Defender (The Vigilante Chronicles Book 6) Read online

  To his credit, he’d done so promptly. The sheer amount of information, however, was staggering. He didn’t know much about the inner workings of the Empire, but he knew a great deal about the missions Barnabas had completed since he’d come to this sector.

  As far as his crew went, there was only one confirmed member: Venfaldri Gar, a Luvendi who had apparently been Barnabas’ enemy on High Tortuga—or Devon, as aliens still called it—but was now a trusted friend. Aliana chewed her lip as she considered that. She supposed perhaps she could work her way onto the Shinigami’s crew, but she’d need to learn more about Barnabas before she felt comfortable doing that.

  What was interesting was that Gar had been a member of a mining syndicate, and had therefore participated in something very close to slavery. Probably, he had participated in something that was slavery in all but name. Aliana knew the stories of what had happened on High Tortuga, and she was sure that a lot of people had found themselves trapped in illegal “contracts” with no real means of escape.

  Zinqued was not exactly sure what had happened on High Tortuga. After all, there were stringent requirements for ships to dock on the planet, and ships with all the hallmarks of pirates weren’t going to be allowed, the new name of the planet notwithstanding. In fact, Zinqued really shouldn’t know about the planet. The Empire had made sure to erase most references to it from galactic directories and to spread false stories about hard crop yields and empty mines.

  All Zinqued knew, therefore, was that the sole crew member was Venfaldri Gar, who had once been employed by a mining syndicate Barnabas had eliminated in a fairly dramatic fashion.

  This left Aliana filling in the blanks on her own, and she couldn’t help but wonder if there was any way she could find out more details. She was human, after all, and maybe…well, maybe she knew someone who could tell her details. She was absolutely, definitively not going to go to a human outpost. She wasn’t in the mood for either guilt trips or Lawrence.

  She deliberated over a few cups of tea before finally deciding to go for it and typed out a message to her Uncle Carter. She asked him if he had any connections on High Tortuga, since she was chasing down some rumors about a mine on the planet’s smaller continent.

  She felt comfortable contacting him, at least. The last she’d heard, he and his wife Elisa were roaming around with no intentions of having any children, and the whole family was shaking their heads over it. It meant that Aliana’s decision to head out was, if not understood and respected, at least not unprecedented.

  She felt a little guilty at the thought of Carter getting angry messages from her parents, though. She remembered them yelling at her and her yelling back, “Uncle Carter is off seeing the universe, why can’t I?”

  The memory was enough to make her cringe. Was there anyone, she wondered, who didn’t look back at their younger self and want to sink through the floor with embarrassment?

  Her message sent, she looked up details on more recent missions undertaken by the Shinigami. Apparently, after High Tortuga, Barnabas and his very small crew had managed to take down a mercenary company, which by itself would have been impressive, but they had then gone on to destroy the parent corporation as well. Aliana had never heard of the Yennai Corporation, but when she did a little bit of digging on its subsidiaries, she found herself staring at the screen in awe.

  It seemed like they’d owned half the sector, if not more—and it had taken the Jotun Navy to back Barnabas up with enough strength to destroy them.

  Because they had their own fleet.

  This was insane. It really was the Wild West out here, as Uncle Carter liked to call it. Aliana had grown up using the term, although she had only the vaguest idea of what it meant, having been born and raised on the Meredith Reynolds.

  Thinking of the Meredith Reynolds, however, made her think of—

  No. Those memories were worse than the memories of Lawrence. Aliana looked bitterly at her tea and wished it was something that would help her stop thinking entirely. Straight vodka, maybe.

  She went back to reading, but it provided no escape. The more she read, the more Aliana became convinced that this plan of Zinqued’s was impossible. The things that made the Shinigami such an attractive ship were exactly the things that made it nigh-impossible to steal: its speed and maneuverability, its weapons, and its AI.

  She was fascinated by the AI. She’d never met one, but she’d heard the stories of course. ArchAngel was a legend. What was this one like? Very cold and emotionless, she supposed. It was a computer, after all. She could imagine it having been programmed to say please and thank you all the time, and being very stuffy when people were rude to it.

  Had Shinigami or Barnabas heard these internal thoughts, they would have laughed themselves sick.

  She had finished her latest batch of documents and was tipped back in her chair studying the ceiling when Zinqued came to find her.

  “Hello,” he said from the doorway.

  Aliana swore and nearly went over backward. She apologized as she righted the chair and stood up awkwardly. She might abhor politeness, but it was drilled into her.

  “Please don’t be so formal.” Zinqued gave her an easy smile. “I haven’t been a captain for very long, so it still seems odd to have people stand. In any case, I don’t care about those things.”

  Aliana smiled. She really did like this Hieto. Some captains were absolutely determined to snatch every bit of respect they felt the universe owed them, and that made them completely insufferable. Working for one of those was a nightmare—they wanted their crew to stave off the truth that the universe was a vast, uncaring place and they really weren’t important at all.

  Zinqued seemed to accept this cheerfully if he thought of it at all. Aliana suspected that he would only shrug if she mentioned it.

  “How is everything going?” Zinqued asked her.

  “Ah…” Aliana froze. “Well…” How on Earth was she going to tell him what she had learned?

  “Not so well, then?” Zinqued asked shrewdly.

  “Um. Not yet.” She looked at the tablet and back at him. “I’m sorry. I’ve sent a message to my uncle to see if he can tell us any more stories about Barnabas, but right now, this ship looks like it’s going to be difficult to take. I really don’t know how we’re going to pull it off.”

  “I know.” Zinqued didn’t seem at all worried. “I hoped you would say that.”

  “Excuse me?” Maybe she had this all wrong, and he was as crazy as a loon.

  “If you’d told me it was going well, I’d have to think you were lying to me,” he explained. “We came up with several good plans that failed in practice. Too much confidence would be a bad sign, but you were honest that you don’t know how to do this.”

  “I read up on those other plans.” Since he wasn’t going to be offended, Aliana sat back down. “With Empire technology being what it is, I’m not sure how successful anything like that will be. I think we can’t expect to steal the ship in a normal way. We have to trick them into giving it to us somehow.”

  Zinqued gave a hearty laugh. “Aha! The human is trickier than we are. I look forward to seeing how you pull that off.”

  “Er…” She took a sip of cold tea. “Right. And you’ll want to be careful of the AI. It makes the ship into a weapon, and I wouldn’t bet you could deactivate it.”

  Zinqued tilted his head to the side curiously.

  “What do you know of the Empire’s AIs?” Aliana asked.

  “I know they are powerful computers.”

  “They’re aware,” Aliana explained. “Sentient. Truly sentient. And, as you say, they are powerful. This one controls that ship. If you’ve ever heard stories of—” She broke off when the captain’s face went pale. “What is it?”

  “Tik’ta told a story,” he said slowly. “The ship used its doors to kill a member of her crew before Barnabas killed her first captain. They thought the other crew member had commanded the ship to use the doors that way, but what
if it was the ship? I did not know it could protect itself that way.”

  “Oh, it can,” Aliana said. “If this ship really has an AI, and it seems like it does, you’re in for a world of hurt if you don’t account for that somehow.”

  “How do we do that?” Zinqued asked at once.

  “I…don’t know.” Aliana grimaced. “We’re going to need to pull off one of the best cons in history to do this, and I’m not a conwoman.”

  “What is a ‘con?’”

  “It’s…um, a scheme, I guess. You use lies and tricks to fool people into doing things.” Aliana considered. “Often people will steal things doing that. They would maybe dress up as police officers and pretend there was a problem with a bank, and then steal the money.”

  “Ah,” Zinqued murmured in understanding.

  “But they’re a lot more complicated than that,” Aliana hastened to explain. “Really. Honestly. And I don’t really know how to pull one off.”

  “Then you will figure it out, eh?” Zinqued apparently had no worries on that front.

  Tik’ta might be right about all this, Aliana thought. Zinqued didn’t seem to have his head screwed on straight when it came to this ship.

  Her monitor dinged and she leaned in to look, only to make a sound of surprise. “Holy crap. All right, there’s a stroke of luck.” She smiled up at Zinqued. “My Uncle Carter lives on High Tortuga now, apparently. He owns a bar.” That did sound like him. “I was vague, I just asked about an incident with a mine on the smaller continent, and he says he thinks he knows what I’m talking about, and he does know what happened there. If we want to find out more about Barnabas, that’s the way to go.”

  “Will we get clearance to land on High Tortuga?” Zinqued asked in surprise.

  “He says so. Said to reference him and gave us a pass.” Aliana smiled. “I guess we’re going to High Tortuga. Well, if you don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “We would need to pay for fuel to get there,” Zinqued pointed out.

  “Oh. Hmm. I’ll ask if we can courier anything in. We’ll figure it out. There’s always a way to make money on the way to somewhere,” Aliana said.

  “Or while we’re there.” Zinqued’s smile was a bit too sly.

  “I wouldn’t try that,” Aliana told him bluntly. “You think Barnabas is scary? You haven’t met Bethany Anne. And if you cause shit on her planet, you’re gonna learn all about her.”

  “Ah. That is good to know. I will tell Tik’ta to make the preparations.”

  Chapter Eleven

  It was late when Carter closed up Aebura’s Bar and headed upstairs to the apartments on the third floor. He walked carefully to avoid making any of the floorboards squeak, and took special care as he snuck past the twins’ room.

  He should probably fix the floorboards, but he really didn’t mind the way they squeaked or their rough appearance. When Aebura had built the bar, she’d made the upstairs apartments suitable for Ubuara, so Carter had needed to make them over. While there were still some tunnels for the twins to crawl around in, he’d managed to make proper rooms and corridors with scrap wood from other construction in Tethra.

  He loved the result, squeaking floors and all. He loved that he could see his handiwork in each board and nail. He had spent decades on the Meredith Reynolds, not to mention various Empire ships, and while he loved their sleek look, he was much more suited to log cabins and chopping firewood.

  He’d built this place. His children were sleeping in beds he’d crafted, in a room he’d built painstakingly by hand, above the bar he ran, a place full of friends and stories. He wouldn’t trade any of this for the world.

  To his surprise, there was a light under the bedroom door, and he slipped into the master bedroom to find Elisa still up.

  “What are you doing awake? It’s late.”

  “And hello to you, too.” She smiled up at him and turned her head so that he could drop a kiss on her cheek. “Unfortunately, I’ve been losing my dinner. I don’t remember being this sick when I was pregnant with the twins.”

  Carter felt a pang of worry and tried to mask it, stripping off his work clothes and dropping them in the hamper. “Maybe it’s different every time.”

  “I think so.” When he looked at her, she was smiling contentedly, not at all worried. “The doctor said a lot of nausea is a good sign, actually.”

  “Good for who?” Carter demanded.

  She laughed. “I know. I strongly considered throwing up on him.” She set the book she’d been reading on her stomach and nodded at the computer. “I stayed up partially because you got a message from Aliana, and I wanted to make sure you saw it. She says she’ll be here in a couple of days on a ship called the Palpari. She sent the make and details.”

  “That’s great!” Carter, despite himself, felt a surge of relief. “I sent the invitation, but I wasn’t sure she’d actually come.”

  “You’re worried about her.” Elisa sounded surprised. “You don’t get worried often. Are things not working between her and Lawrence, then?”

  Her voice held reserve—as well it might, Carter thought. None of the family liked Lawrence. They hadn’t exactly been subtle about it, either, and Aliana had responded by cutting them off instead of him.

  Carter tended to think his family was more than a little overbearing and meddlesome, and he’d always been one of the black sheep. However lovingly his parents, aunts, and uncles got on his case about his travels and wild ways, they really did mean what they said—they wished he would settle down somewhere normal and have a simple life.

  Really, he was as surprised as anyone to find himself here now, a family man with a small business, his feet firmly planted in one place. It was just far enough off the map that his parents could still complain, but still adventurous enough for him.

  In Aliana’s case, though, he almost thought the family hadn’t gone far enough. Aliana had found Lawrence so quickly after tragedy struck that it was hard not to think she was simply trying to forget her pain.

  And Lawrence...

  “Lawrence is a rat bastard,” Carter told Elisa as he pulled on an old t-shirt and some flannel pants, “but I think the only way we’ll keep Aliana around long enough that she’ll start to trust us is if we don’t get on his case.”

  Elisa dropped her head back against the headboard and groaned. “You know I hate that, right? We spent all those years on other people’s ships, and now we finally have our own house. No one should be allowed to be a rat bastard to us in our own house!”

  Carter had to admit she had a point with that one. “Well, if he decides to come after the kids—”

  “If he comes after the kids, I’m gonna mama bear his ass into the ground,” Elisa growled. Her tone was unequivocal enough that Carter felt the urge to put on some body armor—just in case the mama bear came out while he was around.

  He smiled, though, and got into bed beside her. “Will I be allowed to get a punch in?”

  “Maybe.” She flashed her dimple at him when she grinned. “I love you a lot, but I’ll have to decide if I love you that much.”

  “Oh! That’s how we’re playing?”

  Elisa laughed as she put her book on the side table and nestled against him. “So, why did Aliana write to you? You never said.”

  “Ah, right.” Carter wrapped his arm around her. “It’s the funniest thing. She wrote me to ask if I knew anything about a mine that had been liberated on the smaller continent.”

  “Wait.” Elisa sat upright and stared at him. “You mean—”

  “Yeah. I don’t know how she even heard about it. Barnabas tracked down everyone who knew...” Carter scratched his head. “Anyway, I wrote out this long message, and then I thought—well, let’s see why she wants to know.”

  He hated to admit it, but with Lawrence in the picture, he didn’t entirely trust Aliana’s motives. Not that he could think of a bad motive for her wanting to know about it, of course. No matter what Lawrence suggested, Aliana was hardly
going to get involved in organized crime or anything like that.

  Was she? He lay back, his mind racing.

  “You know what you should do,” Elisa said sleepily as she cuddled against him. She yawned. “You should invite Barnabas back here to talk to her. If she wants to know about the mines, he could tell her. Besides, he never takes vacations.”

  “Barnabas,” Carter said. His eyes snapped open as he considered.

  Yes. That was a very, very good idea. From what Carter had heard, Lawrence was hardly the type to take any other man seriously. Carter could just imagine him superciliously ordering Carter around in his own bar. It was enough to make him want to stab the other man in the face.

  But Barnabas...

  Barnabas wouldn’t stand for any disrespect. He would politely and devastatingly put Lawrence in his place.

  “You’re a genius,” Carter murmured into Elisa’s hair and kissed the top of her head. She muttered something sleepy and not quite intelligible, and he smiled as he turned off the light.

  Barnabas dipped a brush into ink and drained the excess carefully into the tiny bowl before moving it over a sheet of paper. He lowered it and adjusted his pressure, dragging the brush with exquisite slowness, abandoning the need for quickness and completion.

  He cultivated the practice of calligraphy, not the results. He found the slowness of action, the immutability of paper and ink, and the necessity of perfect form and relaxation throughout the whole body calming and centering. Even as a monk, he had found that his most intense prayer came when he was tending the gardens or doing some other work.

  He had just completed the second line of an epic poem composed in China’s Sui Dynasty when Shinigami rapped on the door.

  “Yo, chief.”

  Barnabas looked over.

  “I didn’t ruin anything, did I?” Shinigami craned her neck to look at the paper. “I waited until you were done with a line.”

  “Thank you.” Barnabas smiled. Once that sort of thoughtfulness would have been totally alien to Shinigami. “What can I help with?”