
She didn’t want to die, after all.
Barnabas looked them over with his arms crossed. “They really took to technology, I’ll give them that. How, I have no idea. They’re aquatic. How did they learn electronics without killing themselves?”
Shinigami snickered. “Maybe they started millennia ago and lost thousands in the process.” She shrugged. “My guess is that they appropriated some technology and made some allies, and it all took off from there. You have to give them credit, though. Those ships are insane.”
“How do you mean?” He frowned.
“You didn’t see how they’re controlled?” Shinigami hopped up on one of the control panels to sit cross-legged.
“One of the things you can’t do in a robotic body,” Barnabas remarked.
“Yeah, yeah. Maybe I’ll just park my body when we come back to the ship and use my avatar.”
“Leaving the robotic body to stand like a creepy mannequin in the hallway? I think not.”
“That is such a good idea.”
“No. No, it’s not. Don’t do that.” Barnabas’ expression was vaguely panicked.
Shinigami gave him a toothy grin. “Anyway. The Jotun ships. They’re controlled telekinetically. Sort of. That’s the closest word for it.”
“You’d mentioned that. I thought it was that the powersuits were telekinetic and—”
“Oh, no. That’s not how it works.” Shinigami brought up some pictures on the display. “You see this? This is Admiral Jutfa. Well, theoretically it is, but they could put a Jotun stuffed animal in there and none of us would be able to tell the difference.”
Barnabas sank his head into his hands with a groan. “I can never tell who’s calling when I answer the call, and they always expect me to know. How am I supposed to tell them apart?”
“Fuck if I know.” Shinigami shook her head. “Anyway, you see the admiral isn’t wearing a normal powersuit, right? Well, when they go into battle, they plug the captain of the ship into the ship and they control the whole thing—weapons, maneuvering, all of it. In extreme cases, they can network the tasks and put other people in control, but mostly, the captain just controls all of that at once. They communicate with the officers and operate based on that information.”
Barnabas stared at her with his mouth hanging open. “That’s not possible.”
“Oh, but it is.” Shinigami gave him a look that said, I’m as surprised as you are. “Believe me, I didn’t just take all that for granted. I checked.”
“Holy shit,” Barnabas muttered, then flushed. “My vocabulary has gone over a cliff since I started associating with Tabitha.”
“It’s good for you.” Shinigami believed strongly that Barnabas needed to unwind a little. Unfortunately, it was almost impossible to get him drunk. “And ‘holy shit’ is about the size of it. People get promoted in the Jotun Navy because they can manage a ship that big. An admiral can manage multiple ships at once.”
/>
Barnabas was frowning now. “I’m a little worried that we’ve underestimated the Jotuns.”
“It’s possible, but as far as I can tell they just have really good multitasking abilities. Let’s not panic.” Shinigami shrugged. “After all, Jeltor is a nice guy. Perfectly smart, but not an evil genius by any means.”
“Still.” Barnabas chewed his lip. “All right. Let’s get Gar and Tafa and tell them the drill. I think I have an idea what Koel is going to do when he sees us there with the fleet.”
11
“Don’t you want me to stand still?” Gar questioned. He stood frozen in the act of putting on his armor. His weapons lay neatly to one side, cleaned after their last battle but not yet checked this time.
Barnabas was methodical to a fault, and he expected the same of Gar.
“No,” Tafa said impatiently. “The painting isn’t of you, it’s of… Well, you.”
“You can see how I’d get confused,” Gar joked.
“It isn’t your face or your shape.” Tafa gestured to him. “It’s of your…what do Luvendi call it? Your essence? All the thoughts and energy that make you who you are.”
“Thoughts and energy?” Gar considered. “I think humans call it a soul. It’s their closest concept, anyway. Not exactly the same thing. Thoughts are the mind. Energy is…energy. Emotions. The soul is… Now I’m confused.”
“The riddle,” Barnabas said, poking his head in the door as he went past, “is that if I have a mind and a body and a soul…what am I?” He smiled and disappeared again.
“I’m going to make a painting about that,” Tafa said slowly.
“I’m going to get a headache thinking about it,” Gar added.
“Anyway, the point is, keep moving around. I need to see you move to paint you.” Tafa spread a dollop of red paint on her palette.
“I’m red?” Gar looked dubious. “I’m from Luvendan. Everything is blue. My eyes are blue. My skin is kind of blue.”
