John slipped behind Bethany Anne, trusting her to know why she had just stripped the group when he was hit with an overwhelming feeling of fear.
Apparently, she had found what she wanted.
She nodded to Gabrielle, who had come up to a solid looking door and tested the knob, “They seemed to have locked it.” She put her left arm against the wall and pulled hard. “Tough fucking door.”
“Stand clear,” Gabrielle turned to see her Queen’s eyes blazing red and her face starting to get those little red lines around her eyes. Gabrielle walked back and stood behind Bethany Anne.
Bethany Anne pulled one of Jean's pistols out, “Let’s see what she can do.”
Bethany Anne cocked the gun. “Computer, give me full power,” she hissed.
A small voice queried from the gun, “Override?”
Bethany Anne turned the gun sideways looking at it questioningly. She glanced over her shoulder and John thought it was the funniest site he’d seen all night. Bethany Anne was fully vamped out, holding her gun with a questioning look and glowing red eyes, “What the fuck?”
“Ah, Jean never told you? It’s on the side of the pistol,” Gabrielle told her.
Bethany Anne turned back to her pistol and grinned, “Override is Mother-Fucker Eat This.”
“Override approved, good hunting,” the gun said.
When Bethany Anne pulled the trigger, rods started shooting out of the front at over ten per second and she had to work to keep the gun aimed against the kickback. The shots were chewing up the door around the handle. Bethany Anne stopped after twenty seconds. The door handle was destroyed as well as most of the door for a hands breadth around the lock.
Bethany Anne pulled a magazine and switched it with the one in her pistol, “I think I’m in love.” She holstered her gun and pulled a sword, “Time for a little retribution.”
Gabrielle had already walked ahead of them and pulled the door open to find everyone in the chamber incapacitated from Bethany Anne’s efforts to send fear out into the room. There were two men, Gabrielle noticed, that had suffered from the shooting. Most of their bodies were there, but large chunks appeared to be missing.
“Messy,” she mentioned as Bethany Anne walked in, tossed her sword to Gabriel, and passed her to grab a man off the floor.
She pulled the man up in the air with one arm, “Hello General Xue, you might not know me, but my name is Bethany Anne, and your men killed my people.”
General Xue tried to focus on the face in front of him, but he was having trouble. She was speaking to him, but he couldn’t make sense of the words. He was so messed up, he couldn’t trust his eyes.
The face in front of him had red eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
South America
Four men sat around a table, playing poker. It was one of the games they had learned to fit in with Americans. They liked to play to pass the time away.
They were going to need to accomplish two objectives this evening. First was to pay a visit to their useless first outsource agent and let him know just how displeased with his present efforts they were. Then, after elevating his second in command, they would try to negotiate with that person.
But, that wasn’t for another hour.
“Give me two,” Duyi said, then took a drink and a quick puff of his cigarette, “Raise two.” He tossed a couple of red chips into the pot in the middle.
“One,” Gui asked and picked up his cards, “See your two,” he tossed in two of his red chips, “Raise you two more,” he smiled as he pushed another two into the pot.
“Your father wears a green hat,” Duyi said smiling as he pushed in two chips.
“Better than his mother wearing nothing.” A female’s voice spoke and all men turned quickly, reaching for their pistols when they found a woman wearing black aiming two guns at them. “I wouldn’t do that, shit head.” She gestured with one of her weapons. “Put those hands back on the table, that’s a good asshole.”
The men pulled their hands out of their jackets.
“You see,” she told the men, “I’m usually the type to come in, figure out who the bad guys are and then provide appropriate punishment. However,” she continued talking as she walked closer to the men, “This time, the judging is already done.”
She glanced at the cigarette, “You should probably take that puff, after all, it’s going to be your last cigarette.”
Duyi reached down and pulled the cigarette out of the ashtray and smiled to himself. He and his men weren’t businessmen, and while she had the drop on them, it was just a waiting game to figure out when she would make her second mistake.
Her first was allowing them to keep their weapons.
He inhaled deeply before putting it out and asking, “What makes you think you have the right men?”
“You’re right, it would be a real bitch if you aren’t the right men.” She walked a little closer, “Alright, everyone takes two steps back from your chairs.” She smiled, “Don’t be a dick, you know I have the right men, especially since you planned to torture Miguel for sending me here tonight.”
Well, Duyi thought, I wasn’t going to use torture until you told me that. Whatever happened to honor among thieves?
“So, you might wonder why Miguel would give me your names. It was the same reason that he was working for you. Money. Except, it was your money that I used to give him to get your names. Very appropriate, don’t you think?”
Duyi listened to her talk, waiting for the right time.
“So, now I just need another twenty-five thousand from you guys…” Tabitha noticed the man’s eyes flit to a location behind her on the wall, “and I’ll be able to pay him the bonus. So, I appreciate you giving me the direction for your money,” she pointed towards the wall behind her, “so I’m going to do you a favor in return.”
She smiled at the men, now confused and wondering if she was reading their minds, “I’m only going to kill two of you and not shoot two of you. How’s that for fair?”
“Look bitch,” was all Gui got out before his head rocked back from the first bullet entering between his eyes.
The remaining three men stood frozen in shock, watching the death throes of Gui and stealing short glances at the woman, “So, anyone else wants to disrespect the Queen’s Ranger?” She walked a step closer to the men, now only three steps from Duyi. “Because I’ve already had a bad evening. Kinda happens when you forget you were on the top of a three-story building when you had thought it was just one. Teach me to try and show off.”
She stopped and surprised the men by holstering her pistols, “So, any of you feeling particularly lucky this evening, or am I going to randomly choose one of you fucks to kill?”
Duyi had found his opening and swung his arm up. She might have thought he would need to reach under his jacket, but he always had a secret hideaway in case something came up. Like this right here.
He was starting to bend down and twist as his arm was moving towards her when he realized she was already pointing her gun at him.
Then Duyi, thousands of miles from home, knew no more.
Heng and Geming watched in shock as Duyi slammed back, the back of his skull already showering the wall behind him with blood and brains as his body crumpled to the floor.
They looked up to see her smiling at them, her eyes showing a little red. “So, do either of you wish to play a little poker with me?”
Both men shook their heads, keeping their hands away from their suit jackets.
“So, I’m good here. You two can either stay here, and we can see who is fastest with a gun...” She eyed them and commented, “I wouldn’t suggest trying your luck. Or, you can get the fuck out of here in the next five seconds. If you stop to grab anything, especially another weapon, I’ll kill you.”
Heng and Geming looked at each other, and both men took off to run out the door of the room and into the hallway. It was but a second later when both men’s screams reached Tabitha’s ears.
<
br /> “Oh,” she said as she sat down in one of the chairs and put her feet up on the table, “Did I fail to mention I told my men that if anyone escaped me, they should feel free to suck the blood out of their necks?” She looked at her fingernails on her right hand as the screams died away, “I figure it is the least I could do for them cleaning up after my mistakes.” Tabitha pulled her feet back off of the table and turned all the cards over.
The last man she shot had pairs of black aces and black eights with a queen of spades.
She looked down at him and tossed the queen of spades on his chest. “Dead man’s hand, with a Queen Bitch hole card. You should have read the tea leaves and left out the back door, asshole.”
She stood up and started towards the wall where she suspected the men had a hidden safe, “Ollie ollie oxen free, come on money, come to me!”
PLA Base, Inland China
“That was particularly anti-climatic,” Bethany Anne bitched.
>>I am inside their systems and looking for anything of note.<<
Got that.
“Well, next time,” Darryl said as he and Scott came back into the Command Bunker, “Oh my, did he eat something that didn’t work well?” Darryl was pointing at one of the two men who had been near the door when Bethany Anne shot out the lock and a good portion of the door and door jam.
“Yeah, Jean’s rounds turned up to ‘fuck you seriously’ or some shit,” Gabrielle mentioned as she went through some paperwork, “I’m telling you, my Chinese was rusty when your dad was sperm.”
“Ok, that is a little gross,” Bethany Anne admitted, “Just…yuck!”
Gabrielle smiled and decided to remember that little joke for another time.
>>Bethany Anne, we have another set of planes heading towards us and the other locations.<<
Dammit, really? Fine, I warned them twice. Take them out, backtrack to their starting airfields and decimate them. Then, I want you to take three two-pound pucks and reduce three random bases to huge fucking holes in the ground.
>>Understood.<<
Eric pulled his hand away from his ear, “Clean up is complete. Peter’s group met up with a portion of Joel’s group and confirmed that base is clear. Joel reports no more outside.
“Ok, that’s our cue to leave.”
ADAM, leave something so that if they connect this base back into their system, you can squirm into their main backend computers.
>>What do the older people say to the younger people when they tell them something that…<<
Oh God, NO! TOM spoke quickly.
>>..No? Why not?<<
It’s go suck eggs, and TOM, why are you teaching ADAM these sayings?
Well, we were chatting, and I mentioned something, and then he said something and then I said…
Stop! I don’t have the time to go into this right now.
Ok, TOM said meekly.
ADAM, remind me in a week to ask you why you were going to say go suck eggs.
>>I understand.<<
Damn.
Bethany Anne looked down, reached down and grabbed the base commander’s body and tossed him into the etheric. “Let them wonder what happened to him,” she said as she walked out of the room.
Eric shrugged to Darryl, who shrugged back.
Minutes later, they were in the hangar, and Bethany Anne was speaking with those who had been hurt in the attack. None of the Wechselbalg would die, and almost all of the Guardian Marines but one would be better after the healing blood syringes had been injected into them. One, unfortunately, took a round in the face, and there wasn’t anything they could do about that. Bethany Anne spoke with the last of the wounded and noticed Stephen and Jennifer coming out at the same time from the second entrance. She put up a hand to stop them and walked over to speak with them privately.
“I understand the two of you went on a private attack run?” She asked and Stephen kept quiet as Jennifer stepped forward.
“My fault, my Queen,” Jennifer said as she looked up into the Queen’s eyes who was staring down at her and then glanced over at Stephen.
“Why?” Bethany Anne asked her, starting to smile.
“I got caught up in the chase while in my wolf form, and while I understood the words that we would wait for Joel, my wolf side didn’t handle the idea of sharing my chase and kills with anyone but, uh,” here she faltered.
“I see,” Bethany Anne said, “I’ll get another after action report from you two later.” She eyed them both and then put two fingers near her lips, “But if I were you, I’d make sure the blood that looks remarkably like how lipstick might if someone was kissing was taken off of your faces.”
Both of their eyes opened in alarm and she noticed that they looked into each other's faces. Stephen looked down and smiled, shaking his head, “How did you know?”
Bethany Anne wanted to tell him everything, but decided to leave the mystery for now, “Stephen, fighting and death are the biggest aphrodisiacs there are, especially if there is some attraction there in the first place.” She started to turn before looking back over her shoulder, “I expect your best Jennifer, got that?”
Jennifer popped a salute and Bethany Anne nodded and continued walking towards her Pod.
>>Bethany Anne, the QBS Polarus and Ad Aeternitatem have been hit by successive strikes.<<
What the hell? I thought they were safe!
>>The ships are going back down into the water, the shields are holding. However, the frames are suffering from heavy missile fire.<<
Bethany Anne’s face blazed red.
Those in attendance were surprised when the Queen’s Guards all started running towards her, with Peter running out from the hallway. Their Queen put her arms out, and her people placed a hand on her arms. Then they all disappeared.
Stephen had received a quick command right before she left.
Take everyone out of here and meet my ship. I’ve withheld as much as I am willing.
A short pause before she added, It’s time.
Pacific Ocean
“Gott Verdammt!” Captain Maximillian Wagner shouted as the second and third missile hit the Polarus’ shields.
“Fucking things pack a punch,” he bitched. “Take us down. I don’t want us losing power in the air. Send out the defensive Pucks.”
“Jean Dukes says they are pushing out already.”
“How the fuck did they cover this up?” Max asked of no one in particular.
“Excuse me, Captain Wagner.” The voice came out of the speaker system.
“Yeah ADAM?” he answered.
“The Chinese used two commercial airliners to fly slightly off of an approved flight plan to get within easy striking range and fired the missiles.”
“What a bastard’s way of attacking,” Max said as he was reviewed the damage to the two ships. He hit the button to call the Ad Aeternitatem, “Natalia, you guys ok?”
“Yeah Max, but we are pretty damned pissed!” she replied.
“I imagine. Release everything you got, this sneak attack bullshit is uncalled for.” Max almost chuckled when he realized that is what these attacks had been between the two combatants the whole time, sneak attacks.
SUED FOR PEACE (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 11) Page 25
