by Natalie Grey
“I do want to fight,” she insisted fiercely.
He smiled at her. Privately, he wasn’t sure that Tafa would ever be a warrior, but he approved wholeheartedly of her reasons for this change.
In the med bay, Shinigami was waiting. She was already in her armor for the mission, but she had covered it with a white lab coat and had her hair pulled back neatly. She somehow radiated quiet confidence as she helped Tafa into the Pod-doc. Beside her, Gar was clearly worried, but Shinigami must have told him to keep a lid on it because he wasn’t allowing himself to worry out loud.
“I’m going to close the top,” Shinigami said, “but we’ll all be here. If you don’t like it in there, we can open the Pod-doc right back up, okay? But you’ll probably fall asleep at once. You might dream, but it’s more likely that you’ll just wake up when you’re ready to be taken out, okay?”
“And you’ll be here if so?” Tafa looked worried again. “Even if the mission runs long—”
“If the mission runs long, we can get a Pod back up here within a minute or two,” Barnabas assured Tafa. “And, remember, Shinigami is the ship. She can open the lid for you.”
“Oh! Right.” Tafa nodded. She gave Gar a tremulous smile and lay back as Shinigami closed the lid.
Not even two seconds later Shinigami reported, “She’s out cold.”
Gar let out a breath. “I don’t know why this is so scary for me. I did this, and it was fine.”
“It’s always harder to watch someone else do it,” Shinigami said with a surprisingly human dose of wisdom. “Come on now, get your armor on. We have to meet Vidrelor and the team at the city gates. He absolutely will leave without us, and you know he wants to.”
“He doesn’t trust us.” Gilwar had appeared in the door. “I suppose he’s right not to, at least in my case. I thought I might stay behind on the ship to make sure Grisor doesn’t escape.”
“There’s no need for that,” Barnabas replied easily. “We have a contingency plan.”
“Oh, yeah.” Shinigami smiled as she took off the white lab coat. “The second it looks like he might actually get out? We’re ejecting that pod.”
Gilwar gave a surprised chuckle. “Well, then. In that case, I’ll probably stay in the capital city.”
“Why are you so determined not to come?” Barnabas asked suspiciously.
“Well, you have Ferqar as a resource on Jotun technology, so you don’t need me, and…well, I don’t trust myself not to snoop if I’m in that bunker.” Gilwar gave a mechanical shrug. “You see, I’ve been a spy for almost all of my life, and that bunker has the absolute best in terms of Brakalon technology. Even if I’m not trying to snoop, I’ll hear them saying code words, and I’ll see their security processes. I’d rather just stay behind. I can advise whoever’s left on other technology they might see during the invasion.”
“Let’s hope we prevent that,” Shinigami said.
Gilwar nodded, but his silence was not encouraging. “Of course,” he added simply.
“Well, then.” Barnabas made one last check of the Pod-doc controls and ushered them toward the shuttle bay. “Let’s get down to the surface.”
A scant ten minutes later they joined the strike team at the gates of the city. Vidrelor, as Shinigami had predicted, did not look entirely pleased to see them. Still, as a warrior with a warrior’s honor, he had kept his word to wait until the assigned time; he wasn’t going to resort to trickery to leave them behind. He gave a sigh and motioned them into the trucks, and the party set off toward the bunker.
* * *
Admiral Jeqwar sighed as she piloted her biosuit along the corridors of her office. She wished she could be in one of the tanks, floating happily among the seagrasses or hunting fish.
That, of course, was just a distraction. What she really wanted was to be in the middle of her fleet, unleashing the full potential of the Jotuns on—
Well, on other Jotuns, it seemed. She didn’t like that; she had never enjoyed her desire for war. She was what she was, however, and that had proved invaluable to the Jotuns over the years. She had saved her people from destruction more than once.
She would do it again now. In fact, she did not intend to wait even one more day. She had made a decision: she was going to destroy the Committee, process and legalities be damned. Barnabas could carry out his theater with Grisor, but meanwhile, there would be no more of the vermin to carry out their plans in the shadows.
It was a perfect solution to her way of thinking. She did not allow her enemies to stay alive and dangerous once she knew who they were.
She was surprised, when she rounded the corner, to see Gorsik hard at work.
“Gorsik.” He had been taken ill very suddenly a day or so ago, and she could see from his movements that he was not feeling entirely better yet. “You should not be here. We’ve all been working too hard.” How long since any of them had taken a night off?
You didn’t get nights off, of course, when there was a plot within your government to violently overthrow multiple other species.
And after a time, it wore on you. After a time, even when there was so much to do, a person could take no more. She should have noticed the signs of burnout coming, she thought guiltily. Even sick, he was still here.
He looked up at her, however, and smiled. He was happy. He was calm, not frantic. That helped her feel somewhat better.
“Come see.” He stood aside. “I’ve developed a plan to mobilize the fleet so that the Committee will not know. The navy is segmented, so that no matter where they have spies, they won’t be able to respond quickly and interfere.”
Intrigued, she came to stand beside him.
A few moments later she nodded approvingly. His plan was good in many ways. There were only a few things missing from it, pieces of the network that he would not realize existed. She wouldn’t tell him that, not exactly, but she could make some changes to it.
“The only thing, of course,” Gorsik said, “is that it will not be easy for the captains to communicate with one another. All of it would have to go through you as a central hub.”
Jeqwar considered this. She began to pace, her tentacles thrashing. Gorsik was right; this was a dangerous plan. If something happened to her, the other captains would not be able to get in touch with one another. They might walk into a trap that they could otherwise avoid.
Was it worth it?
It depended, she supposed, on just how much the Committee could do to compromise them.
“It’s not worth it,” she decided finally. “There haven’t been any other disappearances. Who can say if there are traitors in the ranks? There must be, so you are right to worry, but I don’t think any of the captains are compromised, so not this plan. It is a good plan, Gorsik. It is a good way to move quickly without things being easily stopped, but there is no need to take such a risk yet.”
Gorsik accepted this gracefully. “I think I will go walk out in the sun for a little while.”
“That would be good. You’ve been working too hard. Not that I don’t appreciate it, of course.” She indicated her appreciation with a flutter at the base of her body.
“You work harder than I do,” he pointed out. “Come walk with me. Surely some time out in the sun is not too much.” When she wavered, he added, “You can see so clearly when others work too hard but not you?”
She laughed at that and nodded her biosuit’s head. “Let us go take a walk, then. Some sunlight will be good for us both.”
They emerged into one of the smaller gardens on the base, one meant only for walking in biosuits. There were no pools of water here, but she had always liked this place anyway. There were trees and shaded pathways as well as some in bright sunlight.
No benches. In their biosuits, the Jotuns did not need them.
They had just made their way into a copse of trees when the attackers stepped onto the path.
“Gorsik, run!” Admiral Jeqwar triggered the distress signal in her suit and threw herself into
action.
Or she tried to. She could not move, however. Why could she not move? She thrashed inside her tank to look behind herself and saw Gorsik’s hand moving away from the back of her suit’s neck. He had immobilized her.
“Gorsik?” She felt horror creeping up on her. “What have you done?”
“What I needed to do,” he told her, “in order to help you. To help all of us. Your talents are too precious to waste on their side. We need you, Admiral.” To the others, he added, “Take her. We have a plan to put in motion once she is converted. Be quick about it.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
They went in to retrieve the general just before dusk. The bunker housing was built into the side of a mountain, so similar to some human structures that Barnabas did a double-take. This part of Kordinev even resembled the American Southwest in many ways, with rust-red rocks, scrub brush, and sand. The granite-gray mountain rose out of all of this, tenacious little trees clinging to its sides. The setting sun made it glow golden-red.
This would be a pretty place to walk around, Shinigami commented to Gar and Barnabas. When both of them looked at her curiously, she added, I mean, obviously not during a battle.
That’s not what’s confusing us, Gar explained.
Barnabas agreed with a nod. I didn’t think you noticed things like that.
It wasn’t part of my original programming, but I’m trying to learn. She met their eyes with a somewhat combative expression, then folded. Fine, you got me. It was a total shot in the dark. I’m just trying to figure out what organics find pretty in a landscape.
Barnabas snorted and shook his head when General Vidrelor looked over severely. The Brakalon was quite understandably worried about any lapse of discipline that might give them away.
Of course, to Barnabas’ way of thinking, it wasn’t necessary to be silent when they were approaching the bunker in plain sight. Their jeep-like vehicles were kicking plumes of dust into the air, and they weren’t exactly quiet.
He didn’t say any of that, however. Vidrelor was officially in charge of this mission, and Barnabas was telling himself that he was fine with that.
He wasn’t, but he was telling himself that he was.
“Their turrets are beginning to power up,” Shinigami reported a few moments later. “And it looks like the bunker’s guns are hot, too.”
General Vidrelor swore under his breath. He had hoped that the Jotuns would be unable to get into the bunker’s defense systems, which Barnabas had known was a long shot. The Committee was already in the networks and had managed to block specific messages. It was objectively no more difficult to get into the turrets.
And that didn’t even take into account the possibility that General Fedranor had been converted. That was Barnabas’ true fear.
If he had been, what damage could he do while they attacked?
“Fighters, come in hot,” Vidrelor ordered. “Target our guns.”
Shinigami and Barnabas exchanged looks. She had, on his orders, brought the Shinigami lower so that they could do a second pass if the Brakalon fighters were not able to handle things on their own. Now her fingers twitched slightly, and he knew she was eager to handle this herself.
He understood the urge all too well. It just felt wrong to be following someone else’s orders.
The first wing of Brakalon fighters screamed through the air overhead. They had been circling high above, hopefully out of range of the bunker’s scanners, and now they accelerated downward at harrowing speed. Even having leapt out of shuttles and off the edges of buildings, Barnabas felt slightly queasy.
On Earth, fighter pilots were partially selected to be as light as possible. The Brakalons hardly qualified by that metric.
Vidrelor had chosen his tactic well, however, and the pilots were clearly both skilled and well-trained. The guns at the bunker had been preparing to fire on the ground assault team and were not positioned well to deal with the death that came hurtling down at them from above.
General Vidrelor was keeping careful count of the guns disabled. He did not seem inclined to share that information, but Barnabas did not need it. Shinigami held up one finger as the first gun was destroyed. Then another finger went up, and a few moments later, a third gun was taken out of commission.
The guns are withdrawing, Shinigami told Barnabas and Gar a moment later. They won’t be able to get any more of them.
A few moments later, General Vidrelor gave a grim look and ordered the trucks to speed ahead. Barnabas watched, pleasantly surprised, as Vidrelor kept the pressure on the bunker. If the guns emerged, they would be taken out by the fighters that regularly passed overhead.
That left only the turrets, and the strike team could see their red laser sights gleaming as they got closer.
Barnabas pulled out a rifle and took his place, standing to lay his weapon down on top of the truck. There was a small opening—in Brakalon terms, which meant that not only was it very roomy for Barnabas, but he also had to stand on one of the benches in order to see out of it.
He pushed away the feeling of ridiculousness.
You’ll be in range…now. Shinigami’s voice was certain.
Thank you. Barnabas began to fire, leveling quick bursts at the turrets and calling status reports to the other gunners. Marksmanship was not one of his innate talents, but he had trained in it for precisely that reason. He liked getting into a fight and using his own two hands, but not every fight could be won that way.
He didn’t want the bad guys to win someday because he’d been lazy about learning new skills.
Between his reflexes and his training, he was able to take out two of the Jotun turrets, and the vehicles screeched to a halt for Shinigami to leap out and run for the doors with Ferqar.
The bunker’s guns, meanwhile, all popped out at once. There was a terrifying moment while Barnabas tracked the missiles coming from the fighters overhead, then everyone threw themselves flat as the guns exploded.
“Perfectly timed,” Vidrelor called over the radios, but Barnabas could hear him panting slightly, and all of them shared looks. Yes, they had planned well, but one mistake and they would have been very dead right now.
Shinigami gave a loud whistle as the doors opened and the strike team poured out and into the darkness. With Ferqar’s knowledge of Jotun programming and Shinigami’s innate abilities to hack it, they were able to make good progress down the eerily silent corridors.
“I don’t like this,” Vidrelor murmured once to Barnabas. Given that he hadn’t wanted Barnabas along at all, the man took this as a sign of just how worried Vidrelor was.
At last, they made their way down the main corridor to a series of heavy blast doors. Shinigami opened the keypad and gave a few commands, bending her head close as if to listen.
“He’s in there,” she reported. “Or a Brakalon I can’t distinguish from him. Alive. Held motionless in the center of the room somehow.”
Vidrelor nodded. “Take your places,” he told the strike team.
They had brought light, durable barriers that they erected now to give themselves cover, and everyone had their weapon primed and ready before Shinigami gave the command to open the doors, and sprinted back to cover alongside Barnabas.
The hallway seemed to explode with gunfire. Turrets lined the room at the heart of the bunker, all stalking forward so that they were between the strike team and General Fedranor.
Barnabas squinted at the center of the room. The general did not seem to be restrained, but he sat motionless and silent as the turrets attacked his strike team and they fought back. He did not even dive for cover, as he should in order to give his team a clear shot.
Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Shinigami asked Barnabas.
Take two barriers, get into the room, and shred them in the crossfire?
Awwww, we really have started to think alike!
With a glance at each other and a yell for a temporary ceasefire, they burst into motion and into the room, Shinigami ta
ckling several turrets along the way. As soon as they were out of the direct line of fire, the rest of the strike team started firing again.
Several turrets tried to stop them, one even managing to send a shot so close to Barnabas that it singed his coat. He and Shinigami both got their barriers up, however, and managed to take out the turrets without having the general in their line of fire.
Then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over. Vidrelor gave Barnabas a resolute nod, and the Brakalon’s fingers tightened around his rifle.
He was ready to do what needed to be done, and although Barnabas prayed it didn’t come to that, he was disconcerted by General Fedranor’s silence.
He stood up from behind his barrier and walked out into the open room, stepping carefully over the fallen turrets.
“General Fedranor?” he asked.
“Yes.” The general stood then and looked at the strike team. “Why are they not moving? Am I accused of something?”
“I will explain shortly.” Barnabas allowed himself to get a feel for the general’s thoughts. There was worry, yes. He was worried that they might accuse him of treason.
“I gave them nothing,” Fedranor said fiercely. He laughed. “Of course, there was only one message, and that was recent—to come in here and stay in that chair without moving. I had been there for a day and a half when you arrived.”
To Barnabas’ surprise, his thoughts bore this out.
“Ah,” he said contemplatively. “And tell me—what do you know of Senator Grisor or the Committee for Infrastructure Revitalization? How do you feel about the Jotuns ruling this sector?”
There was no mistaking Fedranor’s revulsion for all three, and Barnabas gave a smile as he turned.
“He hasn’t been converted.”
There were a few quiet cheers, and Vidrelor’s shoulders sagged in relief. “Thank all the gods,” he said. He stood and slung his weapon over his back, then came to clasp Fedranor’s hand. “We’ll explain everything. We’ve recovered everyone we can; there are only a few who remain at these high-tier bunkers.”
