Paladin

by Natalie Grey

  “I KNEW IT.”

  “Don’t you have military schematics to be discussing?”

  “I’m doing that, too,” Shinigami said airily. “I just wanted to say I totally called that. I knew you weren’t all that wise.”

  “I have legitimately learned some things, you know.”

  “Uh-huh. Keep telling yourself that. You want some real talk, Gar? Every twenty-five years or so, sometimes less, most sentient species have a total crisis and wonder if they’ve messed up their lives.”

  “Really?” Gar looked intrigued. “I suppose that does track. So that just never gets better, then?”

  “I’m afraid not. Be warned, though. Now that you’re here, if you ever get excessively emo about it and start playing meaningful songs and cutting your hair differently—or whatever it is Luvendi do—I will mock you. I say this as a friend who cares about you. I will mock you. A lot.”

  “Thank you, Shinigami.” Barnabas gave a wry smile at the speakers then looked back at Gar. “She has a point, however. I hope you don’t take it too much to heart, all this turmoil. It’s good to question what you’re doing and why. It’s not good to wallow in it.”

  “No wallowing. Right.” Gar picked himself up. “How long do we have before we reach High Tortuga?”

  “Not too long.” Barnabas pulled his armor from a nearby cabinet.

  “I thought this was going to be entirely a space battle,” Gar said, confused.

  “I prefer to wear armor anyway. It helps me…get in the mood.” Barnabas smiled.

  “Some men light candles and play jazz,” Shinigami commented.

  “Shinigami, if I ever do that before a battle, you have permission to smack me.”

  She chortled. “I’ll remind you of that.”

  Tik’ta had nearly fallen asleep when the computer dinged loudly. She jerked, fell off her seat, and swore as she wound up on the floor in a clatter of scales.

  She peeked up over the side of the desk, and her eyes widened.

  “Zinqued!” She scrabbled for her radio and couldn’t find it. She must have knocked it off the desk when she fell. She shouted down the hall that led to the living quarters. “Zinqued!”

  She was typing in coordinates with a feverish intensity when he arrived, the rest of the crew at his heels.

  “What is it?”

  “I found them.” Tik’ta gave him a sharp-toothed grin. “I found the Yennai fleet, and they’re not too far away. They’re heading for battle now, and you’re never going to believe where they’re going.”

  The crew all looked at one another.

  “Where?” Zinqued finally asked.

  “Devon,” Tik’ta announced. “That’s where Barnabas first started out, and he’s been hunting down everyone who knows where it is. I tried to find it, but they’d changed the records in every database I could get my hands on.”

  “Why did you want to go there?” Dretkalor asked.

  “I wanted to know what was going on there,” Tik’ta said. “If they’re going to so much trouble to hide it…”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Anyway, the Yennai fleet discovered where it is, and they’re on their way.”

  “It’s going to be a smoking wreck by the time they’re done with it,” Dretkalor said.

  “Yep.” Tik’ta looked almost pleased. “Surrounded by a debris cloud full of Yennai ships, human ships, Jotun ships…”

  In a flash, Zinqued realized where she was going with this. “We’ll be getting a bigger haul than we expected.”

  “Way bigger.” She looked incredibly pleased. “When the smoke clears, we’re going to have the best ship in the sector—and plenty of tech we can sell.”

  Everyone’s faces settled into looks of gleeful anticipation. The way Dretkalor’s hands moved, he was dreaming about guns. Chofal gazed back at the engine room with a look of dreamy happiness on her face. Zinqued had closed his eyes, and Tik’ta guessed he was picturing himself on the bridge of a gleaming new ship.

  “I’m laying in a course for the Yennai fleet,” she told them all. “Get ready. We’re now the crew of the Yennai frigate Haron’s Shield.” She sighed. “I’m not sure we’ll arrive before them, though. I hoped we would.”

  Zinqued laughed. He couldn’t help it. He was giddy, and he couldn’t picture anything bringing him down. “Maybe it’ll be better to get there a little late,” he pointed out. “We’ll have an idea of how the battle’s going, and any major surprises will already have happened.”

  “Good point.” Tik’ta nodded. “You know, I did always want to see Devon. Guess that dream’s down the toilet. I like this one better, though.”

  She swung back to her console and guided the ship to full acceleration.

  Not long now, and they’d have everything they ever wanted.

  25

  Lotar had paced the junior officers’ bunks for most of the day. The rest of them, caught between envy and anticipation, didn’t waste much time on him. No one, it seemed, wanted to speak to him anymore.

  He wished they would, but what was he going to say? He couldn’t admit that he felt bad about what was going to happen.

  They’d be only too glad to pass along to Koel that Lotar thought he was a mass-murdering psychopath.

  If Lotar had just had the sense to keep his mouth shut, they’d be headed for the Jotun fleet, and all the civilians on Devon—or High Tortuga, or whatever the humans called it now—would be safe.

  But he kept reliving the moment of Koel’s happiness. When Lotar had given him a good suggestion, Koel had been quite pleased, indeed.

  It still made Lotar shiver. He knew beyond a doubt that he would do the same thing again. It gave him a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, but also the feeling of terrible rightness. He had always excelled at finding patterns.

  Now he had found his place. Hadn’t he?

  When a bridge officer showed up in the doorway, everyone scurried out of his way, and Lotar tried to make himself look presentable. His hair was a mess. What if the bridge officer told Koel about that?

  The bridge officer just sneered. “Mr. Yennai wants to see you at the ship’s magazine,” he relayed and disappeared before Lotar managed to ask where that even was.

  In a ship this big, there was no good way to guess which level and sector one might find anything in. Lotar sighed, tried to make his hair presentable, and practically ran out the door. He paused and turned back to the other officers.

  “I don’t suppose any of you know where the magazine is.”

  They all shrugged, but then Era, to his surprise, elbowed another officer, a Torcellan female.

  “Palla, you know. Tell him.”

  Palla looked far from pleased about Era’s intervention, but she wasn’t willing to lie outright. “Level 14, Sector 2,” she told Lotar grudgingly. “You can get there faster if you take the mechanics’ lifts.”

  “Thank you,” Lotar said with feeling.

  He arrived in the magazine still reeking of carbon and grease from the mechanics’ lifts. As a pleasant surprise, the smell wasn’t too noticeable compared to the munitions.

  Koel and several of his officers were clustered around a tower of some sort, maybe three stories high with thick cables lining its sides. At the top were metal spikes, easily three feet long and serrated. Lotar gulped.

  “Ah, Lotar.” Koel beckoned him forward. “Come see this.”

  Lotar came closer, somewhat unwillingly. The cables filled him with a sort of dread, though he wasn’t quite sure why. It was amazing how you didn’t have to know exactly what a piece of technology was used for, to divine its larger purpose.

  Koel stroked one of the cables, and Lotar had the sudden, hysterical urge to ask if the thing was alive.

  Please no, please no, please no.

  “This is the latest innovation from my laboratories,” Koel said with a smile. “Isn’t it beautiful? It latches on there, you see, and these arms can tear a ship to pieces. Then they weaponize the shards of it. E
ach arm is attached to an explosive chamber. They rip apart, seek other ships, and use the power of the arm to bash through the hull with the shards, and explode inside them.”

  It was such a visceral image that Lotar swallowed. “Very nice,” he managed.

  “We’ll be at Devon soon. I want you on the bridge with me, Lotar. Your assessments of the Jotun fleet will be very useful.”

  Lotar, still staring at the missile, felt the sudden, desperate need to be anywhere else. He nodded his head so far, he practically bowed.

  “I’ll go gather my research on the Jotun fleet’s capabilities, and will meet you on the bridge, Mr. Yennai.”

  “So this is High Tortuga.” Jeltor stared out the bridge window of the Shinigami.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Gar came to stand beside him. He pointed. “That’s the main continent. Most of the noteworthy things happen over there, I’m given to understand. And that’s the smaller continent. Barnabas calls it the Wild North.”

  “Wild West,” Barnabas corrected with a smile. He was seated in the captain’s chair and was reading printouts Shinigami had made for him. She sat in her usual chair, one leg draped over the arm, toying with a double-barreled pistol that seemed to have a wooden handle.

  “Right, Wild West.”

  “Although Wild North does have a ring to it.” Barnabas raised his eyebrows. “Driving snow… I’m picturing mountains. No, glaciers.”

  “Big fuckin’ bears,” Shinigami opined.

  “What are bears?” Gar asked. Jeltor also looked curious.

  “Oh, man.” Shinigami sat up. “So, you know what tanks are, right? Yeah, so picture a tank covered in fur, with really big teeth.”

  Both aliens looked at her like they hoped she was joking.

  “It’s a fairly accurate summation,” Barnabas agreed. “The other thing is that you never run from bears. They have no natural predators. You have to stand your ground, or they’ll think you’re prey.”

  Gar and Jeltor stood frozen.

  “Never. Going. To Earth,” Gar muttered.

  Jeltor gave a mechanical nod.

  Shinigami snickered. “So, how do things stand?”

  “Shouldn’t we be asking you? I thought you were the one with the built-in scanners.”

  “I was daydreaming.” She sat up and cocked her head to the side. “The Jotuns are getting in formation. We have them running a scanning subroutine I found in the Yennai systems that might give us a chance at seeing any cloaked ships. Also, I’ve boosted our cloaking and theirs with a similar program to the one the Yennai use. I think.”

  “You think?”

  “Computer systems for a fleet are…how do I put this delicately—”

  “You’ve never put anything delicately in your life.”

  “Oh, right. That makes things easier, then. They’re gigantic fucking monstrosities. The size of Chuck Norris’s balls. Easy.”

  Barnabas frowned at her.

  “Old Earth joke.” She waved a hand. “I found what I think was their cloaking program, but invariably, it’s going to rely on pieces of programs that are stored in different places. It’s not like every relevant subroutine is going to be labeled ‘Cloaking.’”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “You’ve clearly never spent any time around programmers. The first few lines are meticulously documented, and it all deteriorates from there. The whole thing winds up being held together with duct tape and bailing wire. It’s like that across every species I’ve ever seen.” She grinned and opened her mouth to add another quip, then straightened. “Heads up, the Yennai fleet is incoming.”

  “Everyone strap in,” Barnabas told the rest of the crew. “Shinigami likes to do barrel rolls when she’s punchy.”

  “Is she punchy now?” Jeltor asked curiously.

  “She’s always punchy,” Barnabas said.

  “Damn straight I am.”

  Koel was speaking with the admiral in hushed tones when Lotar arrived on the bridge, looking nauseous. Koel was fully aware that Lotar had had second thoughts. In his youth, Koel would have been uncompromising about the failure such doubt represented. He would have had Lotar transferred to another ship, or perhaps killed. A first-rate mind like that was dangerous if it was not loyal.

  Perhaps it was age, or perhaps it was the loss of Uleq and Ilia—a pang went through Koel’s chest—but he wanted to guide Lotar. He wanted Lotar to become a worthy heir. There was so much in him that was commendable, after all. He had the instincts to become all that Koel was and more.

  Koel did not fear being surpassed. If his successor made the Yennai Corporation more than it had been under his leadership, he had done well. It was what he had hoped for when he chose Ilia.

  Ilia would have chewed up Lotar and spat him out, but…

  Ilia was dead.

  For a moment, Koel felt the wave of blackness he had tried to suppress. He feared it was going to swallow him whole. His children had been his greatest pride and his greatest achievement, and now they were gone and he would never see them again. Never—

  He turned back to the window.

  He had to remain calm, especially in front of his officers.

  The planet grew larger on-screen. It gleamed red in the light from the nearby suns, and Koel shook his head. They had tried to hide from him. They had poked around in everyone’s business, cowing those who could not match them in force or technology, and finally they had made a misstep.

  They had taken on the Yennai Corporation.

  They would never appreciate the depths of their mistake. They would be dead, killed by their ambitions.

  Other species would see what had happened here, however, and they would know not to make an enemy of Koel. He gave a thin smile.

  “Begin targeting the cities,” he instructed. “We will fight the fleet, but first we will show them that they have nothing left to defend. That they failed utterly.”

  The officers nodded. Their fingers danced over the keys. The Jotun ships were coming into focus now, changing from pinpricks of light gleaming in the darkness to recognizable shapes.

  “Sir?” One of the officers scratched his head. “I’m having trouble locating the cities. They aren’t where they should be.”

  “Try a different scanning protocol.” Their commanding officer made a show of being involved, leaning over their chairs and pointing at the screens. “The volcanic eruption is throwing off your sensors. The city should be at…” He frowned.

  Every one of his team was silent now, staring at their screens.

  Koel felt a stab of worry.

  “What is it, officer?”

  “It’s…it’s the wrong planet.” The officer looked up, too horrified even to find a clever way to say it. “Again. They directed us to the wrong planet. Again. There’s nothing here.”

  On the bridge of the Shinigami, the crew burst into laughter. Gar held his side, Tafa leaned on one of the desks, and Jeltor’s powersuit shook with mirth.

  “They got the wrong data,” Shinigami gasped. “And they fell for it. Again.” She nodded to Tafa. “All accolades go to our resident artist, who really helped make this fake-out a thing of beauty.”

  “I am but a humble painter,” Tafa protested, but her eyes were dancing.

  “We should have one on every ship.” Barnabas looked at the screens as one of the sensors whistled. “Ah, yep, there they go. They’re arming everything.”

  Shinigami settled back in her seat with a grin. “Showtime.”

  26

  “Destroyers, engage.” Admiral Threton’s voice echoed over the fleet channel.

  Shinigami watched as the first wave of destroyers advanced. After extensive discussion, they had decided to have the ships engage in much the same way as they had before, not visibly adjusting their formations to account for cloaked Yennai ships.

  Behind the scenes, they would plan to head off the cloaked ships—but for as long as possible, they would not tip their hand that they had the means to see through
Yennai cloaking.

  The destroyers had locked onto their targets and were preparing missiles as the carriers disgorged fighters. At the head of the fleet, flying just over Admiral Threton’s ship, the Shinigami waited.

  “It’s coming,” Shinigami murmured to Barnabas. “Any moment now.”

  “I suppose we’ve overlooked an important possibility,” Barnabas said. He looked worried now. “What if he turns around and leaves? Just heads for a colony and—”

  “Nope.” Shinigami had cocked her head to the side as if listening to something only she could hear. When Barnabas frowned, she tapped at her ear. “I got a line onto their bridge. Koel is pissed, and he wants us all to die a fiery death. One second, informing the Jotun fleet of his orders.”

  The Yennai ships advanced quickly with their missiles armed.

  “He wants us all dead as quickly and painfully as possible.” Shinigami’s eyes narrowed. “He’s starting to break.”

  “What does that mean?” Barnabas asked as their ship banked and readied its own weapons.

  “I mean that before, Koel didn’t give a damn who he hurt. You know how some people hurt others because they like doing it? He wasn’t like that. He didn’t care about anyone else. He just did what he had to do to get what he wanted.”

  She shuddered. “I hate him,” she said quietly. “I even hate him for what he did to Uleq and Ilia. That doesn’t make sense, does it?”

  “I think it does,” Tafa said. She looked at Shinigami. “That’s what happens with people like Koel. They turn on everyone eventually, even their allies, and you wind up sympathizing with…murderers, slavers, torturers. But it’s the kind of sympathy that doesn’t mean anything. At the end of the day, anyone who throws their lot in with someone like Koel is dangerous.”

  Shinigami nodded. She turned back in her seat and aimed directly at the Avaris, holding the commands in her systems. She wanted to throw everything she had at Koel, tactics be damned. Try to crack my mind open, you bastard? Try to break me? ME? You’ll get more than you bargained for.