Sentinel

by Natalie Grey

  Which his foremen were unwilling to meet, it appeared. It was a good thing he was here.

  “Let me make something very clear.” He leaned toward the screen slightly and smiled icily at the foreman. “We will be meeting the production targets and shipping on time. Those munitions will meet quality standards. If either of those things does not happen I will hold the relevant foremen personally responsible.” He tapped a channel on his wrist holo and met the foreman’s eyes as he spoke into it. “Ector, go and retrieve the families of every foreman in the factories. Bring them to the lower levels.” He smiled at the foreman, whose face had drained of blood. “Consider this motivation. You will—”

  He stopped. The call had cut off and there was a blade against his throat. When he looked up slowly, he found himself staring into a pair of glowing red eyes.

  “Rescind the order.” The voice was like something out of a nightmare. Blood stained the teeth and dripped down the creature’s chin. Who was this? Pale-skinned like a Torcellan, with white-blond hair, and yet…

  Mustafee reacted without even thinking about it. His hand tapped the wrist unit once more. “Ector, hold on that for now.”

  “Yes, sir,” the voice came back.

  “Good.” The creature had changed its voice and withdrew the knife. It no longer forced itself like a nightmare into Mustafee’s very thoughts.

  It was no less terrifying, though.

  “Now,” the alien told him, “you and I will discuss your judgment.”

  Mustafee did the only thing he could think of. He drew in his breath, slammed his hand down on the panic button on his desk, and screamed at the top of his lungs for the guards.

  21

  Klaxons went off with a wail and Barnabas took a moment to sigh. He did the stupid thing, he complained to Shinigami.

  He’s used to having an army to save his ass. Of course he did the stupid thing.

  Good point. I don’t know why I was even hoping he’d handle this on his own.

  Luckily I intercepted the second signal he tried to send. He’s locked out of his panic room. Man, the look on his face is great right now.

  Barnabas turned his head toward the door, where he could hear the pounding of boots from the second guard barracks, and then looked back at Mustafee, who was flailing uselessly at the panic room button as if the eighty-third time would be lucky.

  Barnabas drew his Jean Dukes Specials. “When I have dealt with this, you and I are going to have a chat.”

  Mustafee’s response—whatever it might have been—was lost as the door burst open and a team of guards poured into the room.

  “Don’t move!” their commander yelled. “Hands away from your weapons!”

  “No,” Barnabas stated simply.

  The guards paused and looked at one another.

  “What?” the commander asked. He was a Brakalon, and so large that he barely fit into his uniform.

  “I said no,” Barnabas repeated. “I will have to decline your request. You see, I am here to judge Mr. Boreir according to the laws I serve and I cannot let anyone stand in the way of that, including you.”

  Shinigami snickered throughout the exchange. No one must have ever talked back to him. He looks like a fish. Open mouth, close mouth, open mouth, close mouth, open mouth… Oh, here we go—he’s come up with something to say.

  “Hands away from your weapons!” the Brakalon demanded again, as though saying it a second time was going to make a difference. “Don’t move!”

  Barnabas and Shinigami sighed in unison.

  The guard commander was summarily blown backward across the small room, his body hitting the back wall with a crunch.

  Ew, Shinigami commented as Barnabas leapt to one side of the group. Let’s not do that anymore.

  No, let’s. I personally like this ammo. Barnabas spun and his hand flashed, crushing the side of one guard’s skull as his foot came up to slam into another’s chest. The first guard crumpled and the second staggered back into the crowd of his friends, most of whom shot out of pure instinct and riddled the guard’s body with holes. Unbelievable. A munitions dealer’s personal guard and their first instinct is to shoot when they get nervous?

  Yeah, you’d really think they would have whittled their numbers down by now. Heads up, one of them has a grenade launcher.

  They wouldn’t be stupid enough to—

  Did you not see what just happened? They totally would.

  Good point. Barnabas picked up Mustafee’s hardwood-and-metal desk and launched it at a guard who was fumbling with a grenade. There was a series of yells and a boom as Barnabas ducked behind Mustafee’s chair.

  He went to examine the fallout as the guards who were still alive struggled to get up. Their hands were over their ears, and most of them still weren’t able to focus. Without Barnabas’ various upgrades, he figured he would have been in a similar situation.

  Thankfully, the desk had absorbed the majority of the impact. Only a few pieces had broken off, and behind it…

  Eewwwwww.

  Okay, this one I’ll give you.

  Barnabas looked around and counted. Only three of the original sixteen guards were still anywhere close to mobile. He knelt by the first.

  “How have you served Mr. Boreir?” he asked.

  Images unfolded in his mind. The guard was new. He had signed on over his parents’ objections, wanting to move out of the factories. He had only meant to work on the launch pads, but instead he’d been placed here. He was terrified of Mustafee, but until a day ago he’d never even seen his employer.

  Barnabas levered him up and went to the door. “Go,” he told the youth. “Go back to your parents right now. In the next few days, you will all have the chance to leave this place with the money to get started someplace else. Do so. Make better choices, and pick those you serve more carefully.”

  The guard ran and Barnabas turned back to the others.

  They were not new; he could sense that at once. They were staring after their former comrade and there was murder in their hearts. Only one of them was able to stand, but both of them had their weapons ready.

  Barnabas drew his pistols once more and both bodies fell to the ground with the echoes of the shots fading around them.

  Mustafee cowered in his chair.

  “You know why there aren’t any other guards coming,” Barnabas asked conversationally. “Don’t you?”

  Mustafee stared at him, wide-eyed.

  “It’s because I killed them all,” Barnabas explained. Not very bright, is he?

  He’s never had to be. This company was handed to him. According to the records I can find, all he had to do was be meaner than his older sister and he was the one who inherited. Then he killed her.

  Charming.

  Barnabas holstered his pistols, carefully stood one of the other chairs upright, and sat, staring gravely at Mustafee.

  “You have a talent for cruelty,” he observed.

  Mustafee came to life at this. “Easy for you to judge. You didn’t have everyone waiting for you to fuck up because you were just the grandson. You didn’t have everyone else saying you only got the company because of your bloodline.”

  “You did only get the company because of your bloodline,” Barnabas snapped. “And none of what you’ve just said is any justification for the things you’ve done. Even the thing I saw you do when I came in.”

  “What do you know?” Mustafee’s hands, with the distinctive Yofu double-thumbs, were clenched. He was practically snarling at Barnabas, though the set of his eyes and his frail build told Barnabas that Yofus had evolved from prey, not predators.

  Perhaps Mustafee’s family had been desperate to position themselves as worthy opponents so they would not be slaughtered out of hand.

  Then again, none of that even began to excuse the things they had done.

  “I know a great deal,” Barnabas told him. “I know that your family began this company with money your grandfather stole, for example.”

&nbs
p; Mustafee settled back in his chair with a surly expression. He knew he could not fight his way out of this—Barnabas could sense that—and all that was left was impotent fury and a childish desire to make sure Barnabas got no satisfaction from this.

  Barnabas watched the Yofu’s hand creep closer to the communications device on his wrist. Shinigami, he’s going to try to make a call. Figure out where it’s going and I’ll decide whether to let it go through.

  Why would you let it go through?

  If it’s to the Yennai Corporation… Well, let’s just say I might be feeling a little vengeful.

  Right. I’ll intercept it.

  Barely a moment had passed in the conversation and Barnabas smiled coldly at Mustafee. “I know that your mother proved herself early as a very capable successor in finding new clients. I know she did not care in the least who she sold to. She supplied munitions to some of the worst companies in known space. She helped warlords subdue their people. She helped slave-owners put down rebellions. Your grandfather doesn’t appear to have objected.”

  Mustafee looked away pointedly.

  “Nothing to say to that? You could argue, I suppose, that your mother pitted you and your sister against one another—that it was kill or be killed—but you and I both know that’s not true, don’t we?”

  “How do you know?” Mustafee hissed at him.

  “From your thoughts. I know you were proud to be her successor. You wanted to outdo her. You thought the Boreir Group could do even more than she had done.”

  Mustafee looked back at Barnabas, wide-eyed.

  It’s just a general distress signal.

  Then shut it down. Start analyzing the past few months’ worth of reports and begin preparing similar ones for the future. Also, prepare some communications to go to Yennai Headquarters that will string them along for a few months when the munitions don’t show up.

  Already working on it. I’ve already got an issue with obtaining ore, an equipment issue, and an outbreak of syphilis.

  Syphilis?

  That one was just funny. I’ll make it something a bit more serious.

  Do.

  Barnabas returned to his discussion with Mustafee.

  “You have never hesitated to kill to make a point,” Barnabas intoned, “but the people you killed were innocent bystanders. You’ve never had so much as an ounce of regret for the ones who were killed by your munitions.”

  “War is a constant.” Mustafee scoffed. “Don’t tell me you’re some bleeding-heart who thinks it never happens.”

  “I don’t see why you’d think that when I just single-handedly killed the majority of your guards.” Barnabas raised an eyebrow. “And, as it happens, I am not ‘some bleeding-heart.’ I, however, know the cost of war. I know that it is only to be waged when there is a very great need. There have been times in my life when the need was great enough. You simply wanted to profit from death, however. I judge you, Mustafee Boreir. I judge you worthy of death, and I levy the punishment myself.”

  He waited for any last words, and Mustafee’s face slowly changed as he realized this was real.

  “Fuck you,” the Yofu whispered.

  Barnabas shot him and holstered his pistol as the body fell. I dislike endings like that. No self-reflection. No regret.

  If anything, that should make you feel better about the whole thing. If that didn’t give him cause to change, nothing was going to.

  That’s…a very good point. All right, I’m going to clean up here and make sure there are no more—

  You need to come back to the ship, Shinigami interrupted.

  Why? What’s wrong? Is Gar—

  No. You have a message from Fedden and you should take it. We’re going to want to leave immediately. I’ll lock down the main headquarters building and we’ll come up with some story, but get back here.

  Barnabas had never heard her take that tone before. He took off without a backward glance, racing through the corridors toward the landing bay.

  22

  When Barnabas finally accepted the call, Fedden blinked in surprise. There were two humans aboard the ship, apparently. Barnabas sat in the central chair, and beside him was a woman with black hair and hard eyes. As Fedden watched, she tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear and narrowed those eyes at him.

  Who was she? She must be the one who had answered the call.

  It didn’t matter. One more person on the Shinigami wasn’t an issue.

  On Barnabas’ other side was Gar. His striking blue-green eyes were solemn. Fedden looked at him for only a moment. He tended to ignore Luvendi unless they were the ones with the money, and he now knew that Gar wasn’t in charge. Luvendi who were in charge were only barely worth paying attention to. They were hardly a threat, being both weak and cowardly in his experience.

  Gar would die for deceiving him. He merited no further thought.

  “Barnabas.” Fedden smiled. “You took your time.”

  “I was otherwise engaged.” Barnabas’ face didn’t flicker at all. “My associate has informed me of your present location.”

  They shouldn’t have been able to trace the call. Fedden felt the first stirrings of alarm. “I assure you she’s incorrect.”

  “You’re on the planet Banton,” the woman told him without preamble. “Or rather, orbiting it geosynchronously over the southern hemisphere. From there I think it’s safe to say that rather than finding some buried treasure you want to tell us about, you’re ready to drop in on the only major settlement there.”

  Fedden only just kept himself from swallowing nervously. How did she know all this? He glanced at the other captains and returned his gaze to the figures on the screen.

  “You can try to play it cool, but it’s really the only thing that makes sense,” the woman stated. She looked both bored and annoyed. “The colony has almost nothing. It’s just a few farms, and they’re on bad soil. There aren’t any ore deposits or other notable items that you could make a profit from, so that means the only real resource they have is the people. And you know from our last mission that one of the things that pisses Barnabas off the most is slavery.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Fedden wasn’t inclined to play this game anymore. Every moment it continued she was getting closer to taking control of this conversation and embarrassing him.

  At his question, however, she just smiled. “I’m the one who took out the three ships you sent. And the next seven.”

  So she was the pilot. That would explain why there weren’t stories of two humans on Devon. She was a damned good pilot, too, if she was the one who had taken out all those ships. It was a shame she was so aggravating; so proud of what she’d done. Otherwise, Fedden would offer her a job.

  As things stood now she would have to die.

  She didn’t understand how he fit into all this either. He smiled back at her. “So you took out the corporation’s favorite pets. I don’t really care.”

  Barnabas interjected. “You do not care at all that your allies have been killed?”

  “Allies.” Fedden gave a bitter smile. “The ships you took out over Devon—”

  “High Tortuga,” Barnabas interrupted.

  “You do not own that planet!” Fedden slammed his hand down on the arm of his chair. “You cannot simply come in there and demand that everything change.”

  “But we did.” Barnabas was smiling now. “That was exactly what we did. We are creating a world in which people like you cannot thrive. You have a choice, Fedden. You can learn to make a living that doesn’t hinge on people being enslaved or killed, or you can die.”

  “You have a choice.” Fedden didn’t like the way he sounded—petulant and childish. He had to be stronger. The calm way Barnabas and his pilot were speaking made him sound like a fool, and his fellow captains could not see him that way. “You get out of everyone’s business or you make enemies you can’t handle.”

  Barnabas paused at that. “I would caution you against making this into an issue that require
s more than my attention. You do not want to become a big enough problem that the woman I serve gets involved. Trust me.”

  The woman next to him laughed.

  Fedden felt a surge of rage. “Leave Devon,” he told him curtly. “Drop any claim to the planet. You have no right to it. You serve nothing but a dictator’s whims.”

  Barnabas’ eyes began to glow red and his voice was eerily serene. “I pride myself on my restraint, but what that means is that I give one chance. You have used yours. Stand down.”

  Finally, he had gotten under the human’s thin, useless skin. Fedden smiled in satisfaction. “Stand down? It is you who should stand down. We are here above the planet. You cannot possibly reach us before we capture the citizens and sell them. Their fate is in your hands. We will give you a quarter of an hour to release a public statement that Devon will be freed.”

  “Freed,” Barnabas repeated. His eyes had not stopped glowing. “What an interesting choice of words.”

  He closed the call and Fedden, despite himself, felt the tiniest flicker of worry.

  “We finally got a location trace,” Tagurn reported. “They were on…” His brow furrowed. “They were on Mustafee Boreir’s planet.”

  The flicker of worry intensified. Boreir’s shield was legendary. How had they gotten there? And what had Barnabas meant by “I was otherwise engaged?”

  “Then there’s no way they’ll reach us in time.” Fedden laughed dismissively. It was important to project calm. “Give it fifteen minutes and begin the operation.”

  Carter was awoken in the early morning by Aebura tugging on his shirt. “Carter—Carter Eastbourne. The mercenaries are here.”

  Carter rubbed his eyes and wished for coffee, then sat bolt upright. “I’ll be there in a second.”

  He grabbed his shoes and hopped out into the morning light, struggling to get his socks on as he went and holding his coat in his teeth. It was not, he reflected as he managed to get one sock on but fell over in the process, a very effective time-saving technique.