Never Surrender

by Michael Anderle

  Ryu nodded his head in understanding.

  Tabitha walked out the door and followed Bethany Anne and Darryl. She turned back in time to see Barnabas talking with Hirotoshi for a moment before Barnabas went the other direction and Hirotoshi started following them. Moments later, the party had Darryl in the lead, Bethany Anne and Tabitha next and the four Tontos following behind.

  As they headed down the halls, a sliding door opened, and the seven of them swept through, the wall sliding closed behind them. Seconds later, they left the hallway that headed back towards All Guns Blazing and Darryl took them across the bottom of the large shopping and eating area.

  Bethany Anne seemed to be ignoring the looks and whispers, and not a few pointing fingers as she and the group walked across the floor.

  “Hai!” Ryu hissed behind her.

  Tabitha looked ahead and noticed two aliens. They would be Ixtali, based on the images Tabitha had studied. She thought they looked like standing spiders. The couple were a male and a female. They seemed to head in their direction, thinking they would be able to interrupt Bethany Anne’s pathway.

  That was when the fear hit.

  Darryl had a hand out, pushing in the direction of the two Ixtali and spoke in their language. “Not now, thank you for your interest.” He kept to his fast pace as Bethany Anne nodded to them and the team swept through the lower level, and on to the entrance to the special docks beyond.

  Tabitha noticed the look of shock on more than one alien, at least if she was reading their body language correctly.

  And perhaps a new level of respect for their Empress from a few of her fellow humans who hadn’t been around Bethany Anne for a while.

  —

  Darryl stepped aside as Bethany Anne caught up and passed him in the hallway once they were through the commercial areas. She nodded to the guards each time they passed through.

  Bethany Anne had told Merideth she was tired of going through checkpoints. That the EI needed to warn each station she was on her way.

  Apparently, age hadn’t provided any extra doses of patience to Bethany Anne, at least quite yet.

  At the last station, however, she slowed down. She had personally told these guards that everyone, including herself, was to be checked before entering this work area.

  “Gentlemen,” she nodded to both black-clad guards, helmets in place. They should be confirming with both Merideth and Reynolds who the people were in front of them. If there were any doubt, they had additional tools and protocols to follow.

  While Earth had thousands of stories of body snatchers, TOM said it was unlikely anything would truly be able to fake being a human.

  Bethany Anne had breathed a sigh of relief.

  They would be unable to fake being a human, soon - TOM had finally finished.

  She sucked back in the air she had just released. You are lucky I can’t strangle your scrawny neck, she told him.

  She could feel his humor. She still didn’t know if he was joking that it could happen, or just that he was pleased his timing on delivering the warning was so effective.

  If she hadn’t planned on finding out how to provide TOM his own body again, she was now. Just so she could beat the shit out of him just once, for old times’ sake.

  The guards had finally confirmed everyone’s identity and the doors unlocked. Darryl moved in first to verify it was safe for Bethany Anne. “Clear.”

  “One of these times,” Bethany Anne grumped, “I’m going to have a practical joke waiting on the other side of one of these doors.” She walked into the hanger and turned to watch Ranger Tabitha and her team come in.

  Tabitha walked through the door, and her mouth dropped open. “Ohhh, my,” she whispered as she walked past Bethany Anne.

  Bethany Anne watched her reactions, the Empress’s head turning to appreciate Tabitha’s reaction.

  Tabitha completely ignored her.

  Bethany Anne looked over at Darryl who was grinning. “I’m not giving you the pleasure.” Darryl chuckled at Bethany Anne’s words as he walked towards the other side of the ship.

  Hirotoshi stopped next to Bethany Anne, “That is a Ranger’s ship?”

  “Well,” Bethany Anne said, turning to take in the beautiful black ship. “It is this Ranger’s ship. Specially made to handle her, and her team of six Tontos plus three passengers. Six, if those passengers are really close,” she admitted. The completely black human version of the G’laxix Sphaea class ship was highlighted under bright lights that set off the ship in the hanger.

  Tabitha called out over her shoulder as she ran a hand along the side of the ship, “What’s its name?”

  “What would you expect?” A somewhat electronic voice came from underneath the ship.

  Tabitha pulled her hand down as if stung, “Oh God!”

  Bethany Anne and Hirotoshi walked over to the Ranger. “Welcome to the Achronyx, Tabitha.”

  Tabitha lowered her head into her right hand, her middle finger somehow the only one raised up the side of her face aimed in Bethany Anne’s direction. “OWWW!” Tabitha screamed, she yanked her hand down, flinging it back and forth to deal with the pain. She looked at it, a thin line of blood showing where something sharp had cut it.

  She looked at Bethany Anne who raised her eyebrows back at her.

  “I deserved that,” Tabitha admitted. “I’ve been around a teenager too much.”

  There was a commotion from the doors through which they had entered, and the three of them turned to see Barnabas walking in, with the other two Tontos following him. Between them, they had additional boxes labeled ammunition.

  Barnabas walked up to Bethany Anne and pursed his lips, staring at Tabitha’s hand.

  “What happened?” he asked. Bethany Anne looked at Tabitha.

  “Well, since there aren’t any buildings to fall out of, this time I decided to let my hand do something stupid, and it got reprimanded,” Tabitha replied.

  Hirotoshi nodded to his Ranger, “I will see to the new supplies and make sure the ship is ready, Kemosabe.”

  Tabitha nodded her understanding to Hirotoshi and turned to Bethany Anne, “Are you sure Achronyx is up to handling this ship?”

  Barnabas chuckled.

  “Keep it up, boss,” she looked over at him, “but I swear he is the most obstinate EI anyone has ever heard about. He will force me to rephrase shit just because he knows it annoys the fuck out of me.”

  “Tabitha,” Bethany Anne folded her arms and said, “are we going to have the same discussion about the inability of an EI to actively choose to be obstinate like that? As a programmer yourself...”

  “I was a hacker, there is a difference,” Tabitha interrupted, “Programmers were in corporations playing with their databases.”

  “And what were you doing?” Bethany Anne asked, one eyebrow raised.

  “I was on the outside, busting in, and retrieving the data they were putting into the databases.” The exhacker Ranger thought about it for half a second, “So, they were filling up the data vault while I was making withdrawals.”

  “So,” Bethany Ann tapped her lips before asking, “a common thief?”

  There was a snort from the other side of the ship.

  “My Empress,” Tabitha answered, a gleam in her eye as she waved a hand up and down, pointing at her body, “There is never anything common about this,” she added.

  Bethany Anne smiled, “Good, we have the old Tabitha back.”

  Tabitha’s smile turned melancholic as she considered the past couple of months, “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. After leaving Earth, and no boyfriend, it kinda walloped me.”

  Bethany Anne’s voice was soft, “You aren’t the only one to suffer from leaving Earth behind,” she told her Ranger, “but you came out of it. It only took a spunky teenager to help you.”

  This time, Tabitha made a face. Not too unlike one Barnabas might have made when thinking about Tabitha herself. “Not exactly the method I would suggest, but you’re right, she helped,
” she admitted.

  “Well, we finally recognized the problem with Anne’s mom when she was taking it out on Anne. When Jinx chose the girl, and then we had the Pod-Doc episode, you helped her through it. You did very well, but it is time to get back on the horse.”

  Tabitha smiled, a glint in her eye, “I think it is at that.” Tabitha looked down, then stomped her right foot once, grimaced, then a second time.

  Chink.

  Then she did her left.

  Chink.

  Tabitha lifted her head and smiled, “Round them up, Tontos!” She called out as she walked towards the entrance ramp on the side of the ship, “We have a party to crash!”

  There was a slight ‘chink, chink, chink’ as Tabitha walked away.

  Barnabas stared down at her boots in horror, “Is she wearing spurs?”

  Bethany Anne just shook her head and patted Barnabas on the shoulder, “I’m sure it was a gag gift from her team.”

  Barnabas watched his Ranger walk up the ramp and disappear into the spaceship before he spoke to Bethany Anne over his shoulder, pointing to where Tabitha had just disappeared. “You realize that the first representative of your Empire could be that young, Hispanic Ranger who is wearing a black leather coat, has four Japanese vampires all responding to ‘Tonto’ and is wearing spurs.”

  Bethany Anne started walking towards the exit, so Barnabas followed. “Furthermore, there isn’t a cow for a hundred light-years around here, Bethany Anne.”

  Darryl was waiting at the door to lead the Empress out.

  Barnabas kept it up, “I don’t even think we have a horse on this whole space station!” he complained.

  The two Tontos followed Barnabas through the doors.

  The two guards chuckled as the team went down the hall and around the corner. Barnabas’s voice came back to them, “Oh, for God’s sake! She had better not come back saying ‘y’all’ in her Latino accent!”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  QBBS Merideth Reynolds - Open Court Outer Docks

  Aerolyn was struggling to figure out what options if any, he had to hide here on the Etheric Empire’s space station when the buzz of conversation on the floor increased.

  He looked around to see a group of humans heading through the center of the large area.

  “No, that’s her!” he heard a person whispering in Yollin. He wanted to turn around and see who was talking but kept his focus on the small procession. Out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed a couple of figures heading in the direction of the parade.

  They were Ixtalis.

  Aerolyn grimaced, those aliens screwed you over and made you smile while they did it. It seemed every chance the Ixtali got, they would get you hooked on either their rare gems or their information trade.

  Usually both.

  The big dark man in front of the Empress put his arm out and then a sense of fear hit. He recognized it wasn’t only him, but most on the floor felt something. Those nearest the male seemed to be affected the hardest. Off to one side, one of the humans turned aside and threw up.

  The Ixtali backed off, and the Empress and her people swept across the floor and disappeared in the direction of the ship berths.

  “What was that?” Aerolyn looked around in shock. Most of the humans seemed to know what was going on, a few were casting irritated glances at the two Ixtali who had gone to sit down, obviously shaken.

  Aerolyn got up and left his table. If this Empress was willing to upset an Ixtali, maybe he had a chance. He needed to find out who he could talk to about his problem, and if the Etheric Empire was willing to help him.

  —

  Ixtelina found the nearest table and pulled out a chair that was at the closest empty table, and sat down.

  Ixgalan dropped into a chair beside her, “What just happened?”

  Ixtelina looked over at him, “Do you have a guess? Because I do and I do not like the idea much at all.”

  Ixgalan reached up and scratched his face, “We were pushed back by some kind of emotional weapon?”

  “Did you see a weapon pointed at us?”

  “Sure, his hand.”

  Ixtelina was quiet for a moment, “Do you believe there was a weapon in his hand?”

  This time, it was Ixgalan’s turn to pause. “My mind says yes, he had to have a weapon.” He made a gesture with his arm to show he didn’t believe it.

  “That is my point, Ixgalan.” Ixtelina admitted, “If he was able to push out a wave that was able to mess with our emotions at such a basic level, and it isn’t a technical ability, but rather an organic one…” she left the question open.

  “How would they know how to affect our physiology?”

  “I’m trying to work on that right now,” Ixtelina admitted. “It’s both scary as well as interesting.”

  Ixgalan leaned towards his lead and put a hand on her arm, “Are you ok?”

  Ixtelina looked around, leaving Ixgalan’s hand where it was for a moment. “No.” She turned to her team member, “I’ll be straight forward. The implications for this are far reaching. We can sit and ponder it all you want, but there are very few species that can do what they just did. We are the first Ixtali on their space station. Perhaps they recorded our genetics when they took our pictures earlier. If they did, what is their technology? We were barely in front of the camera for seconds.”

  “Maybe while on the transfer ship?”

  “That Executive Pod?” Ixtelina thought about that a moment, “If so, that was the most luxurious medical scanner I’ve ever been on.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t think so either, but I had to ask,” Ixgalan lamented. “Then again, why aren’t my tiny spies working?” Ixtelina shook her head, and Ixgalan grimaced, “Sorry, that was inappropriate.”

  “We are both out of sorts at the moment. If we had been able to connect the ship here, we would have been able to employ a significant amount of attacks.”

  “Which,” Ixgalan finished, “was why they didn’t allow us to dock.”

  “Exactly,” Ixtelina leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table. “They know who we are, they know what we offer and what we sell.”

  Ixgalan thought about it a moment, “And they don’t care.”

  “Ignorance, lack of need, or pride?” Ixtelina whispered.

  “Well, we could just ask them,” Ixgalan suggested.

  Ixtelina looked over at him, to register her opinion of that idea when she noticed he was looking back at the entrances to the ship’s berths. She followed his gaze and saw that the Empress was coming back through the floor. This time, however, she had a new male beside her, obviously in a heated (and one-sided) conversation. The two males that followed them looked similar to the ones who had guarded her going the other direction, but she was sure that they were different.

  Ixtelina pushed herself up from the chair. While she didn’t relish the thought of feeling the fear again, she had a job to do.

  —

  Darryl turned his head just a small amount, “Incoming at two o’clock.”

  Bethany Anne’s eyes flitted to the area Darryl called out, “Those are Ixtali, right?”