Tabitha grinned and dropped into the captain’s chair. “No, but I can offer up Achronyx as a sacrifice to appease your anger if you’d like?” She put her feet up, ignoring the look she received. “Since it was him who blocked you.”
“I did nothing of the sort!” Achronyx protested over the speakers. “I blocked all external inputs so you could process working with so much of CEREBRO.”
“Here, watch this.” She forwarded the video of Achronyx’s modified drones.
Bethany Anne’s eyes moved rapidly, a smile creeping onto her face as explosions tore the Ooken destroyers to shreds.
Bethany Anne raised an eyebrow once it was done. “Nice!”
Tabitha stood up and shimmied victoriously “I know, right? CEREBRO provided the drones, and Achronyx and I—”
“Um…”
Tabitha rolled her eyes. “Fine, Achronyx figured out what to do with the Etheric charges.”
Bethany Anne chuckled. “Well, in that case, I’m not as annoyed with you, Achronyx.”
“Which I appreciate immensely, my Queen,” Achronyx replied gravely.
Tabitha dropped back into her chair. “I knew you’d understand. What was so important you had ADAM hack my ship?”
Bethany Anne waved a hand. “Oh, just that we’re almost home. We’ll be docking at the Guardian in two jumps.”
Tabitha’s head snapped up. “Really?” A grin appeared on her face at the same time an idea popped into her mind. “You’re planning on coming out here?”
Bethany Anne looked at her skeptically. “Yes. Why do you have that crazy look on your face, Tabitha?”
Tabitha couldn’t see her own face, but judging by the tightness in her jaw and the angle of Bethany Anne's eyebrow, she thought she could probably give the Cheshire Cat a run for its money at that moment. “Oh, you need to get here soonest. We’ve come up with a way to get a look at what we think is the homeworld, and you don’t want to miss it.”
A satisfied smile touched Bethany Anne's lips. “That’s my girl.”
Devon, Interdiction, QBS Izanami, Bridge
Bethany Anne leaned forward, hands on the console, as the Izanami Gated into the midst of the battle. “Where’s the Achronyx?”
There was a massive explosion of Etheric energy off in the distance.
Bethany Anne reached out with her mind to discern the source. “Never mind, I’ve found them. Take us over there, Izanami.”
Izanami’s eyes blazed like rubies in the snow. “Of course, my Queen.” The AI’s aura glitched shades of red that pooled around her feet, flowing behind her in pixelated bloody-looking contrails as she glided around the bridge.
Bethany Anne read the fleet reports as Izanami guided the ship across the battlefield. She fired off a message to Tim to tell him she would discuss his decision to allow the general citizenry of Devon to participate.
Izanami appeared beside Bethany Anne. “We are at the Achronyx’s location, my Queen.”
Bethany Anne stepped through the Etheric to the Achronyx, exiting in the bay where she sensed Tabitha’s presence. She gazed down from the walkway above the bay as Tabitha laid a boot into one of the drones she had lined up in rows.
Bethany Anne watched, confused, as Tabitha paused a moment before moving to the next drone and kicking that one, too. She walked over to the railing and inspected the damage to the drone directly beneath her. “What did they do to you?”
Tabitha looked up from the drone when Bethany Anne called to her. “Cool, you’re here!” She made her way over. “I’m damaging them for a reason.”
Bethany Anne's leaned over the railing, her curiosity getting the better of her. “I’ll bite. What’s the deal?”
Tabitha hopped onto the nose of the drone Bethany Anne had been looking at, then jumped to grab the railing and swung herself over with ease. “Did you notice the Gate in the video I sent?”
Bethany Anne nodded. “I did. Was there something special about it other than the size?”
Tabitha shrugged and leaned against the railing. “That’s the thing—we don’t know. All our efforts so far to get a look at the other side have failed. Whatever we sent through got destroyed the second it crossed, and now the Ooken are bunched up around the Gate like hemorrhoids so we can’t get near it. ”
Bethany Anne pursed her lips, making the decision. “I can get us there. The Ooken can’t detect the Izanami.” She waved a hand at the floor below. “Pack up. We’re going to pay them a return visit.”
Tabitha wiggled her eyebrows. “I was really hoping you would say that.” She vaulted the rail, already conferring with Achronyx on the logistics.
Bethany Anne went back to the Izanami to wait for Tabitha, heading straight for the armory to exchange the light armor she was currently wearing for full battle gear.
The case containing her heavy battle armor opened as Bethany Anne entered the armory. No simple crate for this set, it was housed in an unbreakable glass cabinet with the Jean Dukes logo handpainted on the doors above Bethany Anne's Queen Bitch badge.
A small chuckle escaped her lips when she realized that even TOM and ADAM were absent for the moment. It was a rare thing to be alone long enough to contemplate.
“I guess there’s nobody around to think I’m crazy if I talk to myself.” She trailed her fingers over the rack of under armor suits, grabbing the one she wanted before crossing the room to get space to change into it.
Then came the fight to get out of the light armor. “Can I just get a happy medium when it comes to my armor?” she bitched, tugging at the skintight nano-infused fabric until it peeled away from her back with a snap. “Something comfortable that I can wear while I’m in the Etheric and not have to worry about healing bullet holes when I walk out?”
She extracted her legs and dropped the stiff suit on the floor, then retrieved the under armor suit and slipped a foot into the soft material.
The armor unfurled from the center outward when she was five steps away from the case. “The only thing that would make this beauty better was if it had heels built in.”
Bethany Anne smirked at the thought and raised her arms slightly as she walked up the two steps to enter the cabinet.
She turned to face the room as she took the final step backward into the embrace of Jean’s best work yet. The armor assembled itself around her body from her feet up, each section locking seamlessly into the next until she was completely protected from neck to toes.
She hummed as she stepped down, flexing her hands inside the gauntlets. They made the connection to the Etheric and a tingle raced over her bare skin. Keeping it simple, she selected her faithful katanas and her Jean Dukes specials.
If she couldn’t beat the Ooken with her swords, her guns, and her brain…
Bethany Anne laughed. “I can’t even continue that thought. It’s too ridiculous.” She left the armory and set off for the bridge.
Tabitha came aboard while Bethany Anne was finishing the review of CEREBRO’s logs pertaining to the attempts. She flounced out of the elevator and over to the larger couch, where she flopped down on her stomach and rested her chin on her hands. “Are we good to go?”
Bethany Anne shrugged. “Near as I can tell. Izanami, is our way home secure?”
Izanami appeared at Bethany Anne's side in a swirl of pixels. “As secure as a Gate jump can be,” the AI replied. “In short, yes.”
Bethany Anne waved her finger in a circle. “Then why are we not moving? Let’s go.”
Izanami dipped her head and vanished. The Ooken Gate came into view on the wraparound screens a few moments later.
Bethany Anne's eyes darted around, taking note of the various groups clustered around the Gate as the Izanami approached.
Ooken destroyers swarmed around the threshold. Their plasma weapons glowed brightly, warning off any ships that got too close. “They sure have enough of those destroyers. Didn’t you take a shit-ton of them out?”
“They just kept bringing more through the damned Gate,” Tab
itha bitched. She untucked a hand from her chin and flapped it at the line the Ooken had made around the Gate. “This is how far we got with the Achronyx before they all swooped in like vultures.”
The Izanami passed the line without challenge.
Tabitha sighed heavily, then looked at Bethany Anne and shrugged. “I knew we were good, but it was still squeaky-ass time for a second while we tested it.”
Bethany Anne shook her head and turned back to regard the screen through narrowed eyes. “Izanami, take us through that Gate.”
Beyond the Gate, QBS Izanami, Bridge
Bethany Anne got her first look at the area beyond the Gate as the ship nosed over the threshold. The Izanami was a mere speck in comparison to the sprawling construction they’d arrived at.
She cursed softly, noting the heavy defenses on every flat surface. Patrol ships swept back and forth between the many active Gates scattered around the asymmetric arrangement of platforms that made up the staging post. “I guess we know why none of the drones made it through,” she commented as they passed unnoticed between two ships armed with turret guns.
Tabitha frowned as they surveyed the nine gigantic cubes that were linked in the Ooken manner by tunnels and scaffolding. “I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that this is not the homeworld.”
“You don't say!” Bethany Anne closed her eyes for a second, wrapping her hope up tightly to save it for another day. She opened them again and turned to Tabitha. “It’s not all bad news. I think we are in a position to deal the Ooken some real hurt. Look closely… Those Gates are going to other places than Devon. This is an important location for them.”
Tabitha’s face contorted when she connected Bethany Anne's words to the steady flow of inbound ships from the surrounding Gates. “Greedy fucking assholes. Is that their only motivation for all this? Stripping every world they come to for every resource it has?”
Bethany Anne nodded calmly, her outward serenity a sharp contrast to the tumultuous anger boiling within. “Yes, but not for long. Did you bring enough of those drones to make a scene?”
Tabitha gave Bethany Anne a shark-like grin, the maniacal glint back in her eyes. “Oh, hells yes. Where do you want to start?”
Bethany Anne glanced at the screen and pressed her lips together in thought. “Hmmm. Good question. Izanami, can you poke around in their systems without them figuring out that we’re here?”
Izanami floated across to Bethany Anne, a hint of darkness rippling through her aura. “I already have, and I’ve identified several areas of interest.”
A holomap overlaid the live feed and a colored marker appeared on one cube that was slightly offset from the center of the staging post. “This area, however, was the one that caught my attention first.”
Bethany Anne looked over at the AI. “Why?”
Izanami glitched out, reappearing on the other side of the map in a burst of pixels. “It is covered by the same type of shielding we encountered over the first colony.”
Bethany Anne pressed her lips together. “Okay. That’s not entirely unexpected. What have they got going on here that we can see? Give me everything you've identified.”
Tabitha walked around the map, selecting the different-colored markers that popped up all over the map. “They're pretty organized. So, Izanami, the blue markers away from the shielded area are the manufacturing sites?”
“They are,” the AI confirmed.
Bethany Anne raised an eyebrow. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That depends,” Tabitha replied offhandedly. “Are you thinking about blowing the shit out of this place?”
Bethany Anne nodded somberly. “That’s pretty much the plan.”
Izanami vanished again as the ship neared the shielded area. Her voice came from the speaker in the headrest of Bethany Anne's couch as a small drawer in her console slid open. “Take this with you, my Queen. It will disable the shielding, and I left a little gift of my own in there for the Ooken.”
Bethany Anne picked up the tiny translucent cube within and held it to the light to examine the ripple of the Etheric energy inside. “Pretty. How does it work?”
“Just press it to the shield generator. It will do all the heavy lifting for you,” Izanami informed her.
The corners of Bethany Anne's mouth turned up as she stashed the cube in one of her armor’s compartments. “Handy thing to have.”
ADAM spoke up. >>It can do much more than that with a little bit of tweaking.<<
You have a considerable amount of training ahead of you before you get to even think about touching the Etheric again, Bethany Anne told him firmly. Still, good to know. She filed the information away for later use and turned to Tabitha. “Ready?”
Tabitha grinned, hooking an arm through the sling of her rifle. “You bet your ass I am.”
25
Beyond The Gate, Staging Post, QBS Izanami
Bethany Anne and Tabitha stood at the open drop door in the cargo bay while Izanami brought the ship in to hover above an access hatch near the shielded section of the central cube.
Bethany Anne leaned out to line up the hatch, holding the overhead strap for balance. “Make sure you don’t fuck the landing.”
Tabitha narrowed her eyes and made the jump. “I do not ‘fuck landings,’” she protested hotly as Bethany Anne landed beside her. “Sometimes they just get away from me, is all.”
Bethany Anne snickered as she bent to tear the hatch free. “Oookay, sure.” She checked her mental image of Izanami’s map and stepped inside the hatch onto the ladder. “This goes down a ways. We leave this shaft three exits down and then work our way across to the shielded section.”
Tabitha climbed into the hatch after Bethany Anne. “What do you think we’re going to find?”
Bethany Anne peered into the first exit as she passed it. “I couldn’t even begin to guess. Whatever it is, it was valuable enough to the Ooken to put all that shielding on it, so it must be worth blowing up.”
She passed the second exit, which was as empty as the first. Tabitha was quiet—for Tabitha, at least. “You okay?”
Tabitha made a noncommittal sound, not wanting to raise the subject with her. “I’m good.”
Bethany Anne sensed Tabitha’s reluctance to talk. She took the rungs a little bit faster, seeing their exit. “Nice try. What’s eating you? You know you can tell me if you aren’t happy on Devon.” She stepped into the horizontal shaft and waited for Tabitha to join her.
“Are you kidding?” Tabitha caught up a moment later and fell into step behind Bethany Anne, and the two women made their way deeper into the cube. “I love Devon. High Tortuga has gotten so stuffy that you can’t even find a decent bar fight there anymore.”
Bethany Anne frowned, checking their route again before taking the right turn at an intersection that led them into a wide corridor. “You and Peter are okay? Todd’s health is good, or you would have told me about it.”
“It’s nothing like that.” Tabitha shrugged. “There’s no point anyway. You made your decision about Nickie, I know you won’t budge on bringing her home.”
Bethany Anne raised an eyebrow. “Damn straight. Seven years is seven years, and I’ll be honest and say I’m not expecting much change when that time is up—not based on the reports I’ve been getting.”
“You too?” Tabitha’s voice wavered. “I hate that she’s out there alone, Bethany Anne. You just don’t know her like I do. She needs someone to believe in her, or my worst fear might just come true, and the next time I see her will be when her body is returned to us.”
Bethany Anne pushed Tabitha into the shadow of a recess before they turned into another corridor. Wait a moment—I’m sensing Ooken nearby. What do you want me to do about Nickie? she asked. Even if I wanted to let her come home early—which I’m not inclined to do at this point—how does that teach her anything?
Tabitha pressed herself against the wall. It doesn’t. All I’m asking is that you allow me to send someon
e to watch her back and give her a nudge in the right direction.
The Ooken got within smelling distance. Bethany Anne guessed they were about to turn onto the corridor she and Tabitha were in.
Bethany Anne looked hard at Tabitha. We will discuss this when we’re back on the right side of the Gate.
Thank you. Tabitha nodded toward the two Ooken. Which one do you want?
Neither. I’m really sick of sneaking around, but if we kill one, they ALL come running.
Oh. Yeah. Tabitha pouted. I’ve got to say, this deviation from your usual in-your-face badassery is not your best look.
I know, right? Bethany Anne grimaced. But what else can I do? It’s a different challenge completely when the enemy is telepathic.
Tabitha felt her best friend’s turmoil. Don’t stress it. Something will come along that tips the balance completely in our favor.
You’re right. Bethany Anne grabbed Tabitha’s hand and pulled her along the corridor. But when have I ever waited for serendipity to drop the solution into my lap when I can tip the scale myself? Now, run.
Bethany Anne and Tabitha blurred around the corner, moving too fast for the Ooken they passed to realize something had just blasted by and sprinted down the corridors at full speed.
They slowed upon reaching the shield, which covered the turn into a much wider, brightly lit corridor.
“Over here,” Tabitha called, indicating the hidden access panel she’d found farther along the wall. “It will only take a minute to open.”
Bethany Anne walked over and put her fist through the panel, ripping it off as she removed her hand. “Not even half a second if you do it my way.” She took Izanami’s cube from the compartment in her armor she’d put it in for safekeeping, made a space to push it through the ropes of wires inside the wall, and pressed it to the inner workings.
The cube glowed, then melted into the circuit board. A few seconds later, Bethany Anne had access to the Ooken mainframe.
“Did it work?” Tabitha asked.
Bethany Anne nodded slowly, then shook her head when nothing happened with the shielding. “Yeah…no.” She fixed Tabitha with a sparkling smile. “I don’t speak Ooken, which makes me doubly glad I brought tech support along for the trip. Oh, and TOM. ”
All’s Fair in Blood and War (The Kurtherian Endgame Book 4) Page 24
