Forever Defend

by Michael Anderle

  "I was looking at the holographic representation of this area with Reynolds before we left," Bethany Anne told him as she came over. "I knew the guys were trying to placate me and keep me out of the fight."

  She reached up and grabbed Darryl's arm. "Because fighting isn't what Empresses do." She winked at him, and the two of them disappeared.

  John came in holding two crates under his arms as they vanished.

  “Where the hell did she go now?" he asked no one in particular as he angled his approach toward the rest of the crates. "Shit goes in the middle, I take it?"

  "Yup," Gabrielle answered. She looked at her helmet’s HUD. "Ok, special incoming on one-three-niner"

  The rest of the group looked at their HUDs to see what she was talking about. Scott placed the two crates he was carrying on top of John's. "What the hell are those?" He modified the video to take a closer look. "Shit, those look old-school."

  "Oh, they are very old-school," Stephen enlightened them, smiling. "I see twelve offensive shipping containers I recognize from when we were on Earth," his eyes narrowed, "and one I don't."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Bethany Anne peeked out of the Etheric. “Ok, I've got this, Darryl."

  "You've got what?" Darryl asked warily, his eyes widening a bit. Bethany Anne rarely said, 'I've got this’.

  The two of them stepped out and immediately started falling.

  They dropped about five feet before Bethany Anne pulled Darryl back into the Etheric. "Sorry, miscalculated. Here we go," she said, and pulled him out of the Etheric once again.

  ---

  "I really don't like it when she surprises me," Stephen murmured. Gabrielle patted him consolingly on the back.

  "Welcome to our lives," John told him as they set up the crates they had brought in. They were creating an octagonal defensive position, placing some of Team BMW’s new antigrav shields on three sides.

  "Why aren't we placing them four-up?" Gabrielle asked.

  John shrugged as he locked the third shield into place. “Bethany Anne will be on this side. It won't ever get turned on."

  Gabrielle blinked. “What if she gets hurt or knocked out?"

  She looked up to see John's eyes flash red. “Then all those motherfuckers better have prayed to their gods before they dropped down on us.

  ---

  "Hoooollly crap." Darryl whistled as he looked around the cave. There was a square aperture about twenty feet wide some thirty paces away that was open to the outside. "Where are we?"

  Bethany Anne started walking toward it, and Darryl followed. As she stood at the edge, he joined her and looked down. There were about a thousand steps leading into the jungle overgrowth far below.

  "We are at the top of the pyramid?" He looked at the glass-like sides. "So those asshats are going to have to climb the stairs.”

  "Yup,” Bethany Anne agreed. "Watch yourself, we have incoming."

  Darryl turned to see what she was looking at, and raised his eyebrows.

  There were twelve black shipping containers with the female vampire insignia of her empire painted on the side floating towards them.

  Along with one rusty old shipping container.

  The twelve split off and started to settle into the jungle around them. Darryl could see five of them land, but lost sight of the other seven. "They being placed in a circle?" He asked.

  "Yup,” Bethany Anne told him. The two of them moved to the side of the entrance. "Make sure you don't jiggle that one, ADAM."

  Darryl watched the rusty crate slow just a bit as it slid down the large stone walkway into the pyramid itself.

  After it was in place, Bethany Anne grabbed Darryl's arm. “Time to go back. I'm being told we have ships inbound."

  "Seems like the party is about to get started," Darryl commented as they disappeared.

  Leath Dropship 22-Cheezth

  Quarter Military Leader Grindlock nodded to his team as he stepped into the drop capsule. The Leath didn't believe it was every grunt for himself. Rather, everyone lived and died by the Quarter.

  Four to a team, four teams to a section. All sections would drop together toward their target.

  When you saw a full drop, it was impressive---so long as you weren't the aliens the Leath were dropping on. They looked like incandescent strings coming out of the sky and raining death on the unfortunates below.

  With a half-gravity reduction on deceleration, a pod holding a Quarter stood an excellent chance of landing safely.

  Especially on Tournette, which the locals called Karillian.

  This was the sixth time Karillian had been used as a training ground, and now it was time to finish this world and get rid of its defenders.

  Permanently.

  Previous generations of Leath had failed, and had been left here to be torn apart by the inhabitants of the world. With each new generation, the attackers were a little better, a little stronger, and a little stouter of heart than the previous generation.

  Not this time.

  This time, the Leath had bred out any weakness held over from past generations. They had accomplished much with tools and training, and now they were truly a fighting machine fit to take out any Karillian defenses. Even if the defenders burrowed into the ground, they would pull them out and dispose of them.

  The gods had commanded them, and the gods were not very forgiving. They had grown tired, or so Grindlock had been informed, and training was over. It was time to finish Karillian and move the Leath forces on to other challenges. Bigger challenges.

  Richer challenges.

  "Lock and load everything we need," Grindlock ground out between his two upthrust tusks. Muscular, bipedal, and brown, the Leath were masters of moving over long stretches of ground, and through alternative terrain. Whatever it took, this new generation of Leath were sufficient to bring calamity to the Karillian as their gods had commanded.

  As it was ordered, so it would be done.

  Grindlock's team nodded, but only one, Tholt, turned in place and grabbed an extra ammo block. He locked it into his weapon and smiled at his Quarter Leader. “I didn't want you to have spoken for nothing."

  Grindlock and the rest of the team chuckled. They had all heard the rumors, and had set up their weapons appropriately. What they needed, they had. What they might need in the field, or if they forgot something, their pod would either deliver, or they would take from the vanquished.

  The Leath had been fighting the Karillian for six generations, and the defenders’ weapons were well known. Frankly, Grindlock had been surprised, when he was taught Leath history, that the gods had been so forgiving of the amount of time it had taken his people to mature into adequate followers, with all the advances the gods had brought. Had they forgiven the previous generations their failures?

  Hard for Grindlock to understand. But that was why they were the gods and he was the follower.

  Now, it was time for his Quarter, their section, and ultimately their full complement of ground-pounders to prove to the gods they were worthy. Worthy of the patience that had been exhibited, of the enhancements their people had been blessed with.

  Which removed the emotions which had been so limiting to their forbearers.

  "Kill them all." Quarter Leader spoke right before the team both heard and felt the sudden jolt as the pod was kicked out of the massive dropship.

  Over one thousand pods were dropped into the darkness of space from each of the twenty ships spread out over the main continent, which was the only continent of consequence.

  The final subjugation of Karillian had started.

  The yellow eyes of his Quarter gleamed in the dark of the pod, and Grindlock felt pride along with desire welling up in his heart.

  He wanted to taste blood, and taste it soon.

  ---

  Dan Bosse looked at the screen showing all the incoming trajectories. "Well, I think that counts as a fuck-ton." He shook his head. “I believe our plans came up a little short, folks."

&n
bsp; "Agreed," General Reynolds said from behind him. "We are tracking," he turned to his right, "well, shit. Eighty thousand of the sumbitches."

  Dan smiled. “Somebody better tell the Queen's Guardians to lock and load more ammo." He looked at the map as the tracks coming down from space started calculating landing zones. "Gott Verdammt!"

  Lance turned to look at the screen Dan was watching. "How the hell did she call that so well?"

  "Beats the fuck out of me,” Dan muttered, then sent the command to talk over the private channel.

  "Bethany Anne?"

  "Here.” Her voice answered immediately.

  “Do you see what I see?”

  “That the Queen Bitch is granted her wish and most of the tracks are heading this way?”

  “The very same,” Dan admitted, raising an eyebrow in Lance's direction.

  “I do.”

  There was a pause before Dan asked the question he knew he wouldn't like the answer to. “How did you guess that would be the location?”

  “Who guessed?” she answered, her humor coloring their connection before she closed it.

  Dan turned slightly toward Lance. “Did you just hear her answer?" Lance shook his head. "I asked her," he said, keeping his voice down, "how she guessed the right location, and she says she didn't guess."

  Dan looked at Frank Kurns, who was busy re-routing a small contingent of special ops groups. "Frank!"

  Frank looked up. “What?"

  "Did you help Bethany Anne figure out where the Leath would be landing?"

  "How was I supposed to do that?" Frank asked, perplexed. “When I myself am having to re-route support to her area?"

  Dan nodded to Frank to let him know he understood his answer, and turned back to Lance. "Ok, I'm officially out of ideas on how she accomplished it."

  Lance chewed on an unlit cigar and gazed into the distance as he murmured. "Follow the money.”

  "What money?" Dan asked. “There is no money---"

  Lance put up a hand and focused on Dan. “We tried to stick her in a back-ass area of the world where she could be defended, where we didn't believe the Leath would try to attack at all."

  "Yes." Dan nodded. “That was the plan."

  Lance took the cigar out of his mouth. “Sometimes my daughter is so damned devious.” He pointed the cigar at the monitor. “I'm a pissed-off General, but a very proud father."

  Dan's eyes narrowed. “She isn't following the money, she is having the Leath follow the money."

  Dan swore softly, then raised his voice. “All right, everyone! New fucking orders. Minimize teams around the continent. Everything we got, congregate on Bethany Anne’s location."

  There was a pause before Dan added, "And someone find out how Bethany Anne is telling the Leath they are a bunch of baby-loving, shit-slinging fucktards who couldn't catch and kill a cockroach."

  Lance nodded. “You figured it out."

  Over in the corner, Frank laughed and reached to his left, grabbing a new notebook.

  The Bitch was back, and pulling stunts he needed to write down

  Once more.

  ____

  Eric looked at the input from Command on the monitors and whistled. “Wow, you really pissed them off." He turned to view Bethany Anne, and his next question was instantly forgotten.

  "Hey!" Eric exclaimed, causing Scott and Darryl to turn in their direction. "Where did you get gum?"

  Bethany Anne turned and grinned. “You didn't read the notes on this little adventure, did you?"

  Eric looked up for a second. “Ah, yes. Yes, I did!"

  "Oh, well then." Bethany Anne smirked. “The information must have only been in my copy."

  Eric's eyes narrowed. “We have the same copy."

  "Do we?" she asked. "ADAM?"

  ADAM replied, using the speakers on her suit. "Yes, Bethany Anne?"

  "Did Eric have the same copy of the notes I did?"

  "Yes, of course. You were very explicit about making sure everyone had the same information as you."

  While Bethany Anne was having that conversation, Scott, Darryl and John were all quickly perusing their own copies of the notes. Over to one side, Gabrielle was smirking at Stephen, who was shaking his head.

  Both of them surreptitiously pulled small packages out of one of the bags at their waists and popped a small chunk of purple substance into their mouths. It took Scott and Darryl only half a second to see them chewing and smiling at the rest of them.

  "The hell?" Eric finally realized what Gabrielle was doing.

  John issued a succinct curse. “Natural concentrated lattices of vegetable origin?" He turned to Bethany Anne. “Seriously?"

  "How are you going to learn to ask what everything means in a document if you just breeze through it?" she questioned him. "I mean, come on, I had to ask what every one of the substances we were provided were. Most aren't that helpful in this battle, but a few were. Also, I found out what terpene resins are."

  "Well, that's going to be a pain in the ass," John replied, glancing at the screen. “Are we going to do anything about those incoming?" he asked as he mumbled a note to connect with ADAM after they (hopefully) made it back to the Meredith Reynolds.

  He wasn't going to be caught flat-footed again. He had trusted he would be informed of anything interesting. Right now, his mouth salivated when he thought about chewing gum again.

  "Sure, when we are absolutely sure we can hit the sumbitches,” she told him.

  Stephen reviewed a few screens on his heads-up display. "They really don't think too much of this world's people, do they?"

  "Well, they thought enough to bring ten times more friends to the party," Darryl commented from his location.

  "With about two-thirds of them coming here,” Scott remarked, "seems like we are going to be having the party."

  Stephen chuckled. “Jennifer is going to be pissed."

  "She thought she was in the sweet spot for the fighting and you would be on the back lines?"

  "Yes, that does sum up her logic," he agreed. "In fact, I would say she has been itching to be at the front since we began dating in Europe."

  "That would be the date," Scott pulled out his favorite Jean Dukes EE102 Long-distance Semi-auto, "where you ran into trouble with the Weres and she jumped ship on you?"

  "The very same," Stephen agreed.

  "So she has been training ever since?" Eric asked.

  "Yup," Stephen agreed. “With me, Nathan when he has a chance, and Peter."

  "All the boys," Bethany Anne broke in, "who were having hissy fits in the halls about her."

  "She was becoming quite angry in practice," Stephen admitted.

  "All practice and no action made Jennifer a bit of a bitch,” Bethany Anne commented as she reviewed the screens in her HUD. She looked around and saw everyone staring at her. “What? She's a Were, so she is a bitch."

  "You know…" Stephen paused, trying to pick his words carefully.

  "Stephen?" Bethany Anne got his attention and pointed to herself. "You are talking to the Queen Bitch here. I wear my moniker proudly, so she needs to own hers, too.”

  They could hear hundreds of pods screaming through the atmosphere, then slowing and creating chaos in the vegetation as they crashed through the overgrowth surrounding the pyramid.

  "Ok, time for our first welcome to the uninvited guests,” Bethany Anne commented and soon thereafter, all hell broke loose down below.

  Planet Karillian, Command Base

  "Should we make a few overflights?" Dan asked Lance, watching the thousands of pods moving toward Bethany Anne's position.

  "Nope, not unless she calls it in." Lance sighed. "Damn that woman. She can really sell an invitation to aliens hell-bent on killing and destruction." He reached up and wiped his face. “Someone better start feeding this information to ArchAngel."

  Dan looked at Lance, who winked at him and said, "Two can play nasty."

  Bridge, ArchAngel II

  Admiral Thomas was sitt
ing on the bridge of ArchAngel II, thinking about the shape of the Leath ships and how they had arrived in-system. He watched them appear, ship after ship, in a pattern of two ships, one ship, then two ships again.

  There was a break. "Do we have them all?" he asked aloud.

  "Negative, Admiral Thomas," ArchAngel answered. Bethany Anne's face appeared on the main screen. "We are still able to sense a disturbance in the space where they are arriving."

  "Well, there are a whole lot of the fuckers," Admiral Thomas admitted. "I'm counting, what, twenty dropships, at least four or five ships that look like logistics, and three capital ships."

  As the admiral finished, there was a huge flash of energy and a final ship appeared.

  It was round with an empty center, and was fully three times the width of any of the capital ships.

  "Well, I think we have found their method of arriving." Admiral Thomas rubbed his face. "Now, what do I do about you?"

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Planet Karillian / Tournette

  Quarter Military Leader Grindlock kicked open the door that blocked his exit from the pod. He knew they weren’t following the original plan that had been designed for this useless world, because they were in a jungle.

  “Who the hell decided we needed to play in the grass and trees?” he grunted, his two upthrust tusks rubbing his lip as he sneered.

  “Turn to Comm channel 112.251, QML,” Quarter Second said. He jumped out of the pod while looking to the right, his section to cover.

  Grindlock switched to the general frequency and listened a moment to the bullshit that was being spewed. He counted seven languages, but he only understood two.

  “Seems someone is itching for a fight!” Grindlock smiled as he cocked his weapon. “About time we met an opponent with some backbone.”

  “True,” Tholt added as he came around from the back side of the pod. “Easier to rip a backbone out of their ass if they have one in the first place.”

  “Even better than stomping on their little nasty larval heads as they mewl for their parents,” Glot remarked.

  “I’ve been looking forward to a real fight, anyway,” Quarter Fourth D’thok commented.