Payback Is A Bitch (The Kurtherian Endgame Book 1)

by Michael Anderle

The two of them went from room to room. “Clear!” one would call, then alternated the lead when they went on to the next.

  Bethany Anne was going down more stairs with Michael behind her and bitching about a complete lack of opportunity when Akio’s voice came over the system.

  “Four.”

  —

  Az went to the basement, locked the metal door, and sat back. He now had four feet of the same metal battleships used between him and whoever was out there.

  He’d just had a one-word reply from Imon. Done.

  At least that was one project finished.

  Az’s mercenary team was going to be wiped out. Perhaps they would be able to kill a few of the attackers, perhaps they wouldn’t. However, he had requested that two chalet-leveling missiles be fired at his location.

  He would survive inside this bunker. Those outside?

  Not so much.

  25

  On the G’laxix Sphaea

  “We have two incoming missiles, angle two-two-three,” Kiel informed Kael-ven from the weapons console. “Instructions?”

  Kael-ven looked at the screen. “Thirty seconds to arrival. What do you suggest?”

  “Intercepting them. You could place the ship in between, using the shields to protect us against the damage.”

  Kael-ven snorted. “This is why you aren’t Navy. How about we shoot them down?”

  “Sure. Not as much risk, but whatever the captain wants,” Kiel grumped. “Four turrets aimed at the missiles. Ready to fire at the captain’s command.”

  Kael-ven engaged the comm channel to those below. “Suggest finding shelter. It’s going to be raining missile parts in a moment.”

  Kiel kept his finger poised for a few more seconds, but the turrets began firing before he pressed the control. “What?” He lifted his hand before turning to his friend. “I didn’t fire them!”

  Kael-ven chuckled. “Did you really think I would trust a Marine to fire Navy weapons when my friends’ lives were on the line?”

  “Well, who did?”

  Kael-ven shook his head. “I left it to the EI.”

  Planet Adolphin, Az’s Chalet, Bunker

  Az heard the banging on the door to his bunker room and smiled. There were seven more…six more…five more… His eyes opened large when the outside video showed destruction on a far smaller scale.

  His missiles had been destroyed.

  Planet Adolphin, Az’s Chalet, Outside Bunker

  Bethany Anne, shaking out her right fist, pointed with her left to the metal door that had stopped her from entering the next room. “That’s a hard door.”

  “Are you done?” Michael asked. The indentations in the door were impressive but didn’t seem to have done anything to it structurally. John and Eric showed up behind them on the steps that led to the bunker.

  “What, you have a better idea?” Bethany Anne huffed. Her eyes grew wide when Michael, who had been standing there with his helmet off smiled and disappeared, his empty armor crumpling to the floor now that his body was no longer holding it up.

  “MICHAEL!” she screamed, her eyes flaring red in anger as she turned toward the door.

  And disappeared.

  John and Eric stared at Michael’s empty armor.

  “Well…fuck,” John murmured.

  —

  Az was watching the four armored figures in front of the bunker’s door in confusion when the audio feed cut out. He was reaching over to turn it back on when the human male disappeared and the human female pulled her helmet off, screaming.

  Then he heard voices.

  Az jumped up from the security station. The bunker had a bed, a small kitchenette, and plenty of electronics to both tell him what was going on outside it, and it could also connect him with external contacts.

  He had placed another order for missiles and some more mercenaries just two minutes previously.

  YOU are the one behind the attacks… Interesting, a military mind using pirates to do your dirty work and help you get to the top.

  Az’s head darted around as he tried to pinpoint the source of the voice.

  The one who attacked Devon… Attacked my family… Attacked others for your greed.

  Az sneered. “I take what I want. It’s the law of the jungle.”

  The mental voice laughed. Then it is a shame that the jungle has come for you!

  “Bring it.” Az sneered just as a human woman with her hair floating, her face and hands crackling with energy, and her red eyes blazing appeared in front of him.

  He stared as her hair turned white and her face black. “WHERE. IS. HE?”

  “Bitch, I don’t … ARGHH!” Az’s armored body sans helmet slammed into the electronics suite. Sparks flew as he fell over the console to land awkwardly on the floor. He went for his gun, but she grabbed his hand between a vice-like forefinger and thumb, twisting his arm around and breaking his wrist.

  He screamed in pain as she asked him in a gravelly voice, “I said…”

  “I DON’T KNOW!” Az yelled, reaching for a knife with his left hand.

  She broke his arm and kicked out his legs and his back slammed to the floor. A red ball of energy appeared in her hand as she straddled the massive Leath, then she pushed the sizzling ball into his left hand. She held it down with her right knee as the knife and his flesh melted. Smoke and the smell of burnt flesh wafted through the bunker.

  “I’m pretty fucking impatient,” she hissed.

  Michael’s voice spoke from beside her. “You always are.”

  Bethany Anne’s gleaming red eyes jerked to Michael, but before she could say anything he pointed to the Leath. “He is the guilty party, and payback?”

  Baba Yaga turned back to the Leath beneath her. “YOU just tried to kill my CHILDREN!”

  Az looked at her with fear in his eyes. He now knew who this woman was.

  Death had come for him, and she was a bitch.

  His screams went on for a while. Michael held him down and Baba Yaga took her time burning through the armor over his chest, gravity directing the melting metal to his ribs and his heart.

  “You scared me.” She eyed Michael as she stood up.

  Michael smirked. It wasn’t the first time he had accomplished that feat, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. However, the way her hair was floating around her was doing things to him. “I’m hot for you right now, so can we save the bitch session for later?”

  Bethany Anne stared at him, her face slowly changing back to white and her hair back to black. She stepped off the body.

  “Did you just play me?” She tilted her head, narrowing her eyes at him.

  “No,” Michael replied. “I was working to confirm he was the guilty party when you showed up.

  “Was he?” she asked. “The guilty party?”

  “The main one, yes.” He glanced at the body. “But there are two more—or were. One, a Shrillexian, killed the other, a white-haired albino human.”

  “Torcellan,” Bethany Anne corrected.

  “Right, that,” Michael agreed. He looked at the destroyed electronics. There were some that were still working. “I wonder what opens the door?”

  “What about sex?”

  Michael waved a hand under his nose. “Not the right smell for that.”

  “Okay.” She shrugged. “Frankly, I don’t know how we’d manage it with this armor on anyway.” Bethany Anne went to the door and pushed a button.

  It did nothing.

  She hit a second button and a series of clicks and clunks came from the door mechanism. A moment later the door opened to reveal their people.

  “Oh, geez!” Scott covered his nose. “What the hell did you guys do in here?”

  Addix stepped around Bethany Anne.

  There was gnashing of mandibles. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIS COMMUNICATIONS CONSOLE!” she shrieked.

  Planet Soboth (Previously Territory 7732), Undisclosed location, Open Out-ring, Non-Federation

  Uleq, wearing a gas mask, walked th
rough the silence. He stepped over an arm that was lying outside a cubicle as he made his way back into Imon’s office.

  Imon was dead, slumped over his desk with a glass still in his hands.

  Uleq shook his head and tossed a tablet on Imon’s desk. “Poor choice of who to follow. There is always a new generation ready to take over when the old can’t understand that times have changed. You should never have accepted a drink after work with me. Eventually there might be poison in it.”

  He turned and stepped out, closing the door behind him. Passing through quiet halls with more than a few dead bodies, Uleq made his way out to the spaceport. There was another Torcellan waiting for him.

  Nodding, Uleq boarded the small spacecraft and the other Torcellan came up the ramp behind him. As it closed behind them, they took off their masks.

  Soon, the ship was in space, heading in the opposite direction from Adolphin.

  Back in the base the tablet on Imon’s desk glowed, a simple word fading in and out…

  “DONE.”

  High Tortuga, Hidden Space Fleet Base, Queen’s Nursery

  Bethany Anne smiled down at the baby boy, his hand grasping the smallest part of her finger and squeezing it in his sleep.

  “Ow, Gabriel!” she hissed. The pain lessened. “Strong little bugger.”

  Bethany Anne?

  Yes, TOM?

  I’d like to tell you something.

  Hmmm? she murmured. Isn’t Alexis the cutest little girl?

  Yes.

  Bethany Anne sighed and stepped out of the room, closing the door softly behind her as she padded to her bedroom. Michael was already up, having gone outside to work on how to cook dinosaur meat—or whatever the hell it was that he planned on hunting with William.

  They had purchased some meat in a small village outside the forest to practice grilling, but Bethany Anne wanted nothing to do with it.

  For now, they had twelve long-distance scout ships looking for clues to where the Kurtherians might be. As soon as they had the information, she and her team would ship out and track the fuckers down.

  Until then, she planned on working on High Tortuga and the MPPS governmental system—and raising a couple of children.

  And developing her magic.

  “What is it, TOM?” she asked, remembering that he had started the conversation.

  You might want to sit down.

  Oh goody, she responded. One of those conversations.

  Bethany Anne skipped the bedroom, heading instead for the living room and a Coke. This seemed like a Coke talk.

  She opened it and took a swallow and then sat down. “Go for it,” she told him.

  A half-second later Coke spewed out of her mouth and her eyes opened wide in surprise.

  “YOU’RE A FUCKING PRIEST?” she yelled. “I thought you were a pilot!”

  Well, in my culture they are the same thing. So, lost in translation?

  It’s been a hundred and seventy years, give or take, she thundered. Why has this not come up before? I’d think you could have given me a little clarification when the two words were so obviously different!

  Bethany Anne went to the snacks area, grabbed two rags out of a drawer, and tried to clean up the Coke mess.

  Fortunately her synthetics cleaned easily.

  TOM sighed. The best answer I can give you is, you scared me.

  Not this bullshit about learning too quickly again?

  Yes, in a nutshell. Perhaps a tiny, less complicated nutshell.

  Why the hell? Bethany Anne heard a small cry and stopped, her head turning toward the bedroom where the children were sleeping.

  The crying stopped.

  Okay, so why the hell, she continued, taking the rags to the sink to wash them out, are you just telling me this now?

  I think that for you to have a chance of succeeding if we encounter other Kurtherians—at least those more adept with the Etheric—you need to be guided by my knowledge. The challenge will be for you to stay here in the present.

  Why will it be a struggle?

  All of us who know, struggle. Every day is an acknowledgment that we know how to ascend; we see the peace, the love, the delight in that, and yet we choose to stay here. Until Michael came back and Gabriel and Alexis arrived I didn’t know if you had what it took to say no to ascending, so I didn’t teach you in case… Well, in case you chose to take the less painful route.

  Bethany Anne thought about his comments for a moment. He was here to train protectors to defend against and defeat the Seven. She was, for all practical purposes, his avatar. So you could ascend at any time, TOM?

  Yes.

  And you have to fight it every day?

  No.

  Why not?

  Because I have you.

  All the anger she was feeling fell away from her heart and Bethany Anne slowly sat down on the carpet, raised her hands to her eyes, and cried.

  Fully a minute later ADAM spoke to TOM. >>Is this good? << He was trying to discern the meaning behind her crying.

  I don’t know, but it was the truth.

  >>So should I tell her now? <<

  TOM snorted. No fucking way.

  FINIS

  Author Notes - Michael Anderle

  May 9, 2018

  The Author hit the record button. “This is Michael Anderle, the Author who has been blessed by receiving permission to chronicle the experiences of Bethany Anne Reynolds, now Bethany Anne Nacht, from the time she was pulled into the UnknownWorld to a time in the far future.”

  He continued, “Unfortunately there are too many stories that revolve around Bethany Anne for a single—or many—authors to chronicle.”

  He glanced up. The woman in front of him had her legs crossed and was wearing black high-heeled shoes with red soles.

  “That’s not true.” Bethany Anne held the Coke, complete with straw, away from her mouth. “There are certainly enough authors—but would my story really be interesting enough?”

  “Well, okay,” the Author agreed. “Unfortunately, Bethany Anne has too many stories for a practical number of authors to pull together her stories.”

  She interrupted, “I don’t know if I’d agree it was impractical. Perhaps you just need help.”

  Exasperated, the Author asked, “Like who?”

  She took a sip of her Coke through her straw while she contemplated. “Well, ADAM and the EIs he can tap could do it, and quickly.”

  The Author countered, “Do you believe they would be able to take the input and provide the correct emotional resonance?”

  “Um…” Bethany Anne chewed on that for a moment. “Not sure. I guess they could read a few thousand—or ten thousand—stories known for their emotional substance and make a pretty good pass at it.”

  The Author opened his mouth, then shut it. “Okay, that would be a fair test. It would certainly get more of your stories out. Now, what filters would you place on the story?”

  “Filters?”

  “Yes.” Michael reached up and scratched his forehead. “Do you, for example, want every part of every day? Would you like to include, for example, trips to the restroom?”

  “Ughh, no.” She shook her head. “However, that is easy to filter out. In fact, they could probably go through the first twenty-one books and categorize each of the scenes. Then they would extrapolate if my stories had some sort of congruence and place them in an ordered list. From there…what?”

  Michael raised an eyebrow. “So what happens if we need to tell this in chronological order?”

  “You mean if we needed to skip stuff?” She thought for a moment. “A little tougher.”

  “Sure,” he agreed, “but I was thinking how one chooses to carve out only certain scenes to wrap them up into a cohesive story for the readers?”

  >>I can work with fans,<< ADAM interjected.

  I think that is his point, Bethany Anne sent. He is suggesting that you will need to work with humans.

  >>Well, of course I will. Eventually they will
be reading the stories, right?<<

  How are you going to choose the most relevant ones?

  >>I can create grading scales based on emotional content, issues between characters, and opportunities for miscommunication.<<

  Why miscommunication?

  >>Amusement value. It seems many humans find it funny when there is miscommunication.<<

  Bethany Anne thought back to a few times where miscommunication had been a part of her life and made a face of disgust. “I think there would have to be at least an editor in the mix. Someone who could realistically choose which pieces of the stories were worth telling and those I might not want shared.”

  The Author nodded. He took a sip of his own Coke, but his was in a bottle. “So, will you think about it?”

  “About what?” she asked, confused by the question.

  “About having ADAM provide more snippets of your life so we can give the fans more of your past, not just your future.”

  Bethany Anne’s smile was wry. “Smart, Mr. Author Man. That was damned smart.”

  He shrugged, eyeing the empty bottle; the elixir of life he had just finished. He looked at her and winked. “Well, I have to have something to keep selling to support my Mexican Coke habit.”

  Bethany Anne snorted. “Now that might be one of the few habits I can support.” She tapped her fingers on her leg. “Let me think about it.”

  “All I can do is ask,” he replied, looking pitifully at her glass. She glanced down at her drink.

  “Hell no!” She turned aside, protecting the drink with her body as she pointed to the kitchen. “Go get your own.”

  THANK YOU so much for reading this first book in the SECOND series of Bethany Anne’s adventures!

  Just a smidgen over two years and six months ago I released my first book, Death Becomes Her, and now I’m releasing book twenty-two about this incredible woman.

  She (and her stories) have changed not only my life, but the lives of my family and many OTHER authors, editors, artists, and audio talent as we pull together in doing what we love to do so much.

  Tell stories!

  That is the one constant all of us share: the love of stories.