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  Also, it would not have made sense for him to bring someone else on this mission. At the time, he had needed to work on his own and chart his own course.

  The others were less familiar, but he vaguely remembered some faces.

  “Please, take a seat and share some words of wisdom,” Grainger offered. As tall as Buster, he had silvery scars that remained from his time as a Ranger. Even a werewolf couldn’t heal from some of the types of trouble Rangers found. His blue eyes were warm, and his face held the calm competence Barnabas most missed from his time in the Empire.

  He shook everyone’s hands, half his thoughts still absorbed with the investigation. He needed to get back to Gerris Station and see what Jeltor had come across.

  A woman with bright, inquisitive eyes shook Barnabas’ hand, and something flashed in her gaze—curiosity, and understanding. Barnabas remembered talk of one of the trainees who could read thoughts on physical contact. Rivka, was it? He’d ask later.

  He took a seat at last and tried to think of something to say. He smiled at the group. “Words of wisdom. Hmm.” He looked up at the ceiling and considered. “Well, you’ll have an idea about the missions, but no one tells you the shit you’ll be putting up with from everyone else—bureaucrats, low-level station administrators, bankers. And the past few missions, I’ve had a crew of gloriously incompetent pirates trying to steal my ship.”

  “Talk to us about your current mission. I sense it’s bothering you. Maybe we can help. We have some resources,” Rivka politely suggested.

  Grainger looked at her, his brow furrowing slightly. He seemed curious but not worried.

  “Ah. I suppose I could do that.” Barnabas gave her an intrigued look before settling back in his seat. Yes, she probably had seen something in his thoughts. In any case, it could hardly hurt to see what they might say, and even if they had no suggestions, they’d be well-served by seeing that there were missions with no easy places to start. “We responded to a distress call from a civilian ship. Now, this was far out—well out of Federation territory. They know of humans there, but not well, and there are a few species you might not know: Brakalons, Ubuara, Luvendi, Jotun.”

  The group all leaned forward to listen, eager to hear more.

  “A Jotun was murdered on the transport,” Barnabas explained. “Now, the Jotun are—well, they sort of look like jellyfish, so what they do is they make these mechanical suits that have a tank in the middle of them. They kind of float there and control the suit with their tentacles.”

  “That’s crazy,” Buster breathed.

  “No, what’s crazy is trying to tell them apart.” Barnabas flashed him a smile.

  You are not kidding, Shinigami commented. I’ve been working on a mapping algorithm to tell the most minute differences and still nothing.

  I’ve started looking at the suits—scratches, that sort of thing.

  Clever human.

  There’s an art to making a patronizing comment, you know—and I have to say, you have it down.

  “Anyway, the ship had to be brought to a halt because under Brakalon law, if a crime happens on a spaceship, you have to stop the whole thing and wait for authorities to arrive. Well…there was a complication.”

  “Isn’t there always?” Grainger muttered.

  Barnabas gave a low laugh. “Every single time, I swear. So, the first thing that happened was we showed up, and there was a spaceship a little ways away from the Srisa, trying to block the distress signal and shooting down any ship that tried to approach.”

  The group looked at each other, intrigued by this development.

  “It was an advanced craft, and probably would have taken down any other ship easily, but—well, the Shinigami was Bethany Anne’s personal ship.” Barnabas gave a small, self-satisfied smile. “It was easy to evade what this ship was throwing at us and tail them. We figured we’d be able to unravel the murder easily, except that the alien flying it used a self-destruct protocol rather than talk to us.”

  “Over a single murder?” Rivka demanded. “Who was this person?”

  “Interesting question. I assume you mean the murdered Jotun, yes?” Barnabas waited for her nod. “Yes, he was a ship captain in the Jotun Navy. Now, something you probably won’t know—I worked with the Jotun Navy on my last mission, and that was against the direct orders of their Senate. Long story short, we were going up against a corporation that had bribed some of the senators to look the other way, and the Navy wasn’t willing to. One of our best theories is that the murdered captain helped in the battle, and the Senate had him killed. But there are some issues with that theory.”

  “They’d have publicized it if they did, wouldn’t they?” Rivka pointed out. “Because they’d want it to be a warning, right? Or a very public punishment, at least.”

  “That’s a good point.” Barnabas frowned. “Also strange is the fact that the other ship waited by the Srisa. They didn’t take the actual assassin and leave, and the assassin didn’t shut down the Srisa’s distress signal. It’s as if the two weren’t working together—but both of them wanted what they were doing to be kept quiet.”

  The group looked at one another.

  “Well, he was involved in something shady,” Buster said finally. He shrugged and looked around at the others. “Right? He had to be. He screwed someone over hard, probably with someone else. The assassin killed him quietly—”

  “Why, though?” Rivka interrupted.

  “I don’t know, but let me finish. So they killed him quietly, and the other ship was there because his accomplices suspected that was why he was killed, and they didn’t want anyone to find out about it. They were going to try to hush it up, you know?”

  Barnabas was staring at him, frowning slightly. An idea was clearly coming to him. “They sent a message to the Jotun government,” he said slowly. “The captain of the Srisa said he had sent a message. I assumed it was to the Navy—but what if he sent it to the Senate?”

  Buster gave him a deer-in-the-headlights look. “I’m not sure I quite—”

  “We all thought he was assassinated by the Senate for helping the Navy,” Barnabas explained. “But what if he was assassinated by the Navy for helping the Senate?” He slapped his leg. “That’s it. That’s absolutely it. They sent that ship to keep anyone from investigating until their own people could get to it. Oh, Jeltor is not going to be happy.” He rubbed his face and stood. “I…have to go right now, I’m afraid. There are some people I need to talk to before any more assassins get hired. Thank you all.” He ran for the doorway and pelted through it, only to stick his head back around the doorframe a moment later. “It was very nice to meet all of you. I hope we’ll meet again, and if you’re ever in need of aid, do call on the Shinigami.”

  He left, sprinting for his ship.

  Shinigami! I’ve got it! Did you hear that?

  Hmm? Sorry, I was keeping tabs on the ships at Gerris. They’re freaking out. What’s going on?

  Huword! He wasn’t helping the Navy, he was helping the Senate.

  Whoa, wait. Shinigami sounded skeptical. Is there evidence of that?

  We’ll find evidence. Tell you what, I will bet you three pairs of those shoes with the red on the bottom—

  Louboutins. Jesus, it is not that hard to remember.

  Focus. Barnabas swung himself around the door of the docking bay. Three pairs of those. That’s what Jeltor is going to tell us on Gerris. Wait, did he say he’s coming?

  Yep. He’ll meet us there. Also, may I point out that there are no more Louboutins in the world? I want Tasper Dells. They’re the best ones now.

  Fine. I can do that. Do we have a bet?

  We have a bet.

  Chapter Eleven

  They knew where she was. Somehow, they already knew. In the tiny, dingy room she’d rented, Kantar paced back and forth.

  She didn’t want to admit it, but she was terrified. Even the act of moving in her biosuit, pacing, knowing she appeared as graceful and natural as any other li
fe form, did not help her anxiety.

  That was because it didn’t help her now. Nothing would help until she could get herself off this station, and she had no idea how to do that.

  She had thought the station administrator was stalling—that they’d taken a bribe and would be coming for her. If someone had wanted to find her, after all, that would have been the easiest way. She’d docked with a shuttle, which was noteworthy, and keeping any ships from going on or off the station would have been a nice, simple way to keep her in place while they hunted her down.

  And then…none of that had happened. The Jotuns had never had a violent dictatorship, thank all the gods, but Kantar had traveled enough that she knew how these things went: banging on the doors at night, people stopped at checkpoints, posted rewards for information on anyone suspicious.

  She’d stayed awake the first night with a gun trained on the door. Unlike a more standard life form, she could set the suit in one position and have it wake her up as soon as there was a disturbance outside.

  She’d been too nervous to sleep, though. She’d been sure they were coming for her.

  No one came. No one came the next day, either, and when she finally steeled herself to speak to the station administrator, she found a line that went out of the offices and wound around the markets. Ship captains were irate, minor dignitaries on the ships were irate, traders in perishable goods were especially irate, and no one seemed to be leaving the offices any happier than they’d been upon entering.

  When Kantar finally made her way through the line, she found out why. She was met by a secretary who had set up camp in the hallway in a hastily-constructed booth. In fact, every member of the station administrator’s staff, down to someone who looked like part of the cleaning crew, was presently explaining to people in the line that there was nothing they could do and no bribe that would be sufficient to release a ship.

  By the end of the conversation, Kantar even believed that they were telling her the truth. At this point, with so many people irate and willing to spend astronomical bribes, surely someone would have cracked.

  But that meant that someone had overridden the entire station system and locked all the ships in place—and that hardly made Kantar feel better. The Senate was coming for her—she knew it.

  She wasn’t stupid, of course. She had always known this was a possibility. She wasn’t, strictly speaking, an assassin—not until now, anyway. She was just someone who was able to get into unusual places and do unusual things because she wasn’t what she appeared to be. A friend of a friend who knew her had passed along the job, and she’d taken it for free because she knew it was the right thing to do—to kill Huword.

  Some people needed to die for the things they’d done. She believed that.

  Yes, she had known it might kill her. The thing was, she wasn’t quite ready to die.

  So how in hell did she get off this station before they found her?

  “Where does that leave us?” The voice on the other end of the comm was unimpressed.

  Norwun tried not to lose himself to disquiet. In general, he preferred it when people got angry and yelled a lot. When they were displeased but very quiet, situations tended to be more dangerous. Those people held grudges.

  Those people killed you later, very deliberately and very painfully.

  So far, Norwun had managed to avoid that fate, and he was hoping to keep the streak going. So he was careful to modulate his voice when he replied.

  “It’s a very good situation. Well, as good as it can be.”

  “And how,” the other voice said, “did you reach that conclusion?” They were speaking even more calmly now, which set the alarm bells off in Norwun’s head.

  Norwun pretended that he couldn’t think of any reason things would be wrong. “Whoever killed Huword hasn’t made very much of it, have they? It’s still quiet, and we can spin it however we need to. There aren’t any loose ends on the Srisa, which means we don’t need to worry about a Brakalon civilian ship going missing. That could have been messy. And of all the aliens to pick up the trail, it’s one who was already an enemy. There’s no need to worry that someone else has any information.”

  There was silence, and Norwun found himself praying silently. Please agree, please agree.

  “I suppose you’re right.” There was genuine surprise in the voice.

  Norwun bobbed slightly in relief, tentacles going slack for a moment. He hadn’t yet determined just who he was speaking to within the Senate, which made him nervous. They had the correct clearance to be able to contact him, which meant they must be the head of one of the committees, but they hadn’t told him which one and he had the feeling that if he asked, they would not be pleased.

  “On the other hand,” the senator said, sending Norwun back into a quiet frenzy of anxiety, “Barnabas is already determined to find damaging information on the Senate.”

  “He already has damaging information,” Norwun countered. The confrontation in the Senate had not been widely publicized, but Norwun had, of course, heard of it. Barnabas had made threats that made it clear he knew exactly what had happened between the Senate and the Yennai Corporation. “He hasn’t made it public.”

  “Do not make the mistake of thinking he’s harmless.” The senator’s voice was harsh. “The Yennai Corporation made that mistake, and they are gone. Their fleet is gone. They were one of the most powerful entities in this sector, and there is nothing left of them. He disassembled them piece by piece. If we allow him to continue on this path, there is no telling what he might find…or disrupt.”

  There was something there. Norwun pondered it. He had learned to read between the lines of what senators said, for the simple reason that they usually didn’t come out and tell him what to do—he had to puzzle out their meaning.

  It confused him, back in the day. He had almost made several costly mistakes by not realizing that they wanted people killed or interrogated. Luck had gotten him through those times, and he had learned how to interpret their words.

  In this case, the senator had admitted something without meaning to. They were worried Barnabas would find something specific and disrupt things, and it had nothing to do with the bribes the Yennai Corporation had been giving them. So what was it?

  This was very interesting, and Norwun wanted to know what it was about—if only from the perspective of self-preservation.

  Unfortunately, it was difficult enough to find shadowy secrets when you knew whose secrets you were investigating. Without knowing so much as the name of his contact, his chances of discovering their secrets were essentially nil.

  Sometimes he wished he’d chosen a different job—a shop clerk, maybe. An engineer. Something where your employer didn’t kill you if things went wrong.

  Maybe he’d look into that.

  For now, he said simply, “Barnabas has a weakness. He will not let civilians be killed. This can be used to trap him.”

  “Others have tried that.” The senator sounded unimpressed.

  “As you say, others underestimate him. I won’t. His ship is part of his invincibility. I will separate him from it. I will constrain him somewhere that he cannot use violent force for fear of harming civilians around him. Then I will kill him without fighting him directly. That was the problem others had; they tried to fight, and he can fight any number of opponents successfully. Put him somewhere there’s nothing to fight—where his opponent is the lack of air or heat—and we’ll have more luck.”

  It was more than he’d wanted to reveal. He usually tried to be vague so that if there were any changes to the plan on the fly, he could claim he’d meant to do those things all along.

  In this case, however, the specifics seemed to reassure his contact.

  “Good,” he said simply. “Deal with him quickly, then follow up with the Srisa. I want it destroyed.”

  “But...” Norwun began to be even more worried. “No one on the ship knew anything.”

  “So they said. Perhaps it is even tr
ue after a fashion. But there’s no knowing what they might have seen and what might become relevant later. I said I wanted it destroyed, and I want every passenger dealt with.”

  There was only one answer. “Yes, of course.”

  The call ended, and Norwun stared around the bridge, trying to calm himself. He’d killed like this before without remorse, but always for a purpose. This was now turning into a plan for wholesale slaughter, and he didn’t like it. As much as it bothered him to think he might have an emotional weakness, it seemed he did.

  He wished there was anything to be done about it.

  He didn’t think there was, though. He knew his place. He carried out orders or was killed himself. The senator would survive either way and find someone else to do what Norwun wouldn’t.

  Those people were as good as dead. He might as well be the one to do it.

  Jeltor checked the navigational computer for the seventh time, the backup navigational computer for the twelfth time, and the scopes for the fifty-eighth time before relaxing enough to get out of his chair and open the door to the back portion of the spacecraft.

  He still wasn’t exactly relaxed, but on the other hand—

  “What the hell is this about?” his wife demanded.

  Jeltor, who had thought his family would still be under the effects of the tranquilizers he’d slipped them, jumped.

  “What is what about?” he asked as nonchalantly as he could.

  “We’re all on a spaceship,” his wife said, “and if you thought I wouldn’t notice that, you should never have been allowed to pilot a ship in the Navy because you’re unforgivably stupid. As it is, I can see you preparing to lie your way out of this, so I’ll give you some advice. Don’t even try.”

  “Right. Erm, out of curiosity, how are you awake?” There was a beep behind him, and Jeltor spun around in his tank to look—but it was only an automated message to tell him that they were approaching an asteroid belt, exactly in the time frame they should be.