One body encased in red armor was violently ejected from the building. It headed toward Pehl-eck, looking like it might slam into the street just feet from her.
“Oh my—” She cut off her comment when the figure stopped in the air a block away and hovered some two stories above the ground.
She continued reporting. “Stars! There was a large explosion from the fifth floor of the building. The human was ejected forcefully, perhaps by a rocket or a trap that triggered the explosion. The human stopped two stories from the ground in mid-air, as if he has the same technology in his armor that his ship uses, and is now starting to move back toward the building. It looks like he is flying as he heads back up to the fifth floor.”
“YEAH!” Silus yelled as the executive offices’ doors were ripped off. Once the shoulder-mounted missile was fired at the representative from the Etheric Empress, he and his team had dropped behind overturned furniture to protect themselves from the blowback.
Which had been a good idea. The doors had exploded back into their room, one slamming into the table they were hiding behind, another partially exiting through the window behind them. It hadn’t shattered the glass, but the glass looked like it was about to go.
His ears were ringing.
The smell of paper on fire was intense. The guys grabbed their packs.
“Don’t want to burn!” Soc’vele yelled, pushing Kr’chen next to him to “move his soft ass.”
They stopped when they heard footsteps coming toward them.
Crunch, crunch, crunch...click.
A figure strode through the smoke and fire and entered the chamber. None of the Yollins said anything, since the shock of seeing the alien still alive kept them quiet momentarily.
Silus ground out, “We will die before we accept the new regime.”
The human’s movements were too fast for any of the Yollins to see, but as seven bodies collapsed to the floor the human holstered his pistol and headed back toward the broken windows.
"Telling me that was redundant, asshole,” John told the dead.
QBBS Meredith Reynolds
Ixtelina and Ixgalan made their way around the outside of the lower level’s central congregation area. It was set up to facilitate food purchase and consumption, and meetings in the same area. She noted at least five alien species she hadn’t expected to see here.
Ixtelina and Ixgalan wandered around for a while, walking into different shops, and found one small store had handmade kv-chet. It was a Yollin specialty that Ixtalis considered a sweet.
Most considered it sour.
After some negotiation the proprietor handed them two long cylinders, and the Ixtalis found themselves a table and began to suck on the viscous substance. Ixgalan laid down the box with their electronics and grabbed a chair. Both of them were slightly on the small side of standard-sized human, so the seats fit them just fine.
Ixtelina used the device the store owner provided to suck the Yollin treat into her mouth. “That…is good,” she admitted.
Ixgalan only nodded as he continued to ingest the kv-chet.
“Did you notice,” Ixtelina asked, as much to herself as to Ixgalan, “that the exchange for our gold was as fair as they could provide?”
Ixgalan stopped for a moment and looked at his food. “What did the person call this?” Ixgalan shook the cylinder.
“A straw.”
“We should purchase more of these. I can’t believe we haven’t considered stocking these as standard supplies whenever we go into new locations.”
Ixtelina looked down at her straw and back at the store. “Do you think they will sell us these straws?”
Ixgalan rose and headed toward the store, but stopped three paces away and turned around. Grabbing his kv-chet, he chortled and started back to the store.
Ixtelina guessed he didn’t trust her. She sucked down more of her kv-chet.
Good call.
She let her thoughts wander as she took in the five levels. Apparently these humans had built with the idea that other species would use this...bazaar?
No, it didn’t have the feel of a bazaar.
At least half the stores on the third level and almost all on Levels Four and Five were shuttered.
Not ready for business.
It either spoke to massive plans to grow, or a lack of ability to open enough stores of their own.
Ixgalan came back and placed a box on the table.
“Five hundred straws,” he said proudly. “Apparently they have manufacturing facilities inside this station that make the products they use, including these wondrous straws.”
“It doesn’t take much to satisfy you, does it?” Ixtelina asked.
“No. Do you know how many times I have had to look like a baby on stations that were not set up to serve our kind?”
“More than once?”
“And it was too many, even then,” Ixgalan admitted.
“Why did you become a physical specialist if you hate eating in strange places?”
“I like seeing them, so you take the good with the bad.”
“And now?”
“I know of a product that will liquify almost anything.” He pointed up. “My future is now as bright as their fake sun up there.”
“That light is a marvel,” Ixtelina admitted. The salesperson had shown Ixtelina how to use the camera capabilities on the tablet the customs agent had allowed them to use and then informed her they could purchase the units if they desired.
Ixtelina had quickly agreed to purchase the tablet and tried to negotiate down the price.
The salesperson wouldn’t budge. Apparently the humans didn’t believe in negotiations. The salesperson did say that the larger the purchase was the more likely humans were to negotiate, but not for common items.
Ixtelina had also found out what the bumps on the salesperson’s chest were after pointedly asking. The human laughed, changed colors slightly, and explained they were for providing nourishment for their young.
“What is over there?” Ixgalan pointed to the other side of the floor. Some humans exited the hallway and others went in. Ixtelina picked up her tablet and figured out the function that provided a map of the local area.
She looked up. “It is a hallway to take you to the tram that goes inside the space station.”
Ixgalan started slurping the last of his drink. “Finished.” He stood up, adding, “I’ll be back.”
Ixtelina watched as he made his way to the other side, threw his cup away, and disappeared into the hallway.
He came back out a little while later, returned to their table, and sat down. “Etheric Empire citizens or invited guests only.”
Ixtelina nodded. “That isn’t entirely unexpected. What has you dejected?”
Ixgalan turned to look at her. “There will be no unexpected options to get inside. There are only two trams and trust me, those are some vicious-looking aliens you would have to get by to get on the trams. I’m sure they have security protocols in place to shut down the tram if they have undesirables in one of the cars.” He glanced around the area and leaned toward Ixtelina, switching to their language. “Plus, the cars just fit inside the tunnel. I would not be surprised if they use a form of suction to move them.”
“That would require quite a bit of engineering and power,” Ixtelina murmured.
Ixgalan pointed up again. “Like that fake sun doesn’t?”
“Well, no time like the present. Let’s figure out a way to release the macros, and we will walk around this area. I’ll need to reach out to those in charge of trade and let them know I would like to meet. I would like a little more information on this species before I do that, though.”
Ixgalan nodded his understanding, and stood up and left once more.
Ixtelina looked at the different shops, wondering which ones might provide more information, and decided the one which suggested it was a type of monetary institution looked promising.
She was halfway around the concourse when sh
e saw Ixgalan coming in her direction, his face calm. His eyes, however, were annoyed.
She was waiting, her hands in the sleeves of her opposing arms when he walked up. “The macros are dead,” he told her.
Ixtelina let out her breath in a long, controlled exhalation as she looked around. “Humans?”
Ixgalan nodded. “Humans.”
Ixtelina considered the next step before she took her hand out and pointed toward the monetary location. “The game is afoot, Ixgalan, the game is afoot.”
11
Rih-benn nodded to his last two guards, releasing them as he strode into his home. Three full-time guards roamed the place, and he had high levels of security as well. He would admit, if only to himself, that the human they had met to exchange money for the spice had scared him, if only a little.
It would be Brylen who died tonight, not him.
After walking through the front entry, he headed down the hallway and took a right to stop in front of a doorway. He entered the security code and let himself into his home office. Locking the door behind him, he tossed the box of bostok onto his desk and turned to the small group of plants he had cultivated as a side project.
One of the four rectangular plots was empty. He had been planning on growing his first successful batch of the spice needed for the soda project right here in his office.
Then he would have the stranglehold on the market, since Yollins would prefer to know the source wasn’t the aliens.
Well, ok…most Yollins. There were a few who would go straight to the source for the thrill or the promise it was truly the right spice.
He, however, would have all the rest.
He picked a berry from the leftmost planter and popped it in his mouth. It had taken him over three years and multiple operations to acquire the precious seedling that was now a plant. “Keep growing like the little rebel you are,” Rih-benn told it, “because I’m going to make you a star.”
The shock of the berry hit his system, energizing the ends of his pleasure nodes for almost half a minute. He closed his eyes and accepted the joy of success and the pleasure the chemicals brought him.
Opening his eyes, he smiled. “I’m so sorry. You were my greatest achievement, but now you are yesterday’s news.” He patted the empty planter that now had only sand and some chemicals. He would have to figure out the right chemicals to grow the plant, the right solar mixture, and the liquid quantities. It was a puzzle he would enjoy solving.
Rih-benn grimaced and turned to his desk and sat down in his chair. He rubbed his mandibles together.
“How the hell,” he asked himself aloud, “am I going to get another shot at those seeds?”
Over a hundred miles away in their ship, Nathan and Ecaterina watched the feedback from the nanobots that had infected the Yollin drug and crime boss.
“That was an interesting peek into his physiology,” Nathan murmured. He was tapping into the information coming from the host’s system as the Yollin ate the berry.
Ecaterina walked to the front of the ship. For this trip, Nathan had used a baby G’laxix Sphaea-class vessel that had been cut down in size to half the original. With a full EI component and a direct link to ADAM, Nathan and Ecaterina just had to do whatever the ship told them needed to be done by someone with two arms and two legs.
Everything else was run by the onboard EI.
“Christina is asleep,” she told her mate. Sliding a hand up his shoulder, she looked at what he was doing. “Is this the guy who was going to set you up?”
Nathan nodded. “Yes.”
He didn’t see Ecaterina’s eyes flash yellow. “Those are his physiological and biometric readouts?”
“Yes,” Nathan agreed, still paying attention to the feedback coming back from the crook.
“So when the nanocytes finally kill him we will receive the medical information?” she continued.
This time Nathan nodded.
“Good.” Ecaterina patted her mate on his shoulder as dropped into the chair next to him. “No reason to waste this opportunity to understand Yollin physiology.”
Nathan finally caught on that his mate was not pleased and looked over his shoulder at her. His eyes widened as Ecaterina’s eyes flared yellow and her mouth opened in a snarl as she thought about the crime boss trying to kill her mate.
She looked back at him. “This asshole was going to die one way or another.”
Planet Yoll, Yollin Capital
Kiel, dressed in the normal clothes of a Mont-level project planner, entered the fifth bar he had worked so far this week.
In his frequent updates to Dan Bosse, he mentioned drinking so much due to the job that it was beginning to cause him problems during workouts to get rid of the excess weight.
Dan informed him he was aware how little the Yollin alcohol truly affected a Yollin’s weight, and that he appreciated the hellacious amount of sacrifice that going out drinking was causing the Yollin mercenary.
Kiel smiled, shrugged, and just muttered, “I tried…” But now, after a month of working the bars, it was indeed becoming a sacrifice.
It was just so damned boring.
He was nursing his second beer when his implanted audio activated. “That’s what I’m telling you,” a Yollin speaking with an upper-caste accent hissed, his voice low compared to the ambient sound. “Some of us in the Straiphus system need a few good contacts. Further…”
Kiel lost the connection; too much noise was interfering. He put the mug up to his mouth to cover it. “ADAM?”
“Yes, Kiel?”
“Can you clean up the audio that is piping in? This is legit.”
“When we have the necessary ships we will make our run and force this alien to surrender, then hang her head in the king’s palace as the first of a new monarchy.”
Kiel grimaced. “ADAM, clean up, translate, and route to Dan. Where is this coming from?”
“A drinking establishment named ‘Mont’s the Best,’ two streets over and one toward the stadium, on Chk’klock.”
Kiel tossed two coins on his table and stood up, then stopped and braced himself for a moment before looking the wrong way for the door, but finally located the exit and nodded to himself. He put his head down and walked like a Yollin with a mission, making sure he could finish the job of getting out of the bar without falling down.
Once outside, he turned left and kept up his act. After crossing the street, he changed his stride from half-falling forward to a determined gait as soon as he was outside the range of the bar’s video cameras.
“We have a strategy to move the aliens where we want them so they fight us on our terms.”
Kiel turned the corner.
“Wrong direction,” ADAM told him.
Kiel turned around. “Sorry, thinking about how to yank this asshole’s spine out of his mouth.”
“Dan says not to detain him. We have a photo, we just need you to release your tags. Kiel, he is heading out the other side of the building.”
Kiel cursed in Yollin and reached into his pocket to pull out a cylinder, then moved closer to a building and cracked it open. From inside four small spheres, each the size of a small rock, floated out and zoomed over his shoulder.
He faked drinking from the cylinder and then put it back together, then stood up and looked around. “What do we know?”
“One moment,” ADAM answered.
Kiel started walking slowly down the sidewalk. It was a few moments before he received an answer.
“We know he got away,” ADAM finally replied.
Kiel looked both ways down the street and turned to his left. After a few paces, he was able to duck into a small alley and wait for the tags to come back. The four black orbs returned, and Kiel grabbed them and stuck them in the cylinder. “Shame these are too expensive to leave around.”
ADAM replied, “Sorry, but it isn’t just their cost. It might become a PR problem if they are found, according to Cheryl Lynn.”
Kiel opened a messaging ap
p on his tablet and requested to see Kael-ven as soon as possible.
Seconds later he was pinged with a time and place.
QBBS Meredith Reynolds
Hirotoshi, Ryu, Katsu, and Shin followed the female in front of them. She had her hair tied back in a ponytail, and her long black synthetic leather coat flowed behind her.
Typically the Tontos would be in some form of casual dress, but now they were on a mission.
The five of them walked down the hallway behind All Guns Blazing, and when they reached it Tabitha knocked on the nondescript door.
The lock clicked for her, and she pushed it open.
Tabitha raised an eyebrow and bowed as she and her team flowed into the room. “My Empress.”
Barnabas snorted. He was sitting next to Bethany Anne and she punched him as she said to Tabitha, “Oh, for fuck’s sake straighten up, you twerp.” The Empress grinned as Ranger Two walked the length of the table to hug her friend. Bethany Anne rolled her eyes and called, “You Tontos as well.”
The four Japanese vampires stopped bowing, but Bethany Anne took care to look them all in the eye and nod her head. They owed their life to her people, and they took their vows very seriously.
While Tabitha was only partially respectful, there was nothing but respect coming from her team.
Protect your lead, she sent them.
Hirotoshi and Ryu subtly nodded. They got the message.
“How are they hanging, Number One?” Tabitha cracked a smile as Barnabas frowned. He caught the play on words.
“I see that young Anne hasn’t taught you anything yet,” he said to her.
Tabitha’s face gave her away before she could lie.
She chose to drop the discussion rather than answer his question. “What are we doing?” She looked at Barnabas, then Bethany Anne, then back at her boss.
“We have data that says the Eubos system is barely above anarchy,” Barnabas started the information dump. “Well, that’s not true. They have plenty of structure. What they lack is an implementation of law.”
“They didn’t get the memo?” Tabitha asked.
Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Set Three: Books 15-21, Never Submit, Never Surrender, Forever Defend, Might Makes Right, Ahead Full, Capture Death, Life Goes On (Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Sets Book 3) Page 32
