Return Of The Queen: The Kurtherian Endgame™ Book Eight

by Anderle, Michael

  She looked down when her holo beeped an alert. “Duty calls.”

  “Same here,” Chief Owens announced, dropping a credit chip on the bar. He looked around in alarm when alerts went off all around the room. The bar began to empty in a hurry. “Shit, what’s going down out there?”

  Kelley didn’t look back as she dashed for the door. “I guess we’re going to find out any minute now.”

  Open Space, QSD Baba Yaga

  ADAM announced the imminent arrival of the QBS Achronyx, and Bethany Anne and Michael left their work on the running schedule to find the children. Gabriel, Alexis, Christina, and Kai came out of the APA as they passed it, debating their next move in the investigation.

  Bethany Anne smiled, seeing their motivation to uncover the roots of the anti-Empire cult was still high. “Good. I was about to have ADAM tell you to meet us at the hangar.”

  “It’s weird having him run the ship instead of Izanami,” Alexis commented. “How is Reynolds?”

  Bethany Anne smiled. “He’s doing—”

  Michael stopped the group before they got into the elevator. “Wait. I hear Ookens.”

  Alexis tuned into the mindspace. “Yeah, me too. Faint, though. I can’t tell what direction they’re in.”

  “What?” Kai asked, looking around, thinking they were nearby.

  Christina leaned in and whispered to Gabriel when Bethany Anne closed her eyes, “What’s she doing?”

  Gabriel held a finger to his lips. “She’s listening to the Ookens' minds to get a location.”

  Bethany Anne locked on to the hive mind and used the individual Ookens as steppingstones, getting a snippet of information from each to build a picture of where they were without alerting them to her presence. “They’re inside the Federation. On a Yollin planet.”

  “Close enough to get to through the Etheric?” Michael asked. “I haven’t gotten a good workout since we left Devon.”

  Bethany Anne shook her head and described the impression she’d gotten of the location while ADAM calculated the coordinates. “There are too many of them. I can’t leave right now since I have to meet with my father. Take John and the Sayomi and meet us at the Meredith Reynolds.”

  Michael nodded. “Can you have ADAM let the local law know what they’re up against?” He glanced at the twins. “Do you two want to come along?”

  Gabriel’s smile faded. “That would be great, but we have the investigation to take care of.”

  Alexis remembered how Gabriel had supported her plan with the cult cell and decided to give him a break. “Go have fun with Dad. Take Trey. I’ll stay with Mom.”

  “What about Grandpa and Akio?” Gabriel asked, torn between duty and the chance to get some father-son time. “They’re waiting for us. We have to keep working on the investigation.”

  “I won’t offer twice,” Alexis told him with a grin. “Have fun doing whatever it is men do when there are no women around to supervise them.”

  Gabriel chuckled, lifting his hands. “You’ve been in my head. You know all we do is talk shit and shoot stuff.”

  “The bad thing is that you’re not lying,” Alexis agreed cheerfully. “But try to limit the damage to the Ookens, hmm? We’ll catch you up when you get back.”

  “Dibs,” Trey told K’aia. “I’m guarding Gabriel.”

  K’aia waved a hand. “Knock yourself out. I want to hear what the General dug up.”

  Kai looked around hopefully. “If it’s a guy thing, does that mean I get to go?”

  Michael considered Kai for a moment. “That depends. How good are your nanocytes?”

  Kai shrugged. “It’s complicated.” He took a moment to explain the different sources of his family’s nanocytes and the wide-ranging results in the third generation of the Walton family. “I stopped aging, and I’m stronger and faster than someone with no enhancement, but that’s about it.”

  “You don’t get sick,” Christina added. “You heal pretty quickly, too. I’ve never seen you miss a shot.”

  Bethany Anne interceded before Christina could argue his case further. “It’s not good enough. There’s no fucking way I want TH on my ass because I let his grandson get killed playing with the grown-up nanocytes.” She smiled at Kai. “Luckily for you, your nanocytes are partially descended from mine. We can bring you up to the same level as Trey and K’aia without any risk with a small adjustment.”

  “How long will that take?” Kai asked, thinking he was going to get left behind.

  Bethany Anne consulted ADAM before replying, “Thirty minutes.”

  “I’ll do it,” Kai agreed immediately.

  “Solid decision,” Christina agreed. “But if Kai goes on the rescue mission, I go.”

  Gabriel laughed. “Like we’re going to turn down having a Pricolici on the team. You’re worth twenty fighters, at least.”

  “Thirty,” Christina countered, cracking her knuckles. “Just line ’em up and watch me go.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Bethany Anne decreed. “Kai, get yourself to the Vid-doc suite. ADAM is waiting for you. The rest of you go gear up.”

  “Wait until you’ve fought the Ookens before making statements,” Michael told Christina as he led the group away. “Even Peter has to put a bit of effort into tearing one of those things in half.”

  Gabriel grabbed his father’s arm. “We have a set of armor aboard for him, right?”

  Michael nodded.

  Gabriel whooped and dashed ahead, calling back as he ran. “Meet you all in the armory. Christina, you’re going to love this!

  Bethany Anne, Alexis, and K’aia watched them go with amusement before continuing on their way to the hangar. Lance and Akio were waiting by the roamer charging point.

  “Where is Michael?” Akio inquired after the greetings were done.

  Bethany Anne smiled. “He’s getting ready to head out in the Sayomi to take care of an Ooken attack. You’ll find him in the armory if he’s already left the Vid-doc suite.”

  “Was someone here injured?” Lance asked with concern.

  Bethany Anne shook her head. “No. We have Terry Henry’s grandson visiting, and he needed a tweak to his nanocytes to be combat-ready.”

  Akio gave a little shrug and nodded at Bethany Anne and Alexis in turn. “I have to get back after speaking with Michael and help with setting up the Ranger base. It was good to see you both, however briefly. You too, Lance.”

  “Thank you for your help,” Lance replied, shaking Akio’s hand.

  Akio chuckled drily as he headed for the door. “I wouldn’t call finding nothing help, but at least you know there is nobody plotting within the government.”

  K’aia groaned. “That puts us back to square one.”

  “Not necessarily,” Alexis countered. “We have everything we’ve found.” She smiled. “We’ll get them. Do you want to go on the rescue mission? It looks like you have free time until everyone gets back otherwise. I want to get some time with my mom.”

  K’aia sighed, letting her disappointment go. “Sure. All hands in a storm, right?”

  Bethany Anne shook her head as Akio and K’aia walked off in separate directions. “So, nothing? While I’m happy to hear the situation at Red Rock is settled, it would have been a damn sight easier if we had found the person who leaked the photo.”

  “Without a doubt,” Lance agreed. “But our assumption that the leak came from Red Rock was wrong, so we have to expand the investigation. I have the Federation side covered by the teams expanding CEREBRO inside Federation borders, but there’s not much I can do about the Interdiction.”

  “Use Harkkat,” Bethany Anne told him. “You don’t have to trust him. I have CEREBRO watching his every move.”

  “I’m going to focus on what we have,” Alexis told them. “Our side of the investigation has moved on since we left Onyx Station.”

  They left the hangar for the informal meeting room in Bethany Anne’s quarters. Alexis headed straight for the fridge and grabbed them all Cokes. “You
always keep the good stuff in here,” she enthused. “You know what it’s like out there? Coke comes in plastic bottles. Biodegradable plastic, sure, but still. Can you imagine?”

  Bethany Anne raised an eyebrow as she accepted her drink. “I’d forgotten you live to raid my stash. Why don’t you just stock your fridge with the Mexican recipe?”

  Alexis looked at her mother in pity. “What, and waste good cane sugar on Gabriel? He drank a Pepsi Nathan offered him while we were at Bad Company HQ. He has zero taste, There is no way I’m sharing with his Cro-Magnon-level taste buds.”

  Bethany Anne eyed her daughter. “You’ll have to forgive your brother. Young men his age do stupid things to impress the people they admire.”

  Alexis pretended to gag. “I’d rather drink battery acid. Or…” she raised the bottle and smiled before taking a sip, “drink your Coke.”

  Lance chuckled deeply. “Oh, this is everything I hoped for when you were a teenager,” he told Bethany Anne.

  “I was an absolute delight as a teenager,” Bethany Anne protested. “I went to school, got good grades—” She narrowed her eyes at Alexis and her father, staring down their laughter. “What?”

  “Got into a fight around once a week?” Lance supplied with a smirk.

  Bethany Anne's stony expression softened. “What can I say? My patience with people’s bullshit ran out at a very young age. I recall a certain six-year-old of mine tearing a grown male a new asshole for being rude to her nanny.”

  Alexis laughed, remembering the occasion clearly. “So, what Grandpa’s saying is that you haven’t changed one bit?”

  Lance nodded. “Spot on, Twinkle.” He grinned when Alexis blushed at the use of the childhood nickname he'd given her back when everything she wore had to be sparkly. “Your mother always had a strong sense of right and wrong. You’re growing up to be just like her.”

  Bethany Anne almost sprayed her Coke everywhere. “She’s not shy about pretending to be me when the situation calls for it.” She pointed at Alexis. “Ask her why I found a request for replicas of my katanas on the requisitions list for that op her team just ran.”

  Lance looked at Alexis for clarification.

  “Everyone always says I look like Mom from a distance, so we used it to our advantage,” Alexis conceded before summarizing the events leading up to her team capturing the cult cell. “When they thought they were being imprisoned by Mom, they told K’aia and Trey everything. Now the cell is on the penal colony where they can’t do any more harm, and we have a solid lead.”

  “I couldn’t be prouder of the way they ran that operation,” Bethany Anne told her father. “Those terrorists wouldn’t have lived long enough to talk if I’d been there.”

  Lance beamed at his granddaughter. “You did good. Where does that leave the investigation?”

  Alexis shared her written report with them both via her HUD. “We have a name for the man running them, which we spent the time here running back to a ship. The contact information for the ship is the address of a freight company by the name of Shoken Carriers.”

  She hesitated before giving up the last part. “It’s based out of Leath space.”

  Lance braced himself for an explosion that didn’t happen.

  Bethany Anne pressed her lips together, tapping her nails on the table for a moment before speaking. “The next step is not to go blazing off to Leath space with a wish in one hand and a hope in the other. Dad, contact Harkkat and have him dig up everything that company is hiding.”

  “Are you sure you want to risk that?” Lance asked with surprise. “It’s an opportunity for him to turn on you.”

  “I’m not sending my children in unprepared,” Bethany Anne told him. “I said I would give Harkkat an opportunity to prove himself. I can’t afford to let the unrest this cult is causing to grow into something that derails the schedule.”

  Alexis missed what Bethany Anne was saying, her attention caught by a riot trending on the newsfeeds. She shared the links with Bethany Anne and Lance. “This is happening right now; the FDG are there. We have to do something before it gets out of hand, but I have a feeling that taking out the leadership might not be enough to put an end to it.”

  Lance saw where Alexis was going. “They can’t do much without functional leadership.”

  Bethany Anne chuckled. “Your grandpa is right. Cutting off the head of the snake has always been effective in the past.”

  Alexis lifted her hands. “Well, you could make martyrs of them—or you could let us dig right down to find the originator and expose them to the public. Make sure everyone sees that they’re lying shitsacks.” She smiled. “How sure are you that Gödel is behind the cult?”

  “This stinks of Gödel,” Bethany Anne stated. “After Reynolds’ experience, I’m sure until I learn differently. She’s been too quiet since she failed to take Devon.”

  “So we show the people that,” Alexis suggested in a tone that made it clear she wasn’t suggesting the thing so much as telling them how it was going to be. “We get out there, we track the cult back to its source, and we expose them for the frauds they are.”

  “This is getting to you,” Lance commented.

  “Damn right, it’s getting to me, Grandpa,” Alexis retorted as she got to her feet. “Which means I won’t stop until I get to them.”

  Bethany Anne admired her daughter’s tenacity, but she hoped Alexis was able to dial down her intensity until there was something to act on. “We have a shopping date, remember, and we have a few hours before we get to the Meredith Reynolds. Can your crusade hang on until we visit with Reynolds?”

  Alexis dropped a hand to her hip, her seriousness replaced with a sunny smile. “I like that as a plan. Want to tag along, Grandpa?”

  “I’m not supposed to be here,” Lance apologized, holding out his arms when Alexis moved in to hug him. “We’ll get some family time when the tour gets to Skaine territory. The government is still attempting to block the Interdiction through the legal system.”

  Alexis rolled her eyes. “I read the transcripts. They don’t have a leg to stand on.”

  “Which is why they’ve submitted a request to have the House be present before you arrive,” Lance agreed.

  “I should let the Ookens in there to make sure they’re clear on the need for the Interdiction,” Bethany Anne grumbled. “Nothing gets my back up more than you having to pacify people when they’d happily see the Federation crumble.”

  “We endure what we must,” Lance told her with a rueful smile. “Give Reynolds my best.”

  “Of course,” Bethany Anne agreed. She hugged Lance before he left, then walked over to the door. “Izanami, are you ready?”

  The lights dimmed as Izanami left the ship, then a panel in the wall slid open and a tray holding a memory core cube and two mobile hard light drives was extended.

  Bethany Anne smiled as she picked up the items. “I promise you will find this worthwhile,” she murmured to the AI inside the cube. She opened the Etheric and waved Alexis in ahead of her. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Open Space, SD Reynolds

  Bethany Anne’s annoyance had dissipated completely by the time she and Alexis had crossed through the Etheric to the transfer area she had aboard the Reynolds.

  “Where is Reynolds?” Alexis asked, finding only his splinter personalities and ADAM when she connected to the ship’s interface.

  “Takal is keeping him isolated from the rest of the ship for his protection,” Bethany Anne told her. “Last time I came to check on him, he was still in the process of recovering the fragments of his personality.”

  Alexis let out a low whistle. “That’s got to suck for him. Imagine existing and not knowing the details of your own life.”

  Bethany Anne nodded. “Reynolds has been around almost as long as I have, and he’s tough. He’ll heal with time and the right care.”

  Takal greeted them with a smile when they entered his lab. “Ah, you heard?”

>   “Heard what?” Bethany Anne shook her head.

  Takal flourished his hands at the hard light projection unit he’d set up by the table in the center-left of the room. “Reynolds was able to pull enough of himself together to function. He’s got some gaps still, but he’s mostly himself again.”

  “That’s great news,” Bethany Anne told him, handing him the two hard light drives. “It sounds like he’s ready for some company. These should help.”

  Takal examined the drives. “More than you know. He’s past thinking in the abstract, and being confined to a closed system with no sensory input? Well, I was wondering how to get around it.”

  “Can we speak to him?” Alexis asked.

  Takal nodded, getting to work connecting the memory cube to the closed network he had Reynolds stored on. “He’s listening right now, He’s just preserving his cycles for the task of rebuilding himself.”

  He carefully placed one of the hard light drives into the collection tray of the projection unit and the spindles in the top of the casement began to whir, moving into position to point at the tray.

  Light erupted from the spindles and poured into the collection tray, becoming animated when it came into contact with the hard light drive. The drive rose, buoyed into the center of the liquid light as it rapidly coalesced into a clearly human shape.

  The detail grew with each moment until Reynolds was standing in the tray. He stepped out awkwardly. “Forgive me. This is taking a moment to get used to.”

  “It’s just damned good to see you,” Bethany Anne stated, taking a seat at the table. She folded her hands in front of her and smiled as Reynolds took a seat across from her. “Welcome back. That was too close.”

  Reynolds smiled sadly. “You’re telling me. I don’t feel like myself at all if I’m honest.”

  Alexis joined Takal and helped herself to his notes on Reynolds' recovery so far. “You’re missing parts of yourself, so it’s only natural. What happened to you?”

  Reynolds’ expression became distant as he searched for answers and discovered he was missing a chunk of time in his memory. He’d been in a Pod, underwater. They’d been chased. “Jiya—”