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Ages - Age of Expansion - The Vigilante Chronicles

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Someone sent three fully armed ships to High Tortuga to back the slave-owners running the mines, and Barnabas and Shinigami are determined to find out who. And take them down. As they look deeper, however, they’ll find traces of an organization that controls whole mercenary syndicates, industries, and even governments: the Yennai Corporation.They have plans for this sector of space, and they are not about to let humans interfere. So they’re going to kill Barnabas, and they’re going to make an example of the mine workers he freed.After all, who’s going to stop them? Barnabas is one human in one ship. They’re sure they can take him out. Some people never learn.

TVC 01/1 THE SETTING Rald, a Shrillexian mercenary, friend of Jutkelon, learned of his death, and vowed to avenge it, along with the loss of the three ships Jutkelon had commanded. Rald learned that Devon had been renamed ‘High Tortuga’ and that it was now under the control of Queen Bethany Anne, formerly of the Etheric Empire. 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. He was called by a Torcellan informant of all of this (probably a Syndicate contact), joined the syndicate, and was provided with transportation to High Tortuga (a worker’s berth on the merchant ship Ulys, meet it at Gammon), with specific conditions. No weapons. Carter, (owner of Aebura’s Bar), sees Barnabas in the bar, greets him. Meets Tabitha, who came to bar and found that juice actually meant real fruit juice, not drugs. Tabitha suggested that the bar needed burgers, as well as what it had. Was rather short with Carter, and had no apologies. Liked food there so much, she made a standing order of a daily sandwich for lunch. Carter asked Barnabas where he was headed next. “Off-planet, but not exactly sure. I’ll be on the lookout for the people who came to Lan’s aid. There are a lot of people out here who target planets like High Tortuga because they think no one’s protecting them. My mission has always been to make people like that…reconsider their course of action.” Gar in Shinigami’s pod-doc, while she investigated more of his physiology. Barnabas came back to the ship, asked to meet with him. Gar assumed he had picked a place for them to go first in their search for Lan’s allies.

TVC 02/2 THE FIRST STOP Barnabas has picked their first stop, Virtue station. One of those ships had docked at Virtue relatively recently. It could have been nothing more than a stop to refuel or run some unrelated errand. It is likely there is actually nothing there.” Barnabas wants Gar to come down onto the station with him, to try to discover any information there might be on the mercenaries or their ships. Gar agreeable, so both go down, Barnabas to the "better" bar, Gar to the one with the mercenaries, captains, etc. “What you’re looking for,” he told Gar pointedly, “is anyone advertising protection, weaponry, or guard services—that sort of thing. Mention that Jutkelon was a contact and referred you to them. If they’re part of whatever group he called on, that will get you in. If not, pretend it was a misunderstanding. As long as you respond appropriately you should be fine.” And Shinigami told him she had his back. He thinks Jutkelon was a member of a larger organization, and wants information on that, if possible. Shinigami tells Barnabas about Tabitha and his hat. (See Miscellaneous, Barnabas' Favorite Sayings), and they head out to Virtue station. As their engines warmed up, an alien ship was watching, with the Captain, Klafk’tin, wanting to capture it for its human technology. Its pilot, Tik’ta, agreed it would be a coup. It was the Shinigami.

TVC 02/3 THE BARS Barnabas Goes to a main level bar, orders juice, and finds that the bars are the banks on Virtue Station. They were entirely given over to the “legitimate” and high-grossing business interests of the station—namely, banking. Barnabas, wearing his special glasses (See Technology, Surveillance) Gar went to the higher levels, finding those resembled any other station Gar had ever been on. It had been built as a series of corridors, each lined with shops and apartments. Commerce, however, had spilled into the corridors, so that there was only a narrow path to walk in between the blankets and carts that lined the thoroughfares. Entered Bar, saw Shrillexians he would talk with, attempting to find ones they were looking for. Klafk’tin approaches Shinigami in the docks, scans that there are no humans aboard, and attempts to steal it.

TVC 02/4 Barnabas meets with a banker, as Shinigami is being kidnapped from the docks, but she’ll take care of it. She tells him to meet with him bar. Mustafee Boreir is the Yofu at the bar—blue skin, eyes on the side of his head? That one. He owns a munitions group that might have supplied Galagg and Jutkelon. Shinigami called Gar to help scare off the thieves, but he was clueless. Tik’ta warns Klaft’kin that Gar about to come to ship. Wohva, the electrical engineer, was commanded to hurry and get the doors open on Shinigami. A moment later, she had opened the doors, and Harrdrack, a security guard, went into the ship to check for booby traps. Just as he was passing through the doors, they shut on him, killing him. Then Gar showed up, and gave them a chance to walk away. They didn’t, pulling guns, and Barnabas showed up.

TVC 02/5 As Klaft’kin tries to steal Shinigami, Barnabas reasons with him, telling him that he really shouldn’t. Klaft’kin disagrees, and tries to shoot him. Barnabas kills him, then speaks to Tik’ta, who would seem to be taking over. All leave, Barnabas and Gar go onto ship.

02/6 THE CHESS GAME The entire chapter is taken up with an incident when Barnabas and Shinigami play chess. Some planning is done between moves, but this is an excellent example of Barnabas’ sneaky thinking and behavior. Fedden wants to meet with Gar. “I heard from Fedden. He gave me the coordinates for a moon called Zahal. It’s in the Adhira system, the first moon around the second planet out. The only problem is He doesn’t yet know you will arrive on the ship that took out his colleagues?” The plan: We’ll do a combination of operations. We’ll send Gar in and mask the ship, if he’s okay with that. At the same time, you will shut down outbound communications without them knowing about it. If things go south, I can clean up the place and we can go for their allies before anyone knows they’re dead. Rald lands in High Tortuga, walks to Tethra, is directed to Aebura’s Bar, where he will meet people who don’t like mine owners.

TVC 02/7 RALD'S FIRST CONTACT IN THERA Rald goes to bar, tries Coke, doesn’t like it. Acts so unlike a Shrillexian that they are watching him, wondering about what might be happening. (“Okay. So he came in and didn’t start any trouble? You served him a drink he didn’t like and he still didn’t start anything? And he paid for the drink, even though he didn’t finish it?” Elisa nodded to all of the questions and Carter shook his head. “You’re right. The whole thing reeks of trouble. I don’t like peaceful Shrillexians.”) Rald goes to see Farfaldri Kat, a friend of Jutkelon’s. Finds out that all of the trouble was caused by humans, by mostly one human. Didn’t know his name, but mine workers (who own the mine, now), will certainly know the name of their hero. Rald was going to do something about that. Fedden meeting with Gar. Fedden was in a bad mood – landing equipment had broken, he had fixed it, was tired, dirty, and Gar still hadn’t shown up.

02/8 AT VIRTUAL STATIONGar and Barnabas meet with Fedden. In the middle of their meeting Crallus, the Yunani owner, barged into the room, accusing Fedden of trying to take over his group. Barnabas and Gar escape, leaving the Shrillexians to battle it out.

TVC 02/9 Fedden tried to shoot Crallus, and only wounded him. Fedden knew he had missed his chance. Crallus’ men backed him up, and they captured Fedden, who was taken to Crallus’ office. He would now probably be killed. who Rald was trying to find the mines. No records had been kept, and so he went about it his way – in a bar. He went to one populated by Brakalons, who were the guards and security type. He talked unrest, and government control, getting them to side with him, but they were afraid. Too many humans to go against. Rald starts talking with them about the humans at Aebura’s bar- their mate, their young.

02/10 INTROSPECTION Gar assesses what he can bring to Barnabas, and discovers that the Luvendi way, to defuse tense situations and achieve goals without physical violence might offer options Barnabas had not thought of. Being Luvendi meant solving problems without fighting. could be a good asset to you. Getting the cooperation of a Luvendi in any of the businesses you’re looking at would mean we would get the inside information about their cash flow, their associates, and their locations—everything. And from knowing Lan I can tell which of these people might be involved in shady things. From this talk, Shinigami and Barnabas had a deep conversation, where she brought To his mind the idea that he, as well as others, needed other people, or they would lose sight of what they were fighting for.

TVC 02/11 VIRTUAL STATION Tagrun, Fedden’s second in command, had not entered the fight, because he knew he wanted to speak later in Fedden’s behalf, and wanted Crallus to know he was not an enemy. He was summoned to Crallus’ office, and the Torcellan led the conversation, wanting to know about Gar and the human. Tagurn realized that they had failed in not getting all of the info available about Gar and the human so he asked what he and Fedden could do to make it right. Kill Gar and Barnabas, and bring back the Shinigami. Tagurn went to get Fedden, explained what they had to do, and they went to their ship. They were not going to tell the Torcellan that they’d already had two chances at it, and missed them both.

TVC 02/12 FIRST YENNAI HINTSShinigami addressed Barnabas when he was alone, something she hesitated to do. She needed to talk to him about the information they had gotten from the Syndicate’s files. The operation is much larger than they had thought. Crallus and the Syndicate isn’t as important as what they were hooked up with, the Yennai Corporation. The Yennai Corporation isn’t part of any particular industry. Its tendrils are hooked into almost anything you can think of.” “Would it just be quicker to say that pretty much wherever we go and whoever we interact with, we can assume word might get back to them?” They allow the syndicates a lot of leeway. They don’t waste resources overseeing after they give the initial cash infusion. They just let the cut trickle up to them, along with any information these people are able to provide. When things get going, that means they know all the emerging markets and also have a very good idea of where threats might emerge.” And the bankers I spoke with on Virtue Station? “Ah, yes. Yennai has contacts in all those banks, as well as the company that provides security for the station and the company that built the station in the first place. I’d say someone from there has probably already read a brief about what went down while we were there. In fact, now that I think of it, it’s probably why Mustafee Boreir disappeared.” And now we’ve pissed off someone we might not be able to take on by ourselves.” “We found a gigantic corporation with hundreds of shadowy tentacles all over known space. We’re pretty outmatched.” At which point someone started shooting at them. Five some ones.

TVC 02/13 FIRST ATTEMPTS AT CAPTURE, BATTLE Ergix, as part of the Yennai Corporation, had gotten the word that it was looking for any human ship registered to the former Etheric Empire. He had staked out the main routes, and Shinigami had appeared. Fedden had been on the same path, and wanted to be in on the capture, but Ergix said no, he wouldn’t wait, and cut off communications. Fedden went to the site, anyway. Shinigami warns passengers to strap in for impact, as they were trying to capture the ship, not shoot it down. Weapons would have been used immediately if their attackers had wanted to capture them. However, they had not, and they were now at a disadvantage. Shinigami could use weapons and they could not. They would break eventually, of course. It would become too costly to keep trying to capture a ship that was taking down their fleet. In the meantime, their tacticians would be occupied by trying to maneuver into position both to capture the ship and avoid missiles, all the while performing the internal calculus of when to abandon their original goal. In a space battle distractions like that could easily be deadly, especially when one’s opponent was an AI with faster-than-organic resources. Shinigami started tumbling the ship away, then turned and rammed straight at them. They would break eventually, of course. It would become too costly to keep trying to capture a ship that was taking down their fleet. In the meantime, their tacticians would be occupied by trying to maneuver into position both to capture the ship and avoid missiles, all the while performing the internal calculus of when to abandon their original goal. In a space battle distractions like that could easily be deadly, especially when one’s opponent was an AI with faster-than-organic resources. Shinigami almost purred. She was flying at the limits of her capabilities for the first time in ages, and between the thrum of her engines and the dual challenges of evading the enemy fleet and keeping Barnabas and Gar safe Shinigami was thinking that today was shaping up to be a very nice day. Plus, she got to shoot things. Barnabas suggests to Shinigami, “Shinigami, if you are able to get into the center of their fleet and have several of them lock on, you might be able to pull them out of formation and into a collision course, and assigns Gar to search for information on the ships attacking them, to perhaps gain knowledge of what they were facing. They’re affiliated with the Yennai Corporation, but exact registration and provenance might give us an idea of who they’re calling in to mess with us.” Shinigami uses Barnabas’ strategy, and it worked. All five were destroyed, but one ship seemed to disappear. It got away, to tell the tale. And to plan a sneak attack, to capture Shinigami.

TVC 02/14 PLANNING FOR YENNAI Barnabas and Shinigami seek out Yennai’s secret base, supported by information sent to an unknown destination during the battle. Or maybe a communications hub. What do you want to bet Yennai Corporation has its own buoys to send and boost signals? And with our hook into Crallus’ communications, we have at least an educated guess of where we might find one of those.” They discuss Gar’s upgrades. Ready yet? He’s been practicing Kung Fu, lately, with Shinigami helping him. Getting ready for more physical experiences. Soon. Barnabas and Shinigami discuss for future Yennai moves. For the next few weeks—or possibly months or even years—I think we can expect to be tracking down various parts of the Yennai Corporation, isolating them, and destroying them.” “We’ll learn their communication patterns and keep the communications going so that no one notices anything’s amiss. If we can find a way to make it seem that they’re still sending in a cut of profits while actually taking money, so much the better.

TVC 02/15 Barnabas captures one of the communication buoys, takes it into the ship. Rald put out the word that he was looking for information on the human who had disrupted the mines. In less than two days, a Luvendi came in with the info he needed. Rald took Heddoran, beat and tortured him until he divulged Barnabas, Gar, and the location of the mines. Rald would collect mercenaries, and destroy the mine. But Carter had been following Rald, with information from the Ubuara, and now was going to rescue Heddoran, who had told, to save Elisa and the children.

TVC 02/16 BARNABAS' MOVES Crallus went back to the Syndicate, and the unnamed Torcellan who had really taken it over, after the three ships had been destroyed on Devon. He learned that more of their ships had been destroyed, and that the contact there was ready to destroy the mines. No news of destroyed ships, not even in general press. The Torcellan predicted that humans, once provoked and attacked, come after anything and everything their enemies own. They will either come for the central Yennai base as soon as they find out where it is, or yours. I have already ordered both to be placed on high alert, and we should withdraw there as soon as possible. I’m having both of them stocked with food and ammunition as well.” Fedden will not be protected. He must earn his way back in, or die trying. Shinigami gave Barnabas news. “They’re mobilizing their forces. They’ve given the order for about half their various guards to come to the Yennai HQ, which I have no idea how to find. The other half is supposed to form a unified fleet, I’m guessing to search for us, and Crallus has issued orders to his ships to go to their fortified base. They’re leaving soon. I’d say they’ll probably be backup for the fleet if necessary.” Shinigami suggests they go elsewhere, let them starve themselves out. She wants to “bomb off”. Barnabas agrees. I propose we let these people hide away in their bunkers. We have all the time in the world, after all. We can let them drain their resources and begin to get complacent and go stir-crazy while we go after the parts of the corporation they didn’t bring with them. When they finally emerge and give us an opening, they’ll find that most of their corporation is gone—and in the meantime, they will have gotten rusty. Meanwhile, Barnabas will be killing other people in other places. They are going to attack the Bonier Group, a munitions manufacturer, assume Yennai communications, then sell it off, dismantle it, close the factories, so the Yennai won’t have ammunition to use against them. She will also be diverting their income into untraceable accounts, so they will be broke when they come out of hiding.

TVC 02/17 FEDDEN'S PLANS Rald goes to mine. The first step was finding out what was in this mining town. Once he knew what was there, he would call in reinforcements and wipe it off the map. Fedden calls a meeting of the ships captains, Brakalons, anyone who would be interested. Crallus was retreating, and Fedden wanted to be active. They fell silent as he entered, and he noticed that they didn’t seem so much happy to see him as discontented with the way things were. “Get shut up like prey in a cage with that Torcellan, making no contracts, or stay out here? No one wanted to retreat except Crallus. And his favorites, of course.” Ah, well. They’d do this with or without him and his best ships. They had numbers on their side now. Fedden talks against Crallus. “You know why he’s going back to his base, right?” Fedden looked at their expressions. They didn’t know. Good. “He’s gotten the syndicate dragged into something bigger than he is. Him and his Torcellan? They’ve fucked up, and they were willing to throw us into the crossfire to fix it.” “He’s pissed off someone bigger than you can imagine,” Fedden continued. “You know why he’s retreating? He sent those three ships and they got destroyed, so he and that Torcellan, they sent seven more ships. State of the art pirate ships. Get’ruz Shipping, not a small outfit. All those ships got destroyed too, and they were only trying to take on one. Fedden sets up a plan to take Shinigami. We lay a trap for this one ship rather than waiting for them to learn about our base and kill us all. I can get a message to that ship to tell them the terms—they won’t be able to resist coming to meet us. And when they’re dust, we’ll start a new syndicate. Half the fees of Crallus’, none of the bullshit he’s been pulling lately, and a hell of a lot more jobs when our clients hear who we managed to take out.

TVC 0/18 PLANS FOR BOREIR Barnabas, disguised as a Torcellan, goes off-ship to try to get on a small Boreir ship, to take over control, using its own system. They had chosen their ship carefully. It was one of the smaller cargo haulers that had completed its delivery and was returning empty to pick up another load of munitions. Since it was not filled with valuable explosives and it wasn’t one of their bigger ships, it wasn’t presently being guarded by other ships whose crews might see the Shinigami. That had been step one. Step two was getting Barnabas onto that ship to get the security codes for their use on the way out and wreak whatever havoc he could, before sneaking him back off, undocking, and flying away to land on the planet. They needed to get into the Boreir system. The answer they came up with had been elegantly simple—attach themselves to a Boreir Group ship, power down, and use its signal to mask them and get them through the shield. She had the two ships right next to one another before her airlock extended and coupled to the other ship’s. Shinigami to go off-line so no one will notice anything. We’ll stay radio-silent from here on out unless something goes very wrong. A crew member comes close, and assumes he is THE Torcellan. This was a complication he hadn’t anticipated. This crew member, and likely others, seemed to believe he was not only a Torcellan but a very specific one. What if one of them had specific questions? At the very least they were afraid of him, but who knew how far that would get him?

Step three was to hook into their communications so they could come and go at will. Who could say when they might need to come back, or what protocols they would need in order to land? Barnabas affixed another device and began to search through the ship’s protocols. Barnabas had not anticipated that the shield system would emit part of its own key, but that was genius. Very few people would think the solution might lie there, of all places. He found the algorithm and copied it, then studied the itinerary. He took as little time as possible, and got back to Shinigami. “Let’s turn the ship back on,” Barnabas instructed. “And go catch us some munitions dealers.”

02/19 AMBUSHESEastbourne goes to warn the miners that Rald is on the way. Heddoran is with him, injured Carter though he is. They arrived in late afternoon, as the mine was closing for the day. Heddoran tells them of his betrayal, and that he will help them, then resign. Heddoran explains that the mine needs to be fortified. Rald comes in at twilight, sees the fortifications at the mine, and calls in all of his forces. Everyone. Fedden settles on a place for the ambush of Shinigami. Eventually Loriq suggested the best place, and all agreed. They would send the message as soon as they had all gotten into position. They were confident. Even Shinigami couldn’t withstand this fleet.

TVC 02/20 YENNAI BASEBarnabas and Shinigami land at a Yennai base, using the pass-code algorithms he had appropriated. As all was automated, there was no problem getting onto the base, and into the system. Barnabas again notices the fear of his Torcellan disguise, and uses it to his advantage. Shinigami devises a plan to clear the planet of its workers. I’m thinking I’ll just give all of them extravagant pensions in a lump sum and get them off-planet before any of the executives realize what’s happened. They can go off and start their own businesses, set up homesteads—anything they want. Meanwhile, the people who were doing all the shady stuff don’t have that money to work with anymore. Barnabas finally approaches a guarded door that demands and insists on ID. He kills them all, knives, blows. No guns- too noisy. Which way to Mustafee? Down seven levels. Heads up. His personal guards patrol these floors. Mustafee is unhappy with the reports of the factory foremen. Faulty munitions, mistakes, injuries, explosions. Too many incidents as they’ve extended the shifts. Mustafee was not pleased. When the Yennai Corporation had sent communications to its highest-level leaders to urge them to withdraw to the main base Mustafee had declined. After all, his headquarters was safer than any base, and whoever Yennai was at war with, they’d requested three times the usual production of munitions in order to fight them. So Mustafee had come back here to personally oversee the new production targets. He threatened the families of the foremen, if they did not meet production standards, at which point, he felt a knife at his throat. He rescinded his order, slammed his hand down on the panic button on his desk, and screamed at the top of his lungs for the guards.

TVC 02/21 The guards appeared, and demanded that Barnabas not touch his weapons. Barnabas said no, and explained why. Here to render justice. He discusses much with Mustafee, then killed him. Shinigami sent him an ASAP to get back to the ship, as they had a message from Fedden. He did so.

TVC02/22 'FEDDEN AND RALDWhen Fedden talks with Barnabas, he sees three humans on the ship, two males and a female. Won’t matter, one more. Shinigami tells Fedden where he is, and what he plans to do. He is amazed, and dismayed that she knows so much. He tells Barnabas,” You get out of everyone’s business or you make enemies you can’t handle. Leave Devon. Drop any claim to the planet. You have no right to it. You serve nothing but a dictator’s whims.” Barnabas gave him one chance to stand down. Fedden refused. “Stand down? It is you who should stand down. We are here above the planet. You cannot possibly reach us before we capture the citizens and sell them. Their fate is in your hands. We will give you a quarter of an hour to release a public statement that Devon will be freed.” They had traced Barnabas to Borier’s planet, so cannot get there in time to save the residents. Begin the operation in fifteen minutes.

Carter was told that the mercenaries had arrived. The town had been evacuated to the mine tunnels, so they were probably safe, but when he stood on the wall, seeing the huge group, he was dismayed. He was told that if he gave the mines to them, they would not be killed. To enforce his point, he brought Elisa (Carter’s wife) to the front. You either turn the mine over to us or all of you die—starting with her. You have four hours to decide.” Carter sent a message to Tabitha, who was still on High Tortuga, showing the scene in front of him. Tabitha notifies Bethany Anne, gathers the Elites, and takes off to help Carter. The one who kills the least has to drink Pepsi for a year, is the bet.

TVC 02/23 On Banton, Fedden had managed to get the population into the hold of one the ships, before Shinigami showed up. “All of the settlers are in the cargo ship third from the right,” she announced. Shinigami attacks from underneath, only the ships without captives. Barnabas was mystifies as to why they were not attacking. Shinigami responded, “I think they want me.” Barnabas cracked up at that. He clutched his side and pounded the arm of the captain’s chair with his free hand. “It’s just the mental image of them trying to use you for anything.” He was still bent over in the captain’s chair with one hand pressed over his side. “This hurts.”

Shinigami had always complained the Jean Dukes had cooked up weapons only for people with hands, so she had made some for Shinigami. She was anticipating an opportunity to use her flamethrower. She bet it could melt iron in two seconds flat. She unleashed three of her Jean Dukes Spring line at the enemy ships and sailed away at a leisurely pace as they blew up spectacularly in the viewscreen. Fedden called Barnabas, asking what he wanted. “I told you what I wanted,” Barnabas told him levelly. “I told you all to learn to make your living without hurting others. I told you to let this go, but you wouldn’t let it lie. You threatened me, you insulted my Queen, and you have sorely tested my patience. You chose to take the slaves because you know I abhor slavery above nearly all else. Now you, with a hold full of slaves, ask me what I want?” Barnabas leaned forward and smiled into the camera. “I’ll see you soon, Fedden. And if even one of those colonists has so much as a scratch on them when I arrive, all of you will regret it for eternity because I will not let you die.”

TVC 02/24 Elisa had taken the children to their Ubuara tunnels when the Shrillexians had arrived, so they were safe. Although taken captive, she was determined to escape, and had untied the knots binding her with her teeth. She tapped over a crate in the tent with her, and called to one of the guards to right it. When he was lifting it, she grabbed his knife and killed him. She grabbed his gun, took his knife, and looked out at all of the mercenaries around her. She made it to a boulder, then met Rald, who was going to kill her until Tabitha did the same to him, curing him all the while. One of the Tontos reminded her that there were more mercenaries around. Hirotoshi collected Elisa and took her to a safe place while Tabitha talked. He then joined her, and they went off to take care of the mercenaries.

TVC 02/25 Barnabas enters Fedden’s ship, asking Shinigami to lock the air-lock controls so that the ship might not be vented. She does so, and he goes to the dock where they are holding the prisoners, who are throwing things at the guards. They are not firing back, so they must have believed Barnabas. He tells the prisoner they are safe, and that he will be back when he has cleared the ship. One of the guards shot at him, smashing the bullet, and he turned around and killed that guard first. Her then went to find Fedden. Meanwhile Wadd, the electronics expert, has determined to capture Shinigami, and take her core. He had a device would start playing havoc with the surveillance systems of the ship. He released it, and it did. Shinigami was incapacitated. Gar notified Barnabas, and told him he would take care of it. As Gar had not asked for help, Barnabas continued after Fedden. He found him, with his men, on the bridge. Barnabas threw in a grenade, killing them, then went for the last mercenary.

TVC 02/26 TABITHA HELPS AT THE MINES Tabitha and the Tontos go after the mercenaries, ending with Hirotoshi winning @ 135, and Akio losing at 97. They receive a message that they have five gunships inbound, and that Vigilante Enterprises will handle it for them, so they all go off to have sandwiches at the Bar, and watch the show.

TVC 02/27 GAR'S UPGRADEBarnabas came back to the ship, and found Shinigami turned off. Until he saw it devoid of Shinigami’s presence, he had not realized how alive she made the place. He was going to make them pay—but first he was going to turn her back on so she could watch. Gar came upon Wadd, digging around with a series of tools trying to extract Shinigami’s AI core from its cradle. He came around the Yofu’s side, gun rising, and shot him at point-blank range. Pain burst up his arms and Gar heard himself scream. Luvendi didn’t shoot guns—the recoil was too much for their bones. He came to in the Pod-doc, listening to Shinigami talk to Barnabas. She told Barnabas that he was awake. Gar climbed out of the Pod-doc. “It’s much easier to be brave for someone else than it is to be brave for yourself.” “We will be upgrading you,” Barnabas told Gar. “Shinigami and I are in agreement that if you are to be part of this crew, you should be upgraded enough that you aren’t constantly being injured.” Shinigami checks on Tabitha, finds the gunships arriving, sends her a message that she will take care of them.

TVC 02/28 SHINIGAMI NAMES THEMKat had collected five ships, with mercenaries, to back up Rald. When he saw that Rald had failed, he sent in the gunships to handle the situation. Even humans could not avoid the missiles from five gunships. He sat back and watched the show. Shinigami had officially named their activities Vigilante Enterprises. Barnabas was Vigilante One, she was Vigilante Actual, and Gar was baby Vigilante, to be future Kung Fu master. They saw the gunships blundering through the mountain pass, loaded with explosives. Would make a mess of the mines if dropped, so Shinigami sent missiles at them, exploding them in the air, raining only ashes down on the roads. she also sent a couple of pucks to Karfaldri Kat, who had financed them and sent them over. She had publicized all of his illegal dealings before sending the pucks. All went back to Tethra, for sandwich time.

TVC 02/29 AFTER THE BATTLESBarnabas and Shinigami have switched to Checkers. They don’t like it, so they go to greet Gar, coming out of the Pod-doc, reviewing his changes. Luvendi bone structure is comparatively weak,” Shinigami began. “My first change was to manipulate the underlying structure to more closely mimic human bones, which necessitated some other changes so that the body would maintain them in their current state. Since they’re heavier than Gar is used to, I also increased his muscle mass. “It’s worth noting,” Shinigami continued, “that the Luvendi belief in their own weakness has some different causes than you might expect. First, it appears that your diet and lack of exposure to light in early years may have negatively impacted your development, both in bones and muscles. I also detected some organ damage and repaired that. My guess, after subjecting some of your cells to a range of tests, is that Luvendi were meant to have a lot of exposure to strong sunlight, but not the type of sunlight you get on Luvendan. So either something has really changed about the planet—the way the atmosphere filters sunlight, for instance—or your people ended up on Luvendan and lost the records of the migration somehow. My guess would be the latter. You’re clearly meant to live near water, so it’s probable that they chose Luvendan for that reason, built the towers, and have been suffering the after-effects of living inside and eating a poor diet. Anyway, we’ll want to fine-tune all this. But the next part of the process will be to begin training for combat and exercise and go from there. Gar, this is not going to be comfortable was. He does, for the entire chapter. Need to read it to understand. When he is finished, the weight is not as crushing as it was, and he would be ready soon to smash some more mercenaries..” Barnabas feels the need to tell Shinigami his story, to justify who he is. He does, for the whole chapter. Needs to be read in full to be appreciated. After he finishes, he feels as if there is less weight to carry, and that he’ll soon be able to again smash mercenaries.

ADDENDA:The name of the mysterious Yennai Torcellan is never divulged).

Names of various minor characters who might be researched for another book:

Crallus: Leader of mercenary syndicate. subservient to Torcellan. Killed by Fedden. Tagurn: Fedden's Second in command. Spoke for him after he tried to kill Crallus. Torcellan allowed him to live Wohva: The electrical engineer who opened the doors won the first attempt to steal Shinigami Wadd: The Yofu, an electronics thief, who tried to steal Shinigami's core.