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  Sentinel

  The Vigilante Chronicles Book Two

  Natalie Grey

  Michael Anderle

  Sentinel (this book) is a work of fiction.

  All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Copyright © 2018 Natalie Grey and Michael Anderle

  Cover by Jeff Brown, http://jeffbrowngraphics.com/

  Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

  LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  LMBPN Publishing

  PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy

  Las Vegas, NV 89109

  First US edition, June 2018

  Version 1.01, June 2018

  The Kurtherian Gambit (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are copyright © 2015-2018 by Michael T. Anderle and LMBPN Publishing.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Author Notes - Natalie Grey

  Author Notes - Michael Anderle

  Books by Natalie Grey

  Books by Michael Anderle

  Connect with the authors

  Sentinel Team

  Thanks to the JIT Readers

  James Caplan

  Mary Morris

  Kelly O’Donnell

  John Raisor

  John Ashmore

  Peter Manis

  Larry Omans

  Paul Westman

  Micky Cocker

  If We’ve missed anyone, please let us know!

  Editor

  Lynne Stiegler

  From Natalie

  For M and T

  From Michael

  To Family, Friends and

  Those Who Love

  To Read.

  May We All Enjoy Grace

  To Live The Life We Are

  Called.

  1

  “That is my offer. Take it or leave it.” The hooded figure in the video frame steepled his fingers and leaned back.

  Torcellan, and male. Beyond that Rald could not tell anything about this person, up to and including how the male had known to contact him. Rald didn’t like that on principle. He was Shrillexian, and an offer of vengeance promised violence with a purpose.

  He couldn’t ask for more on that front, but he didn’t like not knowing the people who gave him information—not when his entire operation hinged on that information. Especially when it was information he should have had to pay for. There were clearly strings attached.

  He flexed and clenched his fingers. Three weeks ago, an old friend on Devon had called in his allies. Years ago they had been in business together, had flown on the same ship—even managed to be co-captains without too many problems. It had been a great partnership—until Jutkelon had signed on with a mercenary syndicate.

  Rald had decided to remain on his own, but Jutkelon got a steadier stream of contracts through the syndicate. He had funds saved for when he decided to build his base on Devon—but in return, he had to pay part of his take to the syndicate.

  Rald had never gone for that sort of thing. No one told him what to do.

  Still, he didn’t bear Jutkelon any ill will. They even saw each other occasionally, since Rald’s team often took contracts to guard the transit and cargo ships traveling to and from the planet.

  Rald had been out of contact on an urgent mission when Jutkelon had sent out the call for backup. He’d sent a message back as soon as he’d seen Jutkelon’s and received only silence in return.

  He had begrudgingly contacted the syndicate to get the details. Three fully-crewed, fully-armed ships had been sent to take down someone who was meddling in their business.

  They’d failed miserably.

  Jutkelon was dead, those three ships had never come back, and when Rald had asked around to see why, all anyone would tell him was that the planet Devon was forbidden. Further questioning had uncovered that Devon had been renamed ‘High Tortuga’ and that it was now under the control of Queen Bethany Anne, formerly of the Etheric Empire.

  Like hell it did. Who did they think they were? They had come out of nowhere, these humans, flashing tech that was too good to be true, and started flinging rules around as though they owned the galaxy.

  High Tortuga—like they could just rename an entire planet!

  Rald didn’t really care if the humans wanted to dress up in fancy clothes and call themselves kings. Hell, if their money was good enough and they offered enough fights, he’d sign right up and call them “Your Supreme Majesty” or whatever they wanted. Rich people got weird after a while but they were the ones who kept him in food and fights, so he had learned to let the weirdness go.

  It was the way of the world, after all. If you were strong enough, you took what you wanted. Rald helped people who did that, and if he didn’t, someone else would. There was no use complaining about it.

  But now these humans were turning the established order on its head. They hadn’t taken over the businesses completely, but instead had laid down the law with the owners and told them what they could and couldn’t do.

  Rald didn’t care for that, especially when they just went and killed the people who didn’t comply.

  So he’d made himself a promise to find whoever had done that to Jutkelon and make them hurt. He’d asked around at the syndicate, but no one seemed to know anything—until this mysterious Torcellan had called out of the blue and offered information.

  All Rald had to do was break his only rule and join something called the ‘Yennai Corporation.’ He’d pay the share of his take and pass along information, and in return they would give him any information they found on the human who had killed Jutkelon and their ships would back him up if he cornered the bastard. As a gesture of goodwill, they had even given Rald a possible name for the human’s ship—Shinigami. The information was unconfirmed, but it was more than Rald had been able to find on his own.

  Take it or leave it.

  He’d take it, Rald decided. He had to. Jutkelon had asked for his help but he hadn’t come through…and now Jutkelon was dead. Some son of a Hieten had gone in there and murdered his friend, and Rald owed it to him to return the favor.

  He could figure out who the Torcellan was later. In the meantime, he was going to get even with whoever had done this—but if they’d taken out three ships he was going to need the corporation’s help, as much as he hated to admit it.

  He nodded at the figure on the screen. “I’ll take it. I’ll be in contact when I get to Devon.”

  “Ah. For that, you will need my help. Ship
s must be cleared to land there.” Rald got the impression the Torcellan was smiling. “There is a berth for you on the merchant ship Ulys. You’ll be registered as a worker on the ship. I’ve sent the itinerary. Meet it at Gammon.”

  The screen winked off and Rald frowned. He read the instructions that had just come through and frowned harder. No weaponry? This had to be a fucking joke.

  Rald wasn’t laughing, and by the time he was done with the humans they wouldn’t be either. As far as he was concerned, anyone and everyone who’d had anything to do with Jutkelon’s death was fair game.

  Carter wiped his hands on a dishtowel and backed out of the kitchen at Aebura’s as he called instructions to Oemuga, his new assistant.

  “And make sure they don’t shortchange you on the fruit!” The last piece of advice was probably lost in the clatter of cooking and juice-pressing.

  He shook his head. Oemuga was a good assistant, but he needed to get better at bargaining. Ubuara always looked for accord when they were making deals, which meant they were likely to compromise too much. The same was true of the Ubuara he was training to be bartenders.

  He’d have to ask Aebura how she’d learned to be so shrewd in business. Maybe she could teach Oemuga and the others. She’d left Tethra a few weeks ago after signing over her bar to Carter so she could work in the newly-liberated mining town.

  Carter whistled, his spirits lifting at the thought of being able to talk to her again. Aebura always cheered him up. She had such a simple, happy outlook on life: gathering friends together was good, and worrying about the future was bad. She also had a sense of humor that always startled him, and he was grateful to count her amongst his friends.

  He was over by the bar getting himself a cup of water when he noticed one of the patrons and stopped dead. “Barnabas! I thought you’d left.”

  “I was going to,” Barnabas told him. “But then I figured I’d get one last glass of juice.” He held up his glass with a mournful look. “We haven’t been able to synthesize it yet.”

  “And I,” a young woman with black hair interrupted, “came here expecting to find him doing drugs, and found out that ‘juice’ actually means juice.”

  “Carter, may I introduce Tabitha?” Barnabas requested politely. “Tabitha, Carter runs this bar. He helped us against the mine owner a few weeks back. Carter, Tabitha is—”

  “Ranger Two.” Carter breathed. He had to work to keep from gawping like a fish, and judging by Tabitha’s expression he wasn’t doing too well.

  “I knew this new armor looked good.” She snickered. “It really makes my ass look—”

  “He’s impressed by your record of service to Bethany Anne,” Barnabas told her in a pained tone. “He can’t see your… You know what, never mind.” To Carter he added, “Also, we really do need to find a different term. We aren’t ‘Ranger One’ and ‘Ranger Two’ anymore.”

  “Details.” Tabitha waved her hand to dismiss the problem of a name and downed the last of her Coke. “You know what this place needs? Burgers.”

  “We’re working on that, actually.” Carter grabbed a menu. “Now, if you want just some random fried stuff—fries, cheese curds….”

  “Cheese curds?”

  “I grew up in the Midwest. Trust me, they’re good. We’re still waiting on artificial production for the beef, though, so no burgers worth eating yet. We do have this kind of sausage sandwich thing.”

  “Like choripan?” Tabitha demanded. When she saw Carter’s confused look, she flapped a hand. “Never mind. Bring me one, though.”

  “You’re not being very polite,” Barnabas chided.

  “There’s no time to be polite. I’m hungry.”

  “So help me, if you are rude to people here, I will not take you anywhere else.” Barnabas glared at her.

  “Fine.” Tabitha threw a look at Barnabas. She turned back to Carter with her hands clasped in front of her, and her head tilted to the side. “Can you please bring me a sausage sandwich? I’m so hungry. I’ve been craving choripan for years because I stupidly forgot to steal a street cart as we left Earth. And a vendor.”

  She turned back to Barnabas. “There, was that polite enough to get me fed?”

  Barnabas sighed and touched a hand to his forehead to rub the spot where the headache Tabitha gave him always began.

  Carter grinned as soon as his back was to the Rangers. He pushed the door open into the kitchen and shouted Tabitha’s order to the cook. Qiliax had come here to help after the mines were freed. Like most of the former guards there, she was a Brakalon. She barely fit in the kitchen, spending most of her day hunched over, but her food was fantastic.

  She was such a good cook that he couldn’t figure out why she’d ever been a guard, but she only shrugged when he asked and told him that no one hired a Brakalon for anything except hitting things very hard. Apparently, Carter was the first one who hadn’t laughed at her when she’d asked him if she could try out as his cook.

  Their loss, Carter’s gain.

  Between her cooking and Aebura’s established group of regulars business was humming along, although he joked with Barnabas that half their profit margin so far was Barnabas’ insane consumption of hakoj juice.

  “I’ll have a crate of juice ready for you by the time you leave,” he told Barnabas when he got back to the front. “If you’re going off to save the universe you really should have refreshments on board.”

  “Just make sure you don’t give me any of that spoiled batch of Coke,” Barnabas teased Carter wickedly. “It was really tragic,” he told Tabitha. “He came here with this plan to run a bar, and he’d handle producing Coke, right? Well, his first batch just went way wrong. I think it’s something about the water here. Anyway, he’s figured out the filtration now and everything’s better.”

  Barnabas took one look at Carter’s deer-in-the-headlights expression and snorted. He was well aware that Carter had been producing Pepsi on the sly, and there was nothing he liked more than teasing Carter about it.

  Tabitha looked back and forth between them, but a few seconds later the sandwich appeared in the little window next to the bar and all her attention turned to the food.

  “Ohhhh, that smells so good.” She grinned at Carter when he handed it over. She snatched it up and took a bite before the plate had even hit the bar. “Thankff. Oh man, thif taftef fo good.”

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Barnabas told her.

  “Wha, la vif?

  Barnabas dropped his head into his hands in defeat and Carter tried to stifle his snort of laughter. “So, where’s Gar?” he asked to distract Barnabas before he brought up Carter’s Coke snafu again.

  “Ah.” Barnabas looked up again. He was studiously avoiding the sight of Tabitha eating. She was clearly playing up all the smacking sounds, looking over at him with a grin every couple of bites. “He’s on the ship, getting prepared for upgrades.”

  “Upgrades?”

  “Povvoc,” Tabitha clarified around a mouthful of sandwich.

  “What?”

  “Pod-doc.” Barnabas looked like he was going to have an aneurysm. “She said ‘Pod-doc.’ They allow for certain changes to physiology. Now, he hasn’t yet been cleared for those changes—”

  “Why not?”

  “For one thing, Shinigami has to learn more about his species before she just starts changing things around. There wasn’t much about Luvendi in our databases. She’s working with TOM to figure out what sort of upgrades would even be useful and make sure we don’t mess anything up, especially in terms of cognition. Physical issues are pretty easily fixed, but once the mind goes…” Barnabas gave Carter a meaningful look. “But part of it is certainly that he hasn’t fully proven himself to me. Before I allow him to take advantage of some of the best of our technology, I want to make sure he’s not going to have another change of heart once he has the power the upgrades will give him.”

  Carter nodded in approval. Gar had helped immensely when Barnabas liberated the
mines. In fact, Gar had willingly sacrificed himself to kill Lan, his former employer. The fact that he hadn’t died was entirely due to the advanced tech available on the Shinigami.

  Still, before he had come over to the side of Justice Gar had done some terrible things under Lan’s orders. It made good sense to Carter that Barnabas wanted to keep an eye on Gar for a bit longer before making him any more dangerous.

  Tabitha, meanwhile, finished licking off her fingers and smacked her lips. “That was amazing. I’m going to be back. Probably every day. You know what? Just have a sandwich waiting for me around this time. I’ll keep a tab open.”

  “Are you planning to break mid-mission each day to come get a sandwich?” Barnabas inquired. He looked like he was trying not to laugh.

  “I think I could get Bethany Anne to go for that. She appreciates the important things in life.”

  “She does,” Barnabas agreed. “Honor, duty, Justice…and sandwiches, apparently.”

  Tabitha nodded seriously as she wiped her fingers on her napkin and threw it onto the empty plate before getting up. “Bye, Big B.” She waved cheerfully to Carter, planted a kiss on Barnabas’ cheek—he only sighed at this—and disappeared into the street, a surprisingly short figure all in black.