by Natalie Grey
“Yeah.” Shinigami nodded. “If this mission had been going another way, I wouldn’t even question it. The way this one is going, let me tell you, I checked to see if it was fake. I checked a lot. I found nothing. I’m still suspicious.”
“That’s wise.” Gar sounded weary. “There is no group of people as vicious as leaders who have something to hide. They’ll throw everything at you that they can and tell you that you can’t come after them because it will bring the whole organization down.” He was looking at Jeltor now. “They’ll tell you that showing how rotten and corrupt the Senate is, or the Navy, will make you a traitor to your people. They’ll say the best thing to do is quietly get rid of the people who did all those things and just let it be forgotten.”
“And what is the best thing to do?” Jeltor asked brokenly.
Gar sighed. “I don’t know. When this comes out, no matter if it was one rogue Naval captain or a whole Senate conspiracy, it’s going to do a lot of damage. But if you don’t expose it, how will people know how bad things were? Something enabled Huword to keep getting away with this. Some part of the system wasn’t working. You have to fix that.”
“And there’s the matter of Justice,” Barnabas added. “And truth. People deserve to know what happened to their families, and instead of things being done secretly and silently, they should be done openly. Pushing all this under the rug is a sign that things aren’t being done judiciously.”
“So are we going to talk to them?” Jeltor asked. “Whoever they are.”
“Most certainly.” Barnabas smiled. “Either they’ll be helpful in one way—because they’re on our side—or they’ll be helpful in another because we’ll know more about who’s trying to hush this up. Now, let’s do this in order. Shinigami, what are your guesses about what we’ll be facing?”
Shinigami brought up a spread of ships, formations, and companies.
“Here are the known types of ships in the Jotun Navy, plus the specs I was able to pick up from the black ops ship and the ship that tried to attack us near the Srisa. I’d say our best bet is to arrive far ahead of schedule, coming in cloaked. We can send a rendezvous message and then tell certain buoys and stations we pass to send pings from us at slower intervals than we’re going. If they’re tracking us via station data, they’ll think they have more time before we arrive, and we’ll get there during their setup phase.”
She looked very pleased with herself.
“Good plan,” Barnabas said. “Now for stress-testing. Let’s start with what happens in case of a physical ambush when we get off the ship, and then talk about what happens if they see through our cloaking...”
Biset’s tank was inserted into his suit and he wiggled his body, connecting with the various sensors and chemicals in the water. From here, he could touch certain controls and manipulate others with chemical inputs.
The process of creating the tanks had been fraught, and many Jotun had died trapped.
Much like what had happened to Huword. Biset shuddered delicately. That had been quite a loss. Huword had been the perfect agent, well-liked by everyone and willing to engage in any project without asking questions.
He’d killed a few of the captives, of course, but that sort of thing was to be expected. In any case, there were always more. Every species had those who left their safe inner planets and ventured to distant colonies.
They knew the risks.
The attunement to the biosuit was complete, and Biset strode out into the hallways of his ship. They were close and confining, with no windows. Windows were structural weaknesses, and Biset was always logical about such things. He would view his assets from the bridge on a viewscreen.
The images were already there when he arrived and took his place at the big command table. His bridge crew stood at attention, bobbing in their tanks in greeting as he went past.
On the screens was the last remnant of the Yennai fleet. Confiscated after their surrender, it had been locked away at once by the Navy, who claimed that their need to examine it was above that of the Senate.
But the Senate had Huword—or, at least, Biset’s committee did. They hadn’t asked him to steal it, only to provide its location and a way around the security measures. Biset had known that the time might come when he would need a fleet.
Now he was just glad that he had asked before Huword was killed.
His eyes narrowed as he stared at the fleet. It was impressive, yes, but even when Barnabas was dead, Biset would still not know which alien government had found out about the committee and killed Huword.
They were going to have to accelerate their schedule, and he did not like that—especially since the reports coming out of the facilities had changed lately. Once, they had been full of detail, and the scientists had enjoyed their work. Now the reports were flat and very basic. It was as if the workers there had entirely lost interest, even though they continued to hit their targets.
Biset would need to investigate that as soon as he was done with Barnabas. He turned his head to look at a nearby officer. “Where is the Shinigami now?”
“Several hours out, sir.” The officer spoke crisply. “We caught a ping from Gerris Station.”
“I thought he was at Gerris Station.”
“He left briefly, sir.”
“Find out where he went,” Biset ordered. “And find me the Srisa. I asked for its location two days ago.”
“Yes, sir.” The officer looked worried, but he knew better than to complain of an impossible task. Those in Biset’s service succeeded…or were killed.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Shinigami arrived four hours ahead of schedule, hurtling toward the out-of-the-way Jotun colony that had been specified by their contact. Even though it had several factories and a resort no one had bothered to name it, so it was still known by its star system and planetary number.
Barnabas had been on the bridge for a good hour before they arrived, pacing back and forth.
He had insisted on leaving Jeltor’s wife and children at a location that had functioned as a safe house of sorts for Rangers—back when this sector was the middle of nowhere, of course, but still territory they owned and protected.
He had wanted to leave Tafa as well, but she refused to go. “It’s my home,” she’d told him, almost offended. “You’re my friends. I’m not going to sit somewhere else twiddling my thumbs. Someone needs to fly the ship if you and Shinigami both go off to fight.”
Shinigami had only a limited processor in her body, and communicated Etherically with the ship, doing her “thinking” on board and simply sending the answers to the body, but Barnabas didn’t tell Tafa that. She was determined to stay and help, and he respected her more for not running from danger.
She got to the bridge closer to their arrival time, as did Shinigami and Gar. The two of them had been practicing sparring together, and the Jotun assassin still inspired Shinigami. She was already moving more smoothly and seemed more at home in her body, while Gar seemed to be learning more by being a teacher than a student.
Jeltor, who had been speaking with his wife over holo, came onto the bridge as the first view of the planet came up on the screens.
And between them and it were several ships.
Several Yennai ships.
“Well, there’s our answer,” Shinigami stated.
“It could be that they know about the meeting and are trying to block us from going to it,” Barnabas pointed out. He took a seat, his armor gleaming dully in the light. “Whatever the case, though, let’s give the people on Gokrun III a show, shall we?”
“Good plan.” Shinigami flipped her hair over her shoulder and crossed her legs. Under her control, the ship sped up slightly, and the missiles began to prime.
They were facing a standard destroyer formation, seven ships with three in a row in the middle, and two each on both the top and the bottom, making a hexagon. At any rate, that seemed to be the formation they were approaching, but they were still getting into
position.
“Look there.” Shinigami panned the viewscreen to show a tiny ship above the battle.
It was small, yes, but well-armed. Even though it did not have the same number of scars and scorch marks as the black ops ship—in fact, it was nearly pristine—it was clearly of the same make.
“How close can we get without them seeing us?” Barnabas asked Shinigami. “The person who’s orchestrating all this is on that ship, I know it.”
She nodded, agreeing with his assessment. “To be honest with you, I don’t know how close we can get. We can try. The question is, what are you going to do if we manage it?”
“Interrogate him,” Barnabas said promptly. “Them. Whoever they are. I suppose there might be more than one. The destroyers will have to come about, and they won’t want to fire on us if we’re close to that ship.”
“You’re making assumptions.” She considered the ships as they glided closer, still unseen. “I wonder how they’re flying those. They weren’t made for Jotun captains.”
“We can fly ships the normal way,” Jeltor pointed out. “The biosuits let us do that.”
They considered, and Shinigami looked at Barnabas. “Whoever this is, we’re not going to get a better opportunity to take the last of the Yennai fleet by surprise. We have the chance to take down seven destroyers right now. I say we do it—and before you ask why we must, just consider. We are going to have to fight them at some point.”
Barnabas’ mouth twitched. “I suppose you have a point. All right, then, let’s finish them off and hope our friend doesn’t get away while we do so.”
Shinigami gave a small, pleased smile.
“All right, these ships don’t have a forward and a back, but like every other ship I’ve known, they do have a top and a bottom. We’re going to take out the center bar of the formation first. They’re still very loosely aligned so we can do it quickly. If we’re lucky we’ll be able to take out the top two as well, but I don’t want to count on that.”
The Shinigami was already accelerating under the very bottom of the formation. Barnabas, who had nodded in acknowledgment of Shinigami’s plan, sat quietly with his fingertips lightly resting on the armrests of his chair. He could pretend to be relaxed, but, his whole body was tense.
He had not expected such a reaction. Normally, he was either angry when he faced an opponent, or he was coldly logical.
But the sight of this fleet brought back memories—memories of himself floating helplessly in space, and Shinigami trapped. Their helplessness had only been a ruse, a trap their enemies had fallen into headfirst, but for both, the memory was very real and very wrenching.
Shinigami must have noticed because he felt the brush of her mind against his—not words, but instead simply an expression of shared memory. When he glanced at her, for the first time, he felt he saw her, not just the amalgamation of Tabitha’s features and Bethany Anne’s. Her profile, the set of her jaw, and the slight press of her lips showed her determination.
When they started working together, they would never have trusted one another enough to pull off that mission. It had taken danger and victory alike to get them to that point, and Barnabas realized he was grateful for it.
He’d had love once and lost it. He’d had siblings, and lost them as well. He’d had more than one life, first as a human and then as one of the Nacht, and finally—for he did view joining Bethany Anne as a rebirth of sorts—his life as a Ranger.
Now he had this, a friendship he had never expected. He looked at Tafa and Gar, at Jeltor, at the ship itself, and felt a renewal of his purpose.
Tyrants and corrupt governments were always defeated. Always.
Shinigami brought the ship up around the “back” of the formation. Although the ships were made to go in either direction, their engines placed to vent out the top and bottom of the ship in a diagonal pattern, the crew would be focused on one set of viewscreens. Any visible flicker would not, God willing, be in their line of sight this way.
On the approach, Shinigami hesitated slightly. “Center?” she asked Barnabas. “Or edge-in?”
“Center,” Barnabas decided. “That way, if they spin out of control, they have more of a chance to hit something no matter which way they go.”
“When you’re mean, you’re mean.”
“People who abduct and torture civilians should not expect me to be nice to them.” Barnabas was unperturbed.
Shinigami laughed and accelerated, pressing all of them back against their seats. She saw Barnabas’ look, “All right, I know I could calibrate the gravitics so that wouldn’t happen, but it’s much more fun when you can feel how fast the ship’s going, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Barnabas gave a small smile. “It is.”
Shinigami waited until they were close. Three weapons were primed, and Barnabas saw that she was aiming for the engine vents. Normally in a battle, these would be protected, but the shielding was not in place yet, and the normal swarm of fighters had not yet deployed.
If she nailed these shots, she’d take three ships down in quick succession.
To Barnabas’ surprise, she paused for a moment and bowed her head before pressing the button. It seemed that she had become at home enough in her body to take pleasure in making a physical gesture to accompany her choice.
Were you…praying? he asked her.
To his surprise, she did not answer at once. I don’t know, she said finally. I was thinking about what I would do. Is that praying?
He looked at her. If you want it to be.
This was not the time for an in-depth discussion, but that was enough of an answer for her for now. She turned back to watch the missiles with a wry smile. Previously, I didn’t consider what would happen after I fired my missiles. Now I do. I think it’s your bad influence.
He could hear the teasing, but the serious sentiment behind it gladdened him. He had come into their partnership afraid of his own anger, and afraid to enact his own Justice. Shinigami had given him resolve. He, in turn, seemed to have given her a sense of the gravity of taking a life.
Both were necessary for true Justice.
The Shinigami’s cloaking now worked against Jotun ships, but even their algorithms were not enough to keep the missiles from being seen at the end. A storm of activity broke out; Shinigami’s scanners showed a burst of communications and the engines flared—
It was not enough. Two of the missiles hit dead on and, as the crew of the Shinigami held their breath, the chain reactions devoured the Yennai destroyers from the inside out. The engines blazed out of control, and the ships swung out of formation.
She had damaged the third, the engine ports a gaping hole, but the missile had not gone into the engines themselves.
“They’re crippled,” Barnabas told Shinigami. “Go for the other four first.”
Her quick nod told him that she’d made the same assessment. She dropped a scatter of missiles on the bottom two ships to make them wary of firing up at her and brought the Shinigami up in a smooth arc to shoot at the upper two.
An animal’s belly was vulnerable, an area they would always protect instinctively, and sentient beings tended to do the same with the bellies of their ships. The two destroyers above them swung out of formation in a panic, each trying to angle itself down to meet the Shinigami head-on.
She was faster than they were. Even as they pointed their noses at her, she was sliding under them, keeping them off-balance so that they must turn and orient themselves again.
Barnabas did not see what she was doing until she did so again, and he laughed. She had successfully maneuvered them so that the two upper destroyers were now between the Shinigami and the two lower destroyers.
Jeltor was laughing as well, having seen her strategy before Barnabas did. “I’d have done the same,” he called to her, “if I’d thought of it. I might not have.”
Shinigami gave him a grin in response.
This time, as the missiles finished priming, she sent a dense cloud o
f fire at the two sets of ships. Any that got past the two upper destroyers would, after all, have a chance of hitting the bottom two.
Barnabas turned his head to look for the ship that had hovered above the plain of battle. As far as he could tell, it was gone.
“It’s landing on the surface,” Shinigami told him. She had seen him look. She paused as her fingers danced over the controls and three missiles shot from the belly of the ship. “I marked its trajectory, and we’ll be paying them a visit when this is done.”
Barnabas nodded. He had wondered if that mysterious ship would help them—and if it were an ally, it would have. There would have been communication of some sort, perhaps, or material aid.
But nothing had come from it.
This had only ever been a trap.
Cleaning up the last of the destroyers didn’t take long. The Jotuns could fly ships without their tank interfaces, but they weren’t very good at it…and these weren’t the Naval captains, but operatives brought here by the Senate. They couldn’t match Shinigami for speed when it came to reactions, and they couldn’t enact their commands quickly enough in the unfamiliar ships.
The last ship tried gamely to bring them down, but even as it fired its full spread of missiles, the drifting wreckage of the other six ships got in its way. Its companion ship clipped it as it spun out of control and the missiles went wild. Between the debris and the Shinigami’s countermeasures, the battle was over almost before it began.
Barnabas sighed. He did not like fighting those who had no real chance for victory.
But they had chosen their path—and he had a new target now. On the surface of Gokrun III was the mysterious person who had orchestrated all this.
He was looking forward to meeting them.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Biset was in a fury as he strode out of his ship and into the underground bunker. Around him, robotic soldiers stirred to life, arming their weapons as they responded to his rage. He calmed himself. He could not hope to win this battle if he allowed his emotions to run away with him.
