by Natalie Grey
It happened in the blink of an eye. The assassin swung down, landing lightly and turning to aim at Barnabas, who only just managed not to fall off the ledge.
“Don’t try to get down,” she said. Her voice had been modulated to sound human now. “And tell me why I should believe you’re not a Senate spy.”
Barnabas started laughing. “If you’d seen my last few interactions with the Senate you wouldn’t be asking that.”
She did not laugh. “I have seen them—or heard about them, at least. I did a lot of research on you while I came here. You trapped me at this station. You locked the ships down. Why?”
“To keep you here,” Barnabas admitted. “I’m sorry for the delay, but we needed maintenance on our ship. While we were doing that, I realized maybe you weren’t working for the Senate. Of course, you have me at gunpoint still, so maybe I was wrong.”
He’d managed to strike the right note; she was deeply offended by that.
“I am not working for the Senate.”
Barnabas sighed. “Look, I appreciate that you’re trying to stay safe, but we should not talk about this here. Why don’t you come with me and hear me out? If you aren’t willing to do so on my ship, we’ll go wherever you choose. I’ll bring Jeltor if you want. Or, I suppose you could speak just with him—although I warn you, if you do to him what you did to Huword, I’ll hunt you down and do the same to you. Are we clear?”
She lowered the gun at last. “What’s Jeltor to you?”
“A friend.” Barnabas stared her down. “He was at my back when I needed help to take down the Yennai Corporation, which is something it seems like you should know, given who it was you assassinated.”
She stared at him for a long moment. “You’re right, we shouldn’t talk here. I’ll come back to your ship. Fair warning, though—if you try to get me out of this suit so you can deconstruct it or interrogate me, it will blow the whole damned station to dust.”
“Mmm.” Shinigami, fact check?
No idea, but you can bet I’ll be scanning the hell out of her when she comes aboard.
We probably want to do it before.
Hmm? Oh, I didn’t mean from a defensive standpoint. I want to learn how to make my body do that.
I should have known.
Barnabas led the way back through the station as quickly as he could. He didn’t think many people had heard their conversation, and there hadn’t been any violence in the station, but he still didn’t want to take the chance of someone overhearing them.
In the doorway of the Shinigami, the assassin hesitated, and it was this, oddly, that made Barnabas relax at last. She was genuinely worried he might be trying to trap her.
“Do you know what I am?” he asked her.
“A human.”
“No—well, yes—but I’m a Ranger. I seek out injustice, and I judge those who have perpetrated it. I defend the helpless.” He looked at her seriously. “I could not back anyone who allied themselves either with the Yennai Corporation, or corrupt politicians.”
She gave him a curious look, tilting her black-masked face to the side. Apparently, humans weren’t the only species that did that. Then she seemed to remember her caution. “Show me Jeltor.”
“I’m here.” Jeltor clanked around the corner. “I came on a cloaked ship, watching the scopes the whole way. I was sure the Senate had somehow found out what I knew… Well, what I suspect. I have no evidence.” He looked at her. “You do, though.”
She stepped into the ship and let the door slide closed behind her. “And what do you suspect?”
Jeltor had to force himself to speak. He did not yet trust her. “Huword betrayed the admirals to the Senate,” he said. “There’s no way to know how much else he’s told them. The charges are specific, and all of it is...” He shook his head. “I just want to know who found out. I don’t understand why all of us weren’t told.”
The assassin looked at them for a long moment.
“I’m only the messenger,” she said finally. “The story isn’t mine to tell—and truly, I shouldn’t even say what I’m about to say. But if you’re both what you claim, if you’re both willing to do what must be done, then maybe you should know.”
She paused for so long that Barnabas prompted her, “We should know what?”
“That was only the smallest part of what Huword did,” she said quietly. Barnabas saw a flash of memory in her head: dead bodies and smoking ruins—and then she activated the door, stepped out, and was gone into the bustle of Gerris Station.
“Yes?” The senator sounded annoyed.
“I have a trace on the Shinigami.” Norwun’s ship shot through space. He was pushing the limits of its engines, but he knew he couldn’t afford to slow. “It docked at Gerris Station not too long ago. I was following what I thought was its trail, heading toward one of the Federation border stations, but they must have done that to confuse any pursuit. There are reports of a lockdown at the station.”
“Good,” the senator said. “Tell me when it’s done—including the Srisa, and the assassin. I expect you to find the assassin.”
They ended the call, and Norwun tried to calm down. He’d do this, he told himself. Others had failed to apprehend Barnabas because they’d underestimated his abilities. Norwun would not make the same mistake.
He pulled up the schematics of Gerris Station and set to work.
He had no idea where to begin searching for the assassin. All he could hope was that Barnabas would—and that he’d bargain for his life with the information.
Chapter Fourteen
“I’m telling you we should go after her,” Shinigami argued again. She had brought her physical body into the conference room and had her arms crossed with impatience. She shook her head. “I don’t know why you won’t; it’s not exactly a weird suggestion.”
“She wanted us to find something,” Barnabas argued back. “She said it wasn’t hers to tell. And I know some of it, anyway. He killed a lot of people. I’d say he was a serial killer, but surely someone on his crew would have noticed that.”
“If he did something bad—”
“He paid for it,” Barnabas said flatly. “As far as she’s concerned, the matter is closed.”
“Yes, but it’s not closed.” Shinigami’s rising frustration was clear. “He helped people, and we know who he helped. It was those fuckers in the Senate. He helped them while they were signing their people over to Koel Yennai.”
“I know,” Barnabas agreed.
“They didn’t give a damn about their own citizens!”
“I know.”
“Then why aren’t you doing anything about it?” Shinigami exploded.
Once, this would have been the start of an argument between them, but they’d grown to know each other better now. Barnabas smiled at her.
“Shinigami, have you ever known me to stand by while injustice was done?”
“No.” Shinigami sounded annoyed. “So I don’t get why—”
“I’ve been debating the pros and cons of exposing the Jotun senators,” Barnabas interrupted. “You saw what happened on Earth when Bethany Anne—well, you’ll have heard about it, I imagine. The information was all there. People could see that their politicians were selfish and irresponsible, but the politicians lied through their teeth and some people bought it, then there were citizens arguing with one another about whether to forgive, and whether there was anything to forgive. If we go about this the wrong way, nothing changes.” He sighed. “And it’s not the Federation we’re throwing into chaos. It’s a government that isn’t even ours.”
Shinigami had fallen silent. Now she looked at Jeltor, whose biosuit was still as he listened to this.
“I can help,” Barnabas told him. “I will help. Whatever you ask me to do, Jeltor, I’ll trust your opinion. I can release the information we found about the bribes if you think it will do any good.”
Jeltor considered this. “You’re right to worry,” he admitted. “I’ve seen senators haule
d up for corruption charges before. They’re always guilty—it’s not like the charges are trumped up or anything—but the people who get charged are always just unlucky or out of favor with whoever’s in power at the time. It robs the charges of their legitimacy, even though they are legitimate. People say, ‘Well, everyone does it.’”
Barnabas nodded wearily. “Every species seems to do this. You know, I hoped that we’d get out here and other species would have the trick of forming ethical, workable governments. The more species we meet, however, the more I think corruption just goes hand in hand with sentience.”
Shinigami looked annoyed. “Everything we do, someone comes along and undoes it the next moment. Nothing ever stays fixed.”
“Nope.” Barnabas was laughing, shaking his head as he agreed with her. “Nothing ever stays fixed.”
“Then why are you laughing?” She came over to sit down and dropped her head onto her crossed arms. It was a delightfully theatrical gesture, and—as far as Barnabas could tell—something she hadn’t learned from Bethany Anne or Tabitha.
It fascinated him to watch her display new mannerisms, from a snarky and relatively young AI to someone who fiercely valued her friends and was willing to learn new ways of interacting. When they had started working together, Barnabas had still been of the opinion that AI sentience wasn’t true sentience.
He’d realized, over his time spent working with Shinigami, just how wrong he had been. Her thoughts and emotions were as real as his own.
So he tried to comfort her now. “There’s no point in being disappointed that things don’t stay fixed, any more than there’s a point in being disappointed that you have to keep weeding a garden or fix a house or a ship. God named us stewards, Shinigami, and stewards preserve what matters most to them. They tend to it.”
She picked her head up. “I suppose if you’re getting religious, you must be taking this at least a little bit seriously.”
Barnabas shrugged. He had never quite adhered to any religion on Earth, but he still found value in many ways of conceptualizing God and the world. After seeing some of the religious disagreements that unfolded on Earth, however, he did not speak of his faith except among close friends—and often, not even then.
“I am taking it seriously,” he assured her. “I simply want to make sure that, whatever I do, it actually brings Justice to these senators instead of them just getting off the hook.”
“And whatever they were doing,” Jeltor said, bringing it back around, “it sounds like Huword was caught up in it. I wish I knew who had him assassinated. I feel like if we could jump ahead to knowing what they know, we’d be able to make more progress.”
“Exactly!” Shinigami made a satisfied noise. “See?” she asked Barnabas. “I’m not the only one who thinks that.
“I know you’re not,” Barnabas said patiently, “but I think it’s important to go through the process. It’s not as if the assassin tossed a coin and decided not to tell us. She had a reason. We don’t know what it was yet.”
Shinigami was still grumbling when she perked up and turned her head as though she were listening. It was such a human gesture that Barnabas also looked around, trying to catch any faint sound she might have noticed. Then he realized that she was probably “hearing” through some of her other sensors.
“There’s a maintenance problem,” she said slowly. “Maybe? There are some people trapped in a room on the other side of the station.”
Barnabas and Jeltor looked at one another. Shinigami was still staring into space, frowning in concentration as she worked her way through the station reports like a human would. She didn’t waste processing power on emoting while she was thinking about other things.
“Something about—a new Jotun ship that docked.” She sat up straighter and looked right at Barnabas. “Not too long ago. And now there are people trapped in some chamber and station alerts are being sent.”
Barnabas was out of the room so fast he practically climbed over the table. He sprinted down the hallways to his rooms, unbuttoning his formal shirt and vest as he went, and got into his armor in record time before sprinting back out—only to immediately collide with Jeltor.
Jeltor made a surprised noise and Barnabas gave a muffled grunt of pain. Running high-speed into spiky metal hurt.
“Where are you going?” Jeltor asked.
“They’re here,” Barnabas said grimly. “The Senate sent someone, and I’ll be damned if I let this one self-destruct too.”
“I’m coming with you,” Jeltor stated at once. When Barnabas made for the airlock, he followed.
“No.” Barnabas shook his head. “There’s something more to this. We must be very careful. Here’s what I want you to do...”
In the control room of the Ur’talis, Norwun made a slight adjustment to one system and closed off another.
The station administrator was fighting back. He didn’t know what he was fighting against, of course, but he was running through all the diagnostic checks he could think of to get civilians out of that part of the station.
Norwun had chosen his location well, however. This part of the station had once been used to house diplomats and other high-value visitors, so it ran on different circuits than the rest of the station. That had been intended to save the diplomats if someone tried to destroy the entire station to get to them.
Now it would help Norwun keep his captives in place while he summoned Barnabas to play rescuer.
It was both a good and bad time to have tried this, he was finding out. Every ship at Gerris Station had been trapped here for days, which had wreaked havoc across the entire sector regarding travel and trade.
In a desperate bid to fix the problem, the administrator had deployed every maintenance worker he had to find the cause of the ship lock. He hadn’t found it, of course, but they were all a lot more knowledgeable about the station than they had been even a few days ago.
On the other hand, they were all tired and overworked, and Norwun was fairly sure he could keep them from breaking his hold on this part of the station—at least until he’d dealt with Barnabas.
The door opened behind him, and one of his team members came in.
“It’s done,” she told Norwun. Reqara was older than the rest of his team. Her body was a rare pink color and she was much smaller than most Jotuns, but it would be foolish to underestimate her because of her size as many did. She was competent and deadly, and she had learned the trick of behaving in a way that didn’t attract attention.
She was the one who had set up a special surprise for Barnabas. Now she came to stand by the control panels.
“How long will it be until he comes, do you think?”
“Not long,” Norwun predicted. “He can’t resist getting involved when there are innocent people to save.” He swiveled in his tank to look at her. “It doesn’t bother you, does it?”
“It would bother me if you did it any other way,” she said bluntly. “He’s dangerous. Better to set up a trap than try to face him ‘honorably’ and lose.” Her voice showed the depths of her contempt. “Like everyone else did.”
Norwun nodded and settled down to wait.
It wouldn’t be long. He could tell.
Biset’s biosuit stood motionless in the corner as he swam idly around his tank. At the edge of the tank there were a few small fish that were huddled among the plants, hoping he hadn’t noticed them. He would hunt them later; the thought made him shiver in anticipation.
Jotuns were more civilized now. They liked to wear biosuits and be fed via small particles in their tanks—and in most cases, this was good. Biset could hardly argue with the progress the Jotuns had made since they had perfected biosuit technology.
But it was good to remember what you were. The Jotuns weren’t simply aquatic creatures who had to use machines to give them strength. They were hunters.
Before he hunted, however, he had to make sure his operatives were on the right track. A set of video screens in his tank showed info
rmation from Gerris Station, where Norwun’s ship had recently docked.
Biset could admit he’d had doubts. Many otherwise-logical people of many species had underestimated Barnabas and wound up dead. They seemed to want to face him one-on-one in combat for some reason.
Their funeral, not his—until it came to this particular mission. Now he had a vested interest in making sure Norwun did things sensibly, and he was pleased to see that the operative was setting everything up just like he’d said he would.
Barnabas would be so distracted by the choice Norwun had given him that he would fall right into the trap before he had time to notice it was there.
And Biset would be the hero of the Senate. No one would know, of course; Biset could not afford to advertise that he was the one who’d ordered this. It was a pity. They’d all owe him favors if they knew.
They’d owe him, he thought, whether they realized it or not. He’d collect someday.
For now, he’d focus on what mattered: eliminating the threat.
Chapter Fifteen
A crowd of people had gathered near the entrance to the locked section of the station. Part of the group was, understandably, maintenance workers, station staff, police, and media. Barnabas had to duck under multiple sets of broadcast equipment, and, in one case, nearly ended up oversetting a food cart in his attempt to stay out of the shot.
Why are you bothering? Shinigami asked him. The media are such pricks.
In this case, there’s a reasonable public interest. If they want to endanger their lives to get a good backdrop for their story—and they don’t interfere with the rescue teams—I’m not going to stop them. It’s the rest of these clowns I want to strangle. Who hears that there’s a malfunction on a space station and goes there to check it out? Any reasonable person would go the other way.
