Protector (The Vigilante Chronicles Book 7)

by Natalie Grey

  “The Jotuns were behind this?” Fedranor demanded. “What is their endgame?”

  “We’re not sure yet,” Vidrelor replied. “Come, speak. We have much to coordinate.” His eyes traveled to Barnabas. “And many allies we have yet to decide whether to trust.”

  Barnabas looked at Shinigami. He had argued passionately for the Brakalons to trust Admiral Jeqwar, but he could not be sure they would listen to him. As much as it frustrated him, he could easily see why that was.

  He looked through the wreckage, Shinigami at his side, and shook his head.

  The Committee was backed into a corner, but as far as Barnabas was concerned, that didn’t make them less dangerous. It made them more so.

  And he was very sure this wasn’t the last of their plan. He wasn’t sure if the senators were the key to it or if there was something else coming—but he knew there would be more.

  * * *

  Pain. Pain over pain over pain, multiplying until she could do nothing but let it flow through her, erasing any trace of who she’d been.

  Or at least, that was what she prayed for. Admiral Jeqwar had tried to cling to sanity for what felt like days, hours, weeks. Now she tried just as hard to shed it. She could not bear sanity any longer.

  She thought that Jeltor came to taunt her, telling her of the principles she must hold to, but she could not see him. Perhaps she had imagined it.

  She knew what they were trying to do, and she was powerless to stop it.

  The whispers they put into her head were laughable at first but became harder to ignore as the pain went on. Every time she thought she found a pocket of reprieve, the pain seemed to intensify and layer upon itself.

  She was going to go mad, and madness would be all she wanted and more.

  The calm, when it came, was blinding.

  She would remember that moment forever, she thought—the moment when it all became clear and the pain fell away. She understood now. She had been held captive by fear and doubt, but there was no doubt any longer, and no chaos.

  No, she was a shining light in the darkness—a warrior who would help her people bring order.

  She floated to the top of her tank, and when she was lifted out and placed in her new biosuit, she met Gorsik’s eyes.

  “You have given me new life,” she told him.

  “I know.” His tone told her he knew exactly how she felt. “We will change the world. We will save them all. And we must go now. There is much to do.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Brakalons decided to first speak to Ferqar and Gilwar and then to confer by themselves for the rest of the night. Barnabas told himself that he understood this, yet he found himself incredibly frustrated by this turn of events.

  Shinigami had landed the ship nearby, and she found him in the med bay sometime later.

  “How’s she doing?” she asked him.

  “About a third of the way there,” Barnabas said before realizing that Shinigami was surely already aware of Tafa’s status. He gave her a look.

  “I wanted your assessment.” She lifted a shoulder. “I feel less confident now that I have a body of my own.”

  Barnabas looked at her curiously.

  “I might have a body,” she explained, after a moment, “but it doesn’t work like yours. It’s difficult not to make assumptions that aren’t accurate.”

  Barnabas gave a nod, considering, and tilted his head to indicate the corridor. They stepped outside and strolled in the general direction of the bridge. Neither of them seemed to have a proper direction or any desire to speak, and at the blast doors, Barnabas headed outside on a whim.

  It was a beautiful night. They must be in a warm season on Kordinev, he thought, because the air had the soft, perfect feel of energy right before a summer storm.

  As he watched, lightning began to play across the horizon.

  “Do you think you’ll ever want to settle down?” he asked Shinigami finally.

  She gave him an incredulous look. “I’m an AI. What would that even mean?”

  “I don’t know. Stop living in a ship, live in a…building? Space station? Same place, different types of problems to think about. I don’t want to say there’d be no danger, but you see what I mean.”

  “Oh.” She considered this. “I really don’t know. I have never thought about it. I’ve spent my whole life doing this sort of thing.”

  “I always forget how young you are. You seem older.”

  “Yeah, well, I have a lot of accumulated knowledge to work with.” She smiled at him. “And it turns out being part of an interspecies, universe-wide war really helps you grow up quick.” She caught sight of his expression. “Oh, don’t feel guilty. It was a joke.”

  “I know.” Barnabas wandered over to a rock and sat.

  “Do you ever want to settle down?” Shinigami asked him dubiously. She leapt onto a nearby rock and began to do balancing exercises.

  “Hard to say, honestly.” Barnabas shrugged. “I never thought it was an option. Now I see Carter and I wonder. I can’t say it’s too late, since I’m practically immortal and I’m still in my prime.”

  “That’s what you say, Grandpa.”

  “Don’t talk back to your elders,” Barnabas told her in mock severity. He watched as she did a cartwheel and paused at the top, taking one hand away to balance.

  “The real question is,” Shinigami continued, “what you want. I asked before, and you just talked about what was possible. But it is possible, so all you have to do is decide you want it.”

  “That’s how you think human brains work?” Barnabas gave her a bemused smile. “Bless you, child, but you have a lot to learn.”

  Shinigami let her legs down with a thump and glared at him. “I am not a child, thank you very much.”

  “Yes, yes, you’re a very fearsome AI with excellent marksmanship skills.”

  “And a killer uppercut.” Shinigami made a fist and blew on it dramatically. “I don’t think I understand the difficulty, though. If you know what you want—”

  “Taking steps to acquire what you want means that you have the possibility of failing to acquire it,” Barnabas explained.

  Shinigami stopped. She was silent for so long that Barnabas thought he might have broken her, but she finally said, “All right, I’ve run this calculation every way to Sunday—as Tabitha would say—which doesn’t take that long because it’s only two options, but I still don’t get this. You have two options, right? You want a thing. Option A, you try to get the thing, maybe you fail, and maybe you don’t. We don’t know the probabilities. Option B, you don’t try to get the thing, so you definitely don’t get it.”

  “It might fall into my lap by accident,” Barnabas pointed out wickedly. He knew exactly where she was going with this and she was right, but he was going to have some fun in the meantime.

  Shinigami gave him a pained look. “You can’t plan on that! That’s a terrible way to do things! I don’t even get it. Surely that’s less likely? You know it has to be less likely, don’t you? It’s—ohhhhh.” She narrowed her eyes. “You were fucking with me.”

  “Little bit,” Barnabas admitted. He dove behind his rock the next moment as a boulder came sailing at him. “Hey! Not all of it was artifice! Some of it was real!”

  “Okay.” Shinigami appeared over the top of the rock and looked down at him. Apparently, she could make her eyes glow red. “Tell me which part of this fuckery is real?”

  Barnabas looked up at her vengeful face and prayed that they hadn’t made a huge mistake in giving her a body. She had, after all, a very short temper for illogic. “All I can tell you is the truth.” He stood up and adjusted his coat before sitting down gracefully. He would accept his death elegantly, he had decided. “It can feel worse to devote all your energy to something and fail than not to get it because you never tried.”

  Shinigami stared at him for a long moment, then slowly her eyes faded from red and she gave a somewhat surly nod.

  There was sile
nce.

  “Oh, I hate this,” she said finally.

  “What about it?” Barnabas frowned.

  “It makes sense,” she explained, sounding annoyed, “but I can’t figure out why it makes sense because it makes no sense! Do you see?” She patted her body absently. “I hope I’m not going to burst into flames when all of my circuits melt down.”

  Barnabas laughed. “A little illogic never hurt anyone.”

  “You’re not an AI. You’re not built on logic!”

  “Think of it as a learning opportunity,” Barnabas suggested. “If you can crunch this, you can crunch anything. I know you’ve been trying to work instinctive leaps into your algorithms, so why not this too?”

  “Easy for you to say.” She sat down next to him on the rock with a harrumph. “What if I told you to just learn how to calculate based on saving the most lives without any hope of saving who you loved specifically? You wouldn’t like to learn it. New ways of thinking are hard. If you don’t think the same way, are you even the same person anymore?”

  “Sure,” Barnabas said immediately.

  “You didn’t think about that at all.”

  “No, I meant…” He laid back. “Now seems as good a time as any for a philosophy discussion. This is the sort teenagers usually have, of course, but I’ve found that if you get a bunch of old white-haired philosophers in a room, they actually don’t make any more sense than the teenagers.”

  Shinigami gave a sudden bark of laughter. “I wasn’t sure how to tell you that most of your human philosophers were full of shit.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far. They had some good points.”

  “Wrapped in a lot of pompous bullshit. I’m standing by my assessment.”

  “It’s hard to argue, really.” Barnabas sat back up again. “I wish they’d finish their planning. I hate having nothing to do.”

  Shinigami snickered. “You hate not being in charge.”

  “That’s not right,” Barnabas denied, prickly. “I’m perfectly fine not being in charge.”

  “Lies. Lies and deceit. You believed wholeheartedly in Bethany Anne’s mission and leadership, and you were still more comfortable off running your own missions. It’s not wrong.” She patted his hand as if comforting a small and particularly dumb dog. “It’s just how you are, sweetie.”

  “Call me sweetie again,” Barnabas murmured contemplatively, “and I’ll take your hand off.”

  “And he’s deflecting! There’s the man we know and love.” Shinigami grinned. “Doing the right thing isn’t always easy, chief. I think you’re right that they need to do this on their own. It’s just maddening.”

  “Yes.” Barnabas nodded. “And I wish we’d had word from the Admiral. I know she has a lockdown on information since she doesn’t want anyone finding out what’s going on and what she knows, but it’s hard to make any sort of good plan without knowing when and if she’ll be willing to mobilize the fleet—or if she’s found the fleet the Committee has.”

  “I’m telling you, they want to use the Jotun Navy.”

  “And I’m telling you, that is way too big a gamble. Plus, Jeqwar has things locked down. None of the captains can disappear without someone knowing. They identified Jeltor’s disappearance before we did.”

  “Yes.” Shinigami looked uneasy. “Because Gil and Wev held up his conversion as long as they dared.”

  Barnabas shrugged.

  There was a shout nearby and a young Brakalon loped over, occasionally using his knuckles to push off. He was barely panting when he reached them, but he looked worried.

  “General Vidrelor says you’re to come at once, both of you.”

  Barnabas and Shinigami exchanged a worried look before following the Brakalon back to headquarters. They arrived to find the place in chaos, with some Brakalons yelling and others setting up charts and maps.

  “What’s going on?” Barnabas asked.

  Vidrelor gave him an unfriendly look. “We’re receiving reports that the Jotun fleet is mobilizing and there’s a strike team set to land within the next hour as part of the advance force.”

  “The Jotun…Naval fleet? Under the command of Admiral Jeqwar?”

  “I don’t have a clue,” Vidrelor replied brusquely, “and I don’t care. There’s no word to say they’re allies, so they’re enemies.”

  “They’re not enemies,” Barnabas countered heatedly. “The Navy is on your side.”

  “Really?” He gave Barnabas a look. “Then explain why they’re on their way, hmm?”

  Barnabas unfortunately had no answer for that. He looked at Shinigami, then at Vidrelor again.

  “Put us in the response to the strike team. Hopefully, I’ll be able to learn enough about their plan to help you put a stop to it.”

  Vidrelor looked at him for a moment. “And if they’re here to kill us?”

  “Then I’ll protect the civilians,” Barnabas promised without hesitation. “We’ve faced down fleets before, General. We’ll do it again if need be.”

  That, at least, seemed to satisfy the Brakalon. He gave a nod. “Get ready, then. We have a hopper waiting to head to the suspected drop site.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The shuttle door opened, shuddering with the force of the atmosphere around it, and the Brakalon captain waved the response team out urgently.

  “Go, go, go! Their strike team is already on the ground!”

  Brakalon fighters laid down cover fire to keep the Jotun strike team pinned as the response team leapt in ones and twos. Barnabas, Gar, and Shinigami were waved out in the middle of the group, Gar giving what Barnabas could only think of as a roller coaster scream.

  He missed roller coasters, he thought philosophically as he plummeted toward the ground. Humanity had come up with the occasional good idea.

  The Jotuns had already surrounded the second bunker and were trying to batter their way inside. The two top-ranking Brakalon senators, however, were resourceful enough to have figured out how to keep the doors locked. From what Barnabas could see, they must have powered down the entire bunker to keep the Jotuns from taking over the system.

  If the response team didn’t clean this up fast, of course, the senators would suffocate, but Barnabas approved of the plan in any case.

  Some of the Jotuns were hastily improvising explosives to try to get through the blast doors, making use of the lower-powered grenades and munitions they had brought, while others turned to mount a concerted defense against the Brakalon response team.

  The best defense, of course, was a good offense, and the Brakalon team had barely had time to get to their feet before the Jotuns were charging at them in a spear formation, two wide flanks spreading out to the sides and ready to close.

  “Geronimo!” Kelnamon yelled as he ran to meet them. He flashed Shinigami a smile, and she waved a thumbs-up in his direction.

  “Now you’re getting it!” she called back.

  Barnabas grinned privately. Human culture had its flaws, but he enjoyed the way Shinigami went around stealth-bombing little pieces of it into this sector.

  Then the Jotuns raised their arms and began to charge explosive rounds, and he didn’t have time to think about that anymore. He dropped and went into a skid, bringing his arm up with a panel of his coat. Between his armor and the engineered fabric of his coat, as well as getting out of the way of the first rounds, he should be safe for a few more seconds.

  That was all he needed to get to the Jotuns. He rolled and came up, dropping into a place of instinctive action so that he wouldn’t shrink from the hulking metal body, fairly bristling with weapons and sharp edges.

  It wasn’t exactly pleasant to slam into, but the Jotun hadn’t had the first idea what force Barnabas could summon. It hadn’t altered its course at all, likely thinking it could simply throw Barnabas out of the way and keep moving. That was a fatal mistake; Barnabas’ fist shot out as he tackled it, and the glass of the Jotun’s tank cracked.

  It yelled and tried to get away, bu
t Barnabas had the upper hand now. Knocked onto its back on uneven terrain, the Jotun flailed and tried to get purchase to stand while Barnabas slammed his fist down over and over until the tank cracked. He wasn’t taking any chances. He grabbed the Jotun body out of the tank and threw it as far as he could into the brush nearby.

  Ice cold, Shinigami told him. When he looked up to locate her, she was grabbing another Jotun out of its ruined tank and flinging it away. She shrugged at him. What? I said it was ice cold, not that it wasn’t a good idea.

  With a snicker, Barnabas took stock of the situation—and felt his stomach drop.

  The response team hadn’t spread its formation wide enough, and the Jotuns were getting ready to close their flanks. With the rifles in their arms, they could easily catch the Brakalons in a crossfire as they closed.

  “Vidrelor!” His voice was a roar, as loud as he could make it.

  To his credit, Vidrelor saw what was happening. He gave a sharp look around and spoke urgently into his radio.

  He says to wait as they start to close, Shinigami said, and then send two groups out to either side to fire on their backs.

  Do they know the weak points in the suits? Barnabas demanded. Jotuns aren’t easy to cut down by scattering fire at their backs.

  I know that. She wasn’t even pausing as she leveled kick after punch after shot at the Jotuns around her, each motion made with military precision and deadly grace. But it’s probably our best shot anyway.

  I don’t like this. He stooped to grab a Jotun by the ankles, yanked it into the air, and winged it sideways into another one, producing a satisfying crash. All of the nearby Jotuns turned to look at him. But we’ll finish this conversation later. Busy now!

  You just keep getting their attention, Gar broke in. We’ll handle cleanup.

  With a laugh, Barnabas obliged. He threw himself this way and that, wreaking havoc wherever he landed. More tanks cracked as his hands and feet pummeled the Jotuns, and several times he was able to slide one of his knives into a gap in the armor, using his faster-than-average reflexes to catch the brief moments of vulnerability.