by Natalie Grey
Tagurn swallowed. He was pretty sure he knew where this was going.
“Normally, the person who took down this ship and this human could expect great renown,” the Torcellan continued. “They would be a hero—or whatever you people call someone who defends the group. Do mercenaries even have a word for that?”
The contempt was so sudden and so thick that even Crallus tensed.
“We are not animals,” the syndicate leader protested. “We defend our own. Why do you think the ships went to Devon in the first place?”
The Torcellan lifted an ambivalent shoulder. He seemed unconvinced of any higher motive beyond a propensity for violence.
“As I mentioned, such a one would ordinarily expect riches beyond their wildest dreams. Fame. That one could expect to be honored. But you can expect much more, Tagurn. Much more even than that.”
Tagurn frowned.
“You,” the Torcellan told him, “can expect to be forgiven.” There was a silence. “Do you not understand? That is how completely you have failed. The kind of extraordinary deed that would normally bring you wealth, fame, and a fleet of your own—all of that is needed simply to bring you back to zero.”
Tagurn’s heart almost stopped.
“And yet you will be permitted to redeem yourself,” the Torcellan continued beatifically. “Is this not wonderful news?”
Before a week ago I didn’t even know you existed, Tagurn wanted to say. Crallus doesn’t seem to know what you’re going for. Why the hell should I care whether you think I’ve redeemed myself?
He did not say it. Something in the Torcellan’s tone and in the way he had come in here and simply expected Crallus’ obedience hinted at larger events in play. Events Tagurn could not comprehend.
He had spent years as a mercenary, fighting for people who wanted to take anything they laid their eyes on. Those people wanted to be feared, but Tagurn hadn’t feared them. Without mercenaries on their side they were nothing.
For the first time though, he had the sense that the universe was larger than he knew. That there were people he had never heard of who cared about what he did, and who could crush him like a bug if he displeased them.
It terrified him.
“May I go get Fedden?” he asked.
The Torcellan sank back in his seat with a faint air of disappointment, but Crallus nodded.
“Go. Get him. Find the Shinigami and kill the human.”
“There will need to be proof,” the Torcellan murmured. “And the ship, itself, Tagurn. Do not forget to bring that back. There is something aboard that we need.”
“What?” Tagurn could not keep himself from asking.
“One of their AIs. We have not yet managed to capture one. Once it is ours… Well, it is of no consequence to you. Go. Redeem yourself.” The Torcellan nodded to Crallus. “We have come across some information that will help you find allies. The human killed two Luvendi—Venfirdri Lan and Venfaldri Gar. Proof of this may help you. You see, we are not cruel. We are giving you a chance to succeed.”
Venfaldri Gar? No. It couldn’t be.
But there was no mistaking it.
No. Oh, no. They were so fucking screwed.
“One other thing,” the Torcellan added. His voice was pleasant, but it somehow also turned Tagurn’s blood to ice. “We have several other individuals now searching for the ship and its captain. You will only be absolved if you find it first.”
Tagurn managed to keep his face straight as he ducked his head and hurried out of the room, but as soon as he was in the corridor he ran as if he were being chased by a pack of bloodthirsty ekthoya.
He practically skidded into the brig, to find that Fedden was already being released. The other Shrillexian bared his teeth at Tagurn. “Get out of my sight.”
“We have to leave. Right now.” Tagurn shook his head, and when Fedden only glared at him he grabbed his captain by the arm and dragged him into a corner. “I’ll explain what I did later, and if you still want to kill me you’re welcome to try. But right now we have to get out of here. You will die if you don’t. Every second we’re here is a risk.”
Fedden didn’t look any friendlier, but whatever he saw in Tagurn’s face, he didn’t argue.
They strode through the halls with the back of Tagurn’s neck prickling. Every fiber of his being was consumed with the desperate hope that they could kill the human and rectify their mistake.
Before that damned Torcellan learned that they’d had two chances at the Shinigami and missed them both.
12
At least once every day when he thought no one was looking, Barnabas snuck away to a corner of the ship to sit quietly by himself.
Shinigami tried not to interrupt him when he did this. It was such a quintessentially human thing to do, to forget that she was an AI and was omnipresent on this ship. There were no private places.
At first, she had been fascinated. What was he doing? She analyzed his vital signs and found that his heartbeat slowed and his breathing became deep and even. He was not sleeping, however. His brain activity was off the charts. Some days it seemed to be pure thought, and other days a tangle of emotion so bright that Shinigami was surprised he wasn’t laughing hysterically—or smashing the ship to pieces with his bare hands.
Later, she decided that simply not announcing her presence wasn’t enough. She would turn off her cameras whenever he went to be alone, and she would wait until he moved somewhere else in the ship to turn them back on.
Now, however, she was fairly sure she needed to disturb him. She knew where he was—in a small alcove in one of the corridors, where a window showed the vast blackness outside. Today there was a particularly pretty cluster of stars visible from that window, one bluish and one a reddish-orange color.
“Barnabas?” She projected her voice out of a speaker a little way down the corridor.
The sensors there recorded him moving around and then he came around the curve of the corridor curiously. “Shinigami?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” Shinigami apologized. “It’s about the server data from the syndicate.”
Barnabas frowned. “Why did you not speak directly to me where I was?”
Shinigami hesitated. She had so much data on human minds, but much of it was contradictory or illogical or both. She had no idea how Barnabas was going to respond to the truth. However…
“When you come down here to sit alone, I turn off my cameras and speakers so you have privacy.”
There was a pause. Barnabas said nothing for a long moment. By the standards of how fast both he and Shinigami thought, a very long moment.
“Thank you,” he murmured at last.
Shinigami was surprised by the depth of emotion in his voice. She looked for the signs of anger and found them deep below, as always, but the anger did not seem to be directed at her. There was also a hint of strain in his features that conveyed sadness.
She wanted to ask him what he had been thinking about, but was not sure she should. After all, he could have spoken to her if he had wanted to do so. Instead, he had gone to be alone.
“What did you want to tell me?” he asked finally. His face had cleared. Whatever his turmoil was, he had set it aside for now.
“The crawler found its way into their communications hub and managed to get the data out to us. What I’m looking at suggests this is a much bigger operation than we thought.”
“I’ll come up to the conference room.”
Barnabas made his way through the corridors quickly. “Start at the beginning. You said ‘suggests?’”
“It’s a fairly standard set-up for mercenary groups. They’re pretty independent, and they give a cut of their take to the syndicate leader. In this case, it’s a Shrillexian named Crallus. It’s very decentralized. They have the base here, and a larger one in a different system.”
“Should we head there?”
“Not right now. The syndicate leader was there when you met with Fedden.”
�
�Fedden shot him. It’s why we left so quickly. Is he still alive?”
“I haven’t seen any communications that would suggest otherwise.” Shinigami paused and Barnabas imagined her shrugging. “In any case, the other hideout is well-defended in terms of automated defenses, but it’s not the main stopping point for any of their ships. We could smash it, but it wouldn’t do us much good.”
“Shinigami, you’re telling me that there is a large base that we could expend significant time and effort smashing to smithereens, with a lot of—what was it you called them?”
“Pretty explosions!”
“Yes. Pretty explosions.” Barnabas, who had always thought ‘pretty’ was supposed to refer to women, flowers, and unicorns, tried to keep his face straight. “In any case, now you’re advocating that we do not do this? I think that might be personal growth.”
“I said not right now. If at some point our path takes us through that system and you want to make a little detour and have some fun? I wouldn’t complain.”
“Add a bottle of wine and a movie and you have a nice evening,” Barnabas commented.
“You and Stephen must have very similar taste in women.” Shinigami waited for the laughter and was surprised instead to see a sad expression cross Barnabas’ face. On a hunch, she switched to a scan and saw an echo, very faint, of the turmoil she had seen in him when they first began talking.
She had a memory of mentioning Sarah to him, and she suddenly remembered the story Tabitha had told her about Barnabas’ past—a story the irreverent, terminally sarcastic Tabitha had told very solemnly.
The expression was gone in an instant, however, and she had the sense that Barnabas didn’t want to speak of it.
She switched the subject instead. “There’s not much at the base. Crallus only goes there sometimes. It was really set up by the person he took over from. Hard to tell who that was since he didn’t do much in the way of his own paperwork. Real old-school robber-baron.”
Barnabas grimaced. “And Crallus was his protégé?”
“It’s not something that shows up in any of their documentation, but let’s just say that Crallus took over very suddenly.”
“Ah, the other kind of transfer of power, then.” Barnabas smiled tightly. He didn’t feel particularly sorry for Crallus’ predecessor. Mercenary syndicates were almost stereotypical in their propensity for this sort of thing. It was just what happened when you got a lot of people in one place who all made their living by killing for money. Of the people who ran mercenary groups, not very many ended up dying of old age.
“Pretty much,” Shinigami agreed. “He isn’t super-important, except that he got the group hooked into something called ‘the Yennai Corporation.’”
Barnabas let his eyes drift closed for a moment. He already knew what Shinigami was going to say, or at least, the rough shape of it. He’d seen enough of the universe to know that much.
“Let me guess. The Yennai Corporation isn’t part of any particular industry. Its tendrils are hooked into almost anything you can think of.”
“That’s about the size of it. So far I’ve tracked mentions of them to legal, semi-legal, and illegal weapons and drug trafficking, transport—that would be cargo and people—a few mercenary syndicates like this one, banking, some information brokers, agriculture, mining, station parts manufacturing, pharmaceuticals—”
“I’m going to stop you for a moment.” Barnabas held up a hand. “Would it just be quicker to say that pretty much wherever we go and whoever we interact with, we can assume word might get back to them?”
“Yes, probably. I was just impressed by how successful they had been so far.”
“Corporations like this tend to be.” Barnabas shook his head and began to scroll through the information on the screens. “Like Crallus’ organization, it’s organic. They allow the syndicates a lot of leeway. They don’t waste resources overseeing after they give the initial cash infusion. They just let the cut trickle up to them, along with any information these people are able to provide. When things get going, that means they know all the emerging markets and also have a very good idea of where threats might emerge.”
Shinigami considered this. “I’m going to hazard a guess that we count as threats.”
“Your analytical algorithms really are top-notch.”
“Sarcasm? Really? When I just found us all this information?”
“That wasn’t very sporting of me. I apologize.” Barnabas paused at one and sighed. “So, the bankers I spoke with on Virtue Station?”
“Ah, yes. Yennai has contacts in all those banks, as well as the company that provides security for the station and the company that built the station in the first place. I’d say someone from there has probably already read a brief about what went down while we were there. In fact, now that I think of it, it’s probably why Mustafee Boreir disappeared.”
Barnabas sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “And we weren’t cloaking who we were when we went there, either.”
“No, we weren’t.” Shinigami sounded cautious. “Should I have?”
“I didn’t ask you to.” He sat on the edge of one of the tables and stared into the middle distance. “Well, this might get interesting.”
“Explain.”
Barnabas cleared his throat as he considered. “When we started this quest I thought we were tracking down the dregs of the corporation Bethany Anne bought out—a few disaffected employees, that sort of thing. That was what we had with Lan. Then I figured, well, the mercenary groups that were on the planet probably tended to look for planets like that. I thought we would just organically track our way through various groups who would have known about High Tortuga and might have had a grudge. After all, you did all that good research on people who might have.”
Shinigami was quietly pleased. Barnabas did not give praise unless he thought it was merited. However, she saw that Barnabas now looked troubled. He pushed himself up and began to pace, running his hands through his hair again. “I don’t like hiding. I don’t like skulking around and giving fake names unless there’s a very specific purpose to it, like with Fedden. If my reputation precedes me, all the better.”
At last Shinigami understood. “But now we’ve pissed off someone we might not be able to take on by ourselves.”
Barnabas nodded. He crossed his arms and looked at the screens.
“Well, then maybe we consider this to be a good and very specific reason to sneak around,” Shinigami suggested after a moment.
“Mmm.” Barnabas still didn’t seem entirely pleased by this, in her opinion.
“I mean, it’s not completely bad,” she told him. “We found a gigantic corporation with hundreds of shadowy tentacles all over known space. We’re pretty outmatched.”
“I think your language couplings might be experiencing a malfunction. Or your reasoning modules.” Barnabas frowned at one of the cameras. “Other than the fact that we know their name, it is completely bad.”
A sniff came from the speaker closest to Barnabas. “I don’t think so. Hell, you shouldn’t think so, either.”
Barnabas allowed a smile to slip out. He figured this was probably a joke, but he was enjoying Shinigami’s sense of humor. “Would you care to explain?” he asked with exaggerated courtesy. He sat in one of the chairs and nodded for her to continue.
“We haven’t known each other for very long,” Shinigami began hesitantly, “so I might be way off on this as a personal assessment. However, there are a couple of things I’ve noticed about you. First, of the seven deadly sins, yours would be pride.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me. And second, you really like being sneaky.”
Barnabas raised an eyebrow at the camera. “I assume there’s a point to all this?”
“Oh, there is, and it’s this: we’re up against someone who can call on overwhelming force and might just do so if you piss them off enough. They’ve got virtually unlimited resources at their disposal. How
satisfying would it be to set up a series of traps that result in you razing this company to the ground? They’ll never in a million years imagine that one human in one ship could do that.”
Barnabas sat very still.
“You don’t want to admit I’m right,” Shinigami gloated. “But you would just love that. One man taking down this whole rotten corporation. Of course, it would be impossible without his partner in crime, the Dread Ship Shinigami.”
Barnabas’ lips quirked, but he went to the heart of the matter rather than tease her about the name. “We don’t know it’s all rotten. We should really do our due diligence—”
“Oh, come on, we totally know.”
“Yes, we do. All right, I admit it. You’re right. About all of it. Don’t tell anyone.”
“That you’re proud of your sneakiness? Everyone knows.”
“We’ll get back to that. After I’ve taken down the Yennai Corporation. In the meantime, I suggest we— What was that?” There was a beeping noise from the speakers.
“Someone’s shooting at us,” Shinigami reported. “They all just appeared out of nowhere.”
“All?”
“There are four of them. Wait, five. No… Look, there are a lot of them, okay? Get to the bridge and I’ll start evasive maneuvers. And tell Gar to strap in. We might have to do some barrel rolls.”
13
Ergix Koyissa Get’ruz III, captain of the YCS Get’ruz, checked the position of the other ships in the formation and gave a decisive nod.
“Begin the standard capture sequence and broadcast a message across all Yennai channels to stay out of our way.”
He had started Get’ruz Shipping decades ago using the money he’d made after hijacking a cargo vessel full of nutritional algae and selling the cargo. The ship and crew he had used to start his own fleet of cargo vessels.
His philosophy was very simple. Shipping was dangerous, and unprotected ships were liable to be stolen—by him. Anyone who worked for him could take any ship they wanted, after which they were responsible for maintenance, cargo contracts, and security to keep it from getting stolen again. In return, they got to distribute the goods and keep whatever profits they could.
