Defender (The Vigilante Chronicles Book 6) Read online

  The rest of the group looked at one another warily. Tafa was an established member of the crew now, someone who could make any of them smile on a bad day, whose paintings now hung in many hallways, and who had assisted in the non-combat parts of a few missions. But she hadn’t ever been involved in something that could turn into combat, and all of them were worried about what might happen if things went south.

  Barnabas, however, was not going to take her offer lightly. Tafa had grown up under the constant threat of violence, and if she were willing to go into danger, he wouldn’t insult her by rejecting her offer out of hand.

  Instead, he looked at her gravely. “It would be very helpful. As you say, you wouldn’t attract the suspicion we would. We just need to come up with a backup plan so that if they find out what you’re doing, we can get you out of there safely.”

  Tafa gave him a grateful smile as she nodded. She had clearly been afraid that he would simply reject her offer, and with Barnabas taking her seriously, her happiness was plain to see.

  “I bet Shinigami could learn some of the camera patterns and put in false feeds,” she suggested. “That way, you could be close in case something went wrong.”

  “And I can also have alerts set up in their system so we’ll have warning if they send guards or engage defensive systems,” Shinigami pointed out. “They won’t have an easy time taking us by surprise.”

  “You should take a breathing mask in your mechanic’s bag,” Gar added. “That way, if they try to fill the place with water, you can get out fine.”

  “Do we have breathing masks that can fit her?” Barnabas asked Shinigami.

  “No, but we can find one between here and there,” she replied. She finished her diagnostics and closed the panel on her arm so that it once more looked like unbroken skin. “And figure out the cameras, and figure out where we might be able to plug into their system. The sort of information we’re looking for will be on an unconnected server—if they’re smart, that is, which I’ve started to think they might be.”

  “Unfortunate,” Barnabas said drily.

  She shot him a smile as she got to her feet. “Very. On the other hand, as you’re fond of saying, it’s good to have worthy enemies.”

  “So we’re doing this?” Gar asked, half in disbelief.

  “I think so.” Barnabas nodded to Tafa. “She made a good suggestion.”

  “And I can’t let you guys have all the fun,” Tafa said with a grin.

  Chapter Four

  “Excellency.” One of Grisor’s aides appeared in the doorway. “We have landed.”

  Grisor’s personal tank was being lowered into his suit. He had spent the journey relaxing in a water-filled compartment within his ship, hunting fish and thinking about what he was about to see.

  It had been a contemplative journey. Grisor did not take this event lightly. What was happening today—hopefully, he would arrive in time to see it—was the culmination of many years’ worth of research and planning.

  The idea for the Infrastructure Revitalization Committee had not come from Grisor, but instead from his mentor, a senator whose utter hatred of other species had at first seemed ridiculous. The younger Jotun had believed in his species’ superiority, of course, as any reasonable Jotun would, but he had found his mentor’s vitriol to be indelicate and unnecessary.

  At first.

  Then Grisor had seen the way other species conducted themselves. The Brakalons were always eager for a fight, and the Shrillexians were even worse, selling themselves as mercenaries for the thrill of violence. The Yofu were respectable enough but had no ambition. The Hieto and Ubuara had similarly made nothing of themselves. The list went on. One species inspired respect, and that was the Kurtherians—but even they were divided against themselves, and that weakness might prove fatal.

  Grisor’s mentor had died without ever receiving his due from the Senate. His ideas were laughed at, and at the end of his life, he lost the support of his province and was replaced by someone younger and more in favor of open trade and diplomacy. Anger simmered in Grisor as he watched these events play out.

  His mentor had dreamed of a sector ruled by the Jotuns, and Grisor had seen that his own people would be the first stumbling block. Too many of them were short-sighted, secure enough in the idea of their superiority that they did not wish to cement it in any way. They used it as an excuse for laziness, just as Grisor once had.

  He had thought long and hard about this. Many of his colleagues believed that the greatest good they could do in the Senate was to represent the will of the people. Grisor did not. He believed that the greatest good he could do was the right thing for his people, whether or not they believed they wanted it.

  And he didn’t intend to give them the chance to think about it.

  Now settled into the biosuit, he strode out of his chambers and through the spaceship, his aide behind him. At the doors that led to the gangway, four soldiers waited for him. There were dangerous aliens in this facility, and Grisor did not take unnecessary risks.

  Just look what had happened to Biset, after all.

  At the door to the facility, he was met by two Jotuns who looked so alike that he blinked. Both of them took a single knee, a sign of deep respect. The gesture had been adopted from other species, as it was generally difficult to accomplish in a biosuit.

  Grisor felt a wave of satisfaction. The researchers here were at the forefront of his plan, and it did his heart good to see them show such reverence. Soon, every Jotun would do so, of course, and every Brakalon and Torcellan and every other sentient alien in this sector—and beyond.

  But he would remember these as some of the first to do so.

  “We are honored by your visit,” said one of them as he stood.

  “We have made every effort in pursuit of your goals,” said the second. “We think you will be pleased by our progress, and hope you will tour the entire facility during your visit if time permits.”

  Grisor gave a ripple of regret. “Nothing would give me more pleasure. However, I have little time.” In fact, he should not really be here at all, but how could he miss this of all days? “I have come to see the first step toward our new world.”

  The two researchers looked at one another nervously, and Grisor had the vague thought that they hadn’t looked this much alike the last time he had seen them. Perhaps people who worked together in remote facilities for years at a time began to resemble one another.

  He was more concerned with that look, however. “What is it?”

  “The process is proceeding,” the first hastened to say.

  “But slowly,” said the second.

  “Does this mean,” Grisor said, hiding his impatience, “that I will not see a conversion today?”

  Both researchers took a knee once more.

  “We have failed you,” one of them said.

  “He is much stronger than we anticipated,” added the other. “We do not doubt that he will turn in time, but the progress is much slower than in our previous converts.”

  Grisor considered this, saying nothing. Although he was disappointed with the situation, he was not angry with the researchers. It made sense, in a way, that a Naval captain would be resistant to the training. Captains only made it into the Naval Academy when they had extraordinary self-control and mental discipline. He should have expected that this conversion would take longer than the others.

  He did not say any of this, however. It did not do any harm to have the researchers be upset about failing him.

  “Show me,” he said finally.

  They exchanged a worried glance but stood and led him into the facility without hesitation. Moaning and shrieking came from the floors above them, along with some heavy crashes.

  “What is that sound?” Grisor asked in distaste.

  “Early iterations of our experiments were not so successful,” one of the researchers explained.

  “We find the failed experiments to be useful, however,” said the other, perhaps
anticipating Grisor’s question of, “Why didn’t you just kill them?”

  “We wish to know if rehabilitation is possible,” said the first, or possibly the second. Grisor was still having trouble determining which had spoken. The same one continued, “Perhaps in other species, as in the Jotuns, there are variations. Every success and failure will be useful later.”

  They were conscientious and had thought of complications he might not anticipate. Grisor liked that.

  Then they emerged into the research chamber, and every other thought went out of his head.

  In a tank at the center of the room was Captain Jeltor, writhing in pain as chemicals worked their way into his body and words and images were imprinted on his mind. Grisor recognized him at once. His photo had been everywhere during the incident with the Yennai Corporation and the ensuing trial for treason.

  Unlike many in the Senate, Grisor had no especial distaste for Jeltor. In fact, he understood some of the male’s motivations. Many in the Senate would have been perfectly content to have the Yennai Corporation run the Jotun government.

  Clearly, this was unacceptable. Grisor would never have allowed it—and, with the technology to turn any mind to his purpose, there would have been no danger of such a thing happening.

  Jeltor had not known that, and thus his struggle against the Yennai Corporation was understandable and forgivable. Had he stopped there, perhaps, Grisor might even have approached him as an equal and made him an offer.

  But Jeltor persisted in following the lead of the human, Barnabas. Like Barnabas, he showed a remarkable drive toward individualistic thought. And Jeltor had been there when Biset was killed, even hearing the name of the Committee from the mysterious assassin—who Grisor had so far been unable to trace.

  Jeltor was unlikely to embrace Grisor’s vision, so he would be converted. The process would leave his mental faculties intact—earlier experiments had not been so successful at this—but Jeltor would obey any order given to him by a member of the Committee, and would be loyal to Grisor above all.

  It would be a peaceful existence. In Grisor’s opinion, there was a great deal of unnecessary despair in the world, born of divided loyalties and uncertainty. He would eliminate that.

  It was just a pity that the process was so much more painful than the outcome.

  Grisor walked in a long, slow circle around the tank. He could not quite hear the words that were being said, but he knew what they were. He had been one of the ones to create the tapes, after all, and he had chosen the sentiments with great care.

  Jeltor was being bombarded with images and words ordering him to give his obedience to Grisor and the Committee while the chemicals that flooded his tank were lowering his mental barriers.

  “What mix of chemicals did you end up choosing?” Grisor asked the two researchers curiously.

  “There are many mixes,” one of them said.

  “Depending on the part of the process,” said the other.

  “And the individual,” finished the second.

  “And you say he’s making progress?” Grisor asked idly. “How can you tell?” He was curious, no more.

  “It is…complex,” said one of them. “The way they fight, the chemicals their bodies produce. Such things, we have seen in other species during the process.”

  “And you’re sure that he will convert, not simply break?” Jeltor was the perfect tool to infiltrate any unruly resistance. Losing him would be a blow.

  Now they paused. “One can never be entirely sure,” one of them said finally. His voice trembled slightly on the words. “We have made the process as streamlined as possible. Losses have been rare, and there have been none recently. But it is possible.”

  “Thank you for your honesty.” Grisor would remember this. Many who aspired to power made the mistake of punishing subordinates for giving them honest answers. Grisor found this to be unforgivably stupid. The practice only encouraged subordinates to lie.

  He watched Jeltor for another long moment. It was disappointing, Grisor thought, that he would not be able to see Jeltor’s conversion today.

  He could wait. He nodded to the researchers. “Contact me when he has been converted. I will need to speak with him immediately. To the guards, he added, “You will remain here. Give the researchers any assistance they require. Protect them from the experiments, if need be, or anyone who should try to find and destroy this facility.”

  He swept from the room without another word and was back on his ship within minutes.

  He only had to wait a little longer, and he would have everything he had been working for.

  Left behind in the laboratory, Gil and Wev stared at the tank and used their silent communications interface to speak to one another.

  We must turn off the machines, Gil said. We cannot risk this captain being turned to the Committee’s purposes.

  Wait, for now, Wev argued. The guards are still watching. We must take care not to make them think we are hiding anything.

  Both of them stole a glance at the side of the room, where a closet hid what remained of the real research team. Gil and Wev, agents with the Jotun Interplanetary Intelligence Agency, had been sent to investigate the Committee’s activity—and disrupt it.

  Disrupt it, they had. They were still untangling the various threads of it. However, they were alone in this operation, not daring to call for help lest they tip someone off to the fact that Intelligence was beginning to move against the members of the Committee. They still did not even know who all those members were.

  They had identified Huword first, and then Biset. Now they knew of a third: Grisor.

  But now they found themselves in a tricky situation. What would the guards be monitoring? How carefully must Gil and Wev pretend to follow the research procedures—or must they truly continue the work that had been started here?

  In unison, they looked at the tank that held Jeltor. With silent sharing of thoughts, and so many years spent working together, they had become more alike than they were different.

  Neither of them liked torture, but both of them would do it—if it meant destroying the Committee before the Committee destroyed the Jotuns.

  Chapter Five

  Hevarod was not quite as Barnabas remembered it. The last time he had been here, the skies had been clear and the weather warm, and waves had lapped gently at the shore with a soothing sound.

  It was winter now.

  The sky was an iron gray that was matched only by the deep white-capped swells of the water, and the waves pounded against the sea walls remorselessly. The walls kept out the water…mostly. While the pathways and streets of the aboveground portion of the city were not flooded, they were certainly wet.

  “How did the Jotuns survive here?” Barnabas asked incredulously. He was picturing the Jotuns outside their mechanical suits, but in their natural form as large jellyfish, and even from inside the Shinigami’s shuttle, he could sense the coldness of the water and the heavy churn of the waves. Surely a Jotun outside its suit would be crushed.

  Shinigami, however, gave him a bemused smile. “How did humans survive in all those places on Earth? Species adapt and develop rudimentary technology. The Jotuns probably began in a more even climate, as humans did on Earth—and then spread.”

  Barnabas nodded. She had a good point. When he thought of some of the places he’d seen on Earth, from the Alps and the Himalayas to the desolate landscapes of Alaska and Montana to the wastes of the great, shifting deserts, he realized that human survival was no less precarious.

  When TOM had crashed on Earth, he reflected, the Kurtherian had been lucky there had been any humans to join with.

  The Shinigami itself remained in orbit around Jotuna, cloaked and learning all it could of the Jotun satellites and their programming. Shinigami knew enough about their systems to keep the ship and its shuttle hidden—as far as they could tell—but the finer points of Jotun computer systems were still, as she put it, “hidden behind programming like a blob of gra
pe jelly.”

  Barnabas, whose idea of a good night was a paper book, and who still wrote on paper with a fountain pen, had no idea what she meant by that. He accepted that it was her forte, and trusted that she would tell him if she really needed help.

  He suspected that she was just grumbling. Shinigami had not yet come across any system she could not quickly learn and work against.

  Instead of attracting attention by landing outside the city, the team had decided to land in the main set of docks. Shinigami had changed the electronic signature of the shuttle, and as far as they knew, the Jotuns would not know it by sight—certainly not well enough to program their surveillance cameras to pick it up.

  They were pretending to be Yofu, so it was Tafa who had guided the shuttle down, answering questions from air traffic control in her Yofu accent. She was dressed in blue coveralls that had a respectable number of grease stains on them. She had gotten them on a nearby station, where she’d had trouble convincing a bemused mechanic that she actually wanted the dirty uniform and would buy him a new and clean one. He had clearly thought she was crazy, but money was money, and she now had a uniform that looked well-worn, with a name stitched on the chest: Kila.

  Once they had sat through the interminable landing pattern and finally gotten a bay, she vacated the pilot’s chair and began assembling her tools. A big mechanic’s bag, looking far too heavy for her small frame, was loaded with screwdrivers, welding tools, and some things Barnabas assumed were wrenches.

  “You’re sure you don’t need to be closer?” she asked Shinigami anxiously.

  “Quite sure,” Shinigami said, giving Barnabas a wink over Tafa’s head. She had tried to explain that her actual processing took place on the ship and that the location of her body really didn’t matter at all, but Tafa didn’t seem to believe it.

  Barnabas crouched to examine the handles of the bag. The Yofu had double-thumbed hands, and so everything from their tools to the fastenings on their clothes was constructed slightly differently.