But as in any relationship, he needed some personal space. He was good when he could bug her all the time, but now that she could return the favor, he felt boxed in. Bethany Anne was having too much fun being able to snag him.
He had to finally tell her that he would do a better job of listening for her call if she would be so kind as to not zap him mentally every time she was a little impatient. Which was to say, all the time.
Bethany Anne, Patience is not thy middle name.
Anne is my middle name. I have no idea why people think it is part of my first name.
Wow, that was off-tangent.
You started it.
Are you going to yell at your dad, now?
No.
Ok, feel free to speak to him. He is waiting.
TOM, have I told you lately that for being a ride-along, you beat all the previous do-nothing boyfriends I’ve ever had?
That was what…one boyfriend? Two?
Details. Just appreciate my sentiment while I go speak to my dad.
I will.
Her focus returned to Lance. “Ok, TOM cooled me down.”
“How did he do that?” Lance asked.
She thought through their conversation, “Ahhhh, somehow we go off on these damned tangents, and before you know it I’m not angry anymore.”
“I wonder if he,” Lance flexed his fingers, “does some Kurtherian hocus-pocus and plays with your emotions?”
“No,” she replied, then stopped, her eyes narrowing. “One moment.”
TOM, she called.
TOM is not in right now. He is presently working with ADAM and Reynolds on the ESD calculations.
Bethany Anne switched channels mentally. ADAM?
>>ADAM is not in right now, he is presently…<<
“Fucking shit,” she replied. “Either he got ADAM to give him an important project to hide from me, or he might be doing it. I can’t tell.”
Lance shrugged. “Have the talk with him some other time, and while I am risking you blowing your top again, you can’t go.”
Bethany Anne chewed the inside of her cheek, thinking through everything TOM said. “I’ll be here on the Meredith Reynolds waving them off.” She turned to leave his office. “But I’m not happy about it.”
“Hell,” Lance grumbled when she shut the door, “half the base is aware you aren’t happy with it.”
He smiled. “And that’s why we love you so much.”
Outside the office, John looked down at his boss. “He accepted that?”
Bethany Anne looked up at her friend, then grabbed his shoulder. In the next moment, they were in her suite’s transportation room. “Ok,” she put her hands on her hips, “you fess up. What did you mean by ‘he accepted that?’”
“Hell, boss,” John replied. “Anyone who listened to you knows that all you said was you would be here waving them goodbye. That doesn’t mean shit when you can Etherically walk to the ArchAngel. If I’m not mistaken, they are taking the ArchAngel, aren’t they?”
Bethany Anne nodded.
“So, la de da and Bob’s your uncle… One moment you are here, the next moment you are on the ArchAngel.”
“That’s across an Annex Gate in another solar system,” she countered.
“We get communications across that distance just fine. As far as I know, traveling through the Etheric is similar to the concept in A Wrinkle In Time.”
“The children’s book?” she asked.
“Don’t you know it, the concept is lit!” John replied with a smile.
Bethany Anne’s mouth opened. “Lit?”
“I got terms like lit, gucci, ahhh…” John started concentrating. “Fam, goat, squid, straight fire, sip tea, something that rhymes with... Shit.” He shrugged. “Forgot it.”
“How the hell… Oh, Cheryl Lynn’s kids,” she said, and John nodded.
“Wow, who knew the uncle would be picking up teenage slang?” she replied. “Well, except everyone in the group. You guys are like walking boys.”
“With hella big toys!” John smirked.
Bethany Anne’s tone turned sober as she looked up at him. “So, big guy, you going to rat me out?”
“Not my job to keep you here, BA. My job is to keep you safe. If I thought keeping you here would do it I’d probably try. Seeing as how there isn’t a chance in hell of me keeping you here against your will, I’ll go too and assume I’m the trusted confidant.”
She reached over and patted John on the chest, right where the knife had stabbed him so long ago. “John, you have always been trusted, and if you ever want to know something?”
He watched her as she walked past him to open the door into her suite. “All you have to do is ask me.”
John shrugged. It wasn’t like he didn’t know he could ask, but sometimes Bethany Anne had a way of connecting with you and making you realize you were one in a million to her.
John followed the shorter woman out of the suite’s transportation room.
Skaine Ship Gothwick
The clang of the connections reverberated throughout the Skaine ship. Hirotoshi and Ryu continued their watch with their eyes closed, but Shin’s and Katsu’s eyes bolted open at the sudden noise. Both worked hard to stop any physiological changes, like breathing or letting their heartbeats change.
It wasn’t time...yet.
Bridge, Skaine Slaver Ship Kalifo
“No sir,” the intelligence operative answered. “From the information in the computer, this ship was slaved to the Ranger’s ship and followed it. It was remotely controlled.”
“Pretty damn devious.” Gyrm had to give the recently departed Etheric Empire representative a few points. They had worked half a day to create their own connection with the Gothwick, then they had moved a couple hours away just in case someone had known the last location of the Etheric Empire’s ship.
You could not be too careful sometimes.
“They did not place any explosives on the ship. We have found no external signals either coming in or going out since we took out the Ranger’s ship.
“It was a shame the ship was destroyed,” Gyrm commented. “I would have rather liked to look it over, and perhaps get a chance to enslave the uppity alien at the same time.”
“Well, we did lose four missiles,” Weapons added.
“Which cost a fraction of the value of the Gothwick…although they sure obliterated the target,” Gyrm added, pleased with their results so far. “Now, let’s make sure we have a good ship before we finish here in Eubos, and then we need to grab the rest of our group and head out. We are going to have to swing back through Command and update them on what we have learned here.”
Gyrm stood up. “Tell the boarding party to go ahead when they feel it is safe. Then, have Jilleck bring up the protocol to refresh the computer system. I don’t want any unexpected files messing up our efforts. Once we have all that done, we will separate and they can follow us.” Gyrm walked toward the bridge exit. “I’ll be right back, I need to—”
That was when the screaming started.
Skaine Ship Gothwick
Hirotoshi’s eyes opened. Getting up, he moved silently out of the small enclosed space he had been resting inside, his eyes flaming red as he ignored Skaine after Skaine. His feet propelled him forward as fast as he could run.
The screams started behind him as Ryu—probably him, anyway—sliced open a few members of the crew as he followed Hirotoshi out of the Gothwick through the airlock connection between the two Skaine ships and into the slaver ship they needed to attack.
Well, he sure hoped it was the right ship. Provided Tabitha hadn’t been killed, she would have notified the men if this were the wrong ship in the first place.
Skaine Slaver Ship Kalifo
First Gunner’s Mate Menok climbed down from his laser turret, dropped to the floor, and stretched. He scratched under his arm, where it always itched when he finished a shift up there. Something in the turret’s chair poked and irritated him, but it wasn’
t big enough to see so he couldn’t cut it out.
Or he would have.
He nodded to one of the officers as he headed toward the food that would be available for those coming off ship’s duties. With the captain worried that the Gothwick was a trap, he’d been sitting in that damn turret for half the morning.
Doing nothing.
If the captain had asked him, he would have told him it didn’t feel like there was anything alive on that ship. As a gunner you got a feeling for some things, and it didn’t feel like anyone was piloting the ship. He had watched when the four external riggers left their ship to place a few counter-engines on the ship to slow down the slight wobble and allow their ship to connect.
That had been the extent of his fun this morning. Thril, next to him, had gotten in trouble for targeting one of the four riggers out of boredom. He would be on cleanout duty in the slaves’ bay on the next trip.
He had just arrived at the food room when his sixth sense kicked into overdrive.
Menok turned back toward the connection deck and started running, thanking his ability to wear real pants instead of those damned robes the officers had to wear. As he yanked out his pistol, he hoped he wasn’t being stupid for no apparent reason.
Then he heard the screams. Flipping the pistol’s safety off, he ran around a corner and grabbed a rail as he raced down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs he ran toward the yells, screams, and occasional pistol shot.
It had to be bad if there was this much shooting on their own ship.
Two more crew members joined him, and together the three of them rushed into the ship’s dock area. The man to his right’s head exploded, showering him with bone fragments. Menok dodged, crossing behind the falling body to slam into a large crate of something he was sure they had stolen from someone.
“AAAIIIHEE,” cried his other crewmate. Menok thought his name was F’ehlex.
F’ehlex’s head came bounding toward them from where the three of them had just been.
What was going on? Menok lifted his pistol and breathed in three times before darting both his head and arm around the corner.
When Hirotoshi made it into the other ship, the first Skaine he found was controlling the connection to the Gothwick. Hirotoshi leveled his sword and cut forward.
The blood of the alien sprayed across the controls, its body jerking up and down before falling. Hirotoshi didn’t care, since he was already past.
The next two reacted a bit faster, managing to pull their weapons. Hirotoshi swept the blade down and cut off one of their arms, the hand and gun clattering to the floor. He twisted counter-clockwise and backward to swing behind the Skaine with the missing hand, using the spasming body to block his partner. Hirotoshi stabbed the second Skaine in the neck, then pushed the blade out, taking the head halfway off.
He heard more Skaine coming up behind him, so he grabbed his Jean Dukes special and swung around. Three more slavers rushed through a pair of doors some twenty paces away.
He blew apart the slaver on his left. The slaver in the middle dove behind the falling body, so Hirotoshi shot the next slaver in the shoulder, the man’s weapon arm dropping lifeless to his side. Taking three steps forward he met the charging slaver head-on, slicing through his neck and kicking the head back toward the doors the Skaines had used to enter the area.
“Hai!” Ryu called out behind him, but Hirotoshi ignored him.
He could hear the fast breathing of the third pirate.
Hirotoshi lifted his pistol, waiting.
The final pirate stuck his head around the corner, and his head exploded in a violent mist of blood and skull parts that painted the floor and the wall behind him before the body slumped to the floor.
Ryu grabbed Katsu and the two of them headed to the right, in the expected direction of the engines and possibly the secondary computer systems.
Hirotoshi headed toward where this ship would have their slaveholding area if it was laid out similarly to the last ship. He had just entered the hallway leading toward the cells when an explosion occurred in the bay. The ship’s doors sealed shut behind him, alarms and lights flashing up and down the hall of the ship.
Shin hadn’t made it out of the cargo bay; Hirotoshi was certain of it.
“DISCONNECT FROM THAT SHIP!” Gyrm commanded.
“Sir, we’ve lost communication with the dock area. We don’t know…” the officer began.
“Blow it!” he commanded, and almost instantly he heard the soft whump as explosives were used to disconnect from the other ship.
Gyrm might lose a few people in this effort, but it was damned obvious the ship had been a ruse, and right now he needed to keep attackers off his ship.
The docks would lock down, but not before most of his people and the aliens inside would die. If not from lack of air, they might get pummeled to death by the boxes, tools, and other items not tied down when the explosion of decompression and loss of gravity occurred.
It would be a significant pain to clean up that area on the ship.
Cleanup wasn’t his responsibility; having a ship to clean up was.
Shin followed Katsu and Ryu into the alien ship and watched as the two of them split off to the right and head out of the docks. He saw Hirotoshi and headed in his direction. He had almost made it to the doors to follow him out of the docks when an explosion jolted him from behind.
His eyes widened in alarm as he reached for the door’s handle, but he failed to grab it in time. His body lost any sense of weight, and his back exploded in pain when he slammed into a large box that was locked down to the floor. He turned violently, and his view of the dock spun as he and everything not secured headed toward the opening into space.
Shin used his wakizashi to stab out toward another box, but all it did was push him in the wrong direction when it failed to embed itself in the container.
He bounced off something behind him. Flailing, his hand grabbed a rope of some sort and he held on.
For about three incredibly long seconds as the roar of the decompression continued.
Then he lost his grip.
The docks airlock slammed shut in time to stop Shin’s egress, and he looked over his shoulder to see a huge container heading in his direction.
“Forgive me, my Empress!” he yelled.
The container slammed into his chest and head.
21
QBS Achronyx
Tabitha bit her fingernail as she watched the video intake. She had Achronyx maintain a safe distance from the Skaines, ensuring they could not detect her cloaked ship
“I sense vibrations on the outer skin of the Skaine ship Kalifo. I surmise the raid has started, Tabitha.” Achronyx stated.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, only half-hearing her EI as she focused on the two ships against the backdrop of the stars.
She received a quick click over the comm, Hirotoshi’s confirmation that the raid had started in earnest.
She was staring at the scene in front of her when she suddenly bucked in her chair, body going rigid as she screamed as loudly as she possibly could. Her hands gripped the chair’s armrests, indenting them slightly as her pain, given voice, reverberated throughout the ship.
“NOOOOOOOOO!” she cried out, tears coming unbidden to her face as she sought to clamp down on her emotions to allow her time to process and think…
Think…
FUCK THINKING!
“Achronyx,” she hissed, “take me right in front of that fucking ship right fucking now!”
“Cloaked or uncloaked?”
“Cloaked, until I say otherwise,” she told him as she unbuckled and headed toward the back. “I’ve got a message to deliver.”
Hirotoshi felt the loss as he ran through the hallway.
Shin was gone.
Hundreds of scenes ran through his mind as he tore through each section. The times Shin and he sat and talked about their pasts. The times they would tease the sun together before their Queen had accepted their alleg
iance and allowed them to go out in the sun once more.
Before Tabitha had made them a permanent team.
The hundreds of years of friendship ran through Hirotoshi’s mind as he found each Skaine.
Some were decapitated and some were run through, a sword made on Earth so many light-years away taking their lives in Hirotoshi’s silent down payment for Shin’s death.
They had come into this system to stop the slave trade. There would be no better way than making sure the slavers were eradicated.
Permanently.
“WHO THE HELL ARE THESE ALIENS?” Gyrm shouted as he viewed the video of just three aliens ripping through his ship, killing his people with a determination that bordered on fanatical. More than once his people had set up traps to overwhelm the aliens, only to have the traps taken apart with a violence that caused the lead Skaine to sweat.
If just a little.
“Engineering!” He yelled into his comm. “You have two coming in your direction. Shut down all entrances…”
“SIR!” Weapons called.
“Right now,” Gyrm finished his conversation with Engineering and looked at the one responsible for interrupting him. “WHAT?”
The weapons specialist didn’t say anything, just pointed to the large screen at the front of the bridge. Gyrm turned to see an alien’s face, eyes glowing red, staring at everyone on the bridge.
“I am Ranger Tabitha of the Etheric Empire. You are condemned as slavers. There is no escape, and there will be no reprieve. You have been JUDGED!”
“Didn’t we blow you up once already?” Gyrm spat. “Why won’t you just go away?”
“Because, motherfucker, JUSTICE DOES NOT DIE!”
Gyrm pointed to the screen. “Where is that alien ship?”
“Oh…Frixelballocks,” Weapons whispered when he saw the alien ship uncloak. He hit the button to show the front-facing video and more than one of those on the bridge pushed back in their chairs, thinking the ship in front was about to crash right into them.
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 41
