So they won’t change?
We don’t know that it is the K’gurth clan. It might be one of the other four. Even so, it depends on how much the Leath themselves believe in the rightness of the plan before they contemplate changing it.
Well, it’s annoying, they could change it at any time.
Very.
She spoke to the group. “TOM says that the clan of Kurtherians that is most likely behind the Leath revel in the symmetry of their math. However, we can’t absolutely depend on them remaining so regimented since the Leath themselves have some leeway with what they choose to do.
“Well, that’s annoying,” General Lance Reynolds grumped.
“Very,” Admiral Thomas agreed, to the general chuckles of the group. A dependable opponent was a godsend. A dependable opponent who could change when you most needed them to stay dependable was an invitation to have your ass handed to you at the worst possible moment.
Hey. That’s what we said!
Like father, like daughter, she replied.
QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Guardians' Workout Area
Ashur dodged to his left, jaws clamping on the wolf’s hind leg. The two of them arrested their momentum as Ashur kept his jaws locked, and it felt like his teeth were about to be ripped out of his jaws.
The two canine bodies slammed to the floor. Over at the side, Peter winced at the sound.
“That had to hurt,” Todd commented, followed by Peter’s nod of agreement.
“Hold!” Peter called. “Change, Tim,” he ordered the wolf. A moment later, a very large man replaced the wolf on the ground. The white German Shepherd barked.
Tim turned towards Ashur. “No,” he told him. “I’m fine, but that was a hell of a grab.” He flexed his rapidly healing leg, stretching it out and back a couple of times. “See? Good as new, buddy!”
Peter tossed a pair of sweatpants to Tim, who slid them on after he stood up. “For a dog, you're wicked fast.”
Tim raised an eyebrow as Ashur barked to him, “Yeah? No fucking wonder. Glad it’s your ass that has to work out with the Empress, not mine!”
Ashur’s chuff caused all of them to laugh in sympathy with the canine. With everyone having the latest updates and upgrades in their implants, they could understand both the parents and the pups easily, plus any other alien languages the Etheric Empire ran into.
“Ok, Ashur.” Peter smiled evilly, looking at the German Shepherd.
Ashur cocked his head sideways. OH, DAMN! he thought, that expression means trouble for me.
Tim looked at Peter as he turned and yelled, “Jian!”
Over on the far side of the workout gym, a Chinese man turned to look in their direction. “Cat time!” Peter called and Jian nodded, starting to jog over to their position.
Ashur whined as both Peter and Tim chuckled.
Someone please get me the body armor! Ashur chuffed.
Peter smiled as he headed toward the wall. Bethany Anne had told him Ashur was trying to get away with working out without his armor, but he needed to learn that while it was constricting, it was necessary. It had taken Ashur exactly one match with Jian to learn he didn’t enjoy healing from cat claws ripping through his side.
QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Mark Billingsley Park
Samuel walked over to the three adults standing by the tree. Richard turned to him, “Anything?”
“Like there would be anything going on in the middle of the Meredith Reynolds!” Sia told the two of them.
The brief flash of pain across Richard’s face caused Sia to remember. To Richard, Mark’s death hadn't been that long ago. The vampires remembered, and they still felt the pain.
Especially Richard. Why, Sia had yet to understand. She had tried to talk with him about it, but he had been reticent. She then cornered Samuel instead and he admitted that Richard had seen a piece of himself in Mark and had liked him much more than any other normal human in a century or more.
Plus, at his core Richard was a romantic and he had wanted to see the two of them hook up. Or Mark and Giannini; Richard wasn’t particular.
“So,” she had asked Samuel, “he’s like a blood-drinking Cupid?”
Samuel’s eyes had lit up at that, and Sia put her hands on his chest. “Don’t you dare tell Richard I said that!” She'd eyed his mischievous grin. “I swear I’ll think of something to cause you …” Here, Sia had to stop talking a moment and think the threat through. Samuel had been trading practical jokes with people for centuries.
What the hell could you do to embarrass someone who wouldn’t care if he walked naked through a book-reading event held by a bunch of nuns?
She'd narrowed her eyes. “I’ll tell Gabrielle a complete lie that will cause her to come looking for you.”
That had caused Samuel’s smile to disappear. “Sia,” he sniffed, looking down at the young woman, “I applaud your Machiavellian ways. You have graduated to sophomore status.”
At that he had turned and walked away, and Sia had realized she was proud of herself. That feeling lasted for about a second, until she realized he had never promised her he wouldn’t say anything to Richard.
Dammit!
Sia came back to the present and offered a smile to the two men. “We appreciate you signing up to help us with this project.
“You aren’t just reporting here, are you?” Richard looked between the women.
Giannini answered, “No, I think this is going to open everything up for the Etheric Empire. For the last few years everything has been about internal issues, specifically the Yollin assholes or the other governments which have attacked us. This time we are sending ships to another planet.”
Samuel shrugged. “We’ve sent out our ships before,” he told her. “What’s different this time?”
“Pirates,” Sia answered as she turned and started packing away the drones. “All those other times pirates caused the Empire’s military to leave our little area. Now those who feared we would start expanding are going to flail their arms.
Sia paused, then clarified, “Or tentacles or claws or whatever sort of appendages they have.”
Richard pursed his lips. “You two have experience with this?” He flicked his eyes to Samuel, who nodded
“Humanity has,” Giannini told them. “Sia and I have spent a good while on Yoll and Straiphus tracking down stories, and we have come to realize that the universal glue that holds us together isn’t genetics.” She noticed the look that said, "Go on already" from her two friends. “It’s self-interest.”
“Which,” Sia picked up her drone case and stood, “if it is a hive-mind-type alien, just means the self-interest is on a larger scale.”
Samuel took a second to sweep his eyes through his sector. “Hope we don’t see any large creatures with a hive-mind attitude.”
The two ladies stared at him. “You know,” Sia told him, “I had forgotten how you could take a somewhat normal thought and make it far worse.”
Samuel shrugged. “When you live hundreds of years, you experience a lot of bad things.”
“Only to have life demonstrate it really was fucking with you,” Richard finished. “Which is why we continue to watch for threats, even on the Meredith Reynolds."
Sia and Giannini stepped toward the men, who were surprised when the girls gave them each a hug. “I wouldn’t feel any safer with John Grimes around, Richard,” Sia told him, her words muffled by his jacket.
She could feel his body relax slightly, and then his arm pulled her tight as he hugged her back.
QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Main Military Meeting Room
Bethany Anne nodded to her advisors and stood. She turned to the audience, which was made up of second- and third-line management and operations personnel. “You have tasks, challenges and opportunities ahead. We came out here to find and stop the Kurtherians, if at all possible.” She stepped away from her chair and walked toward the front of the long table, looking up at the rows of faces gazing back at her.
“Unfortuna
tely the Leath are stronger than us, and frankly are on a better war footing. Right now, them being anal-retentive about timing is giving us a chance to restrict the fight to the Karillian System. The Yaree are pulling their people home, those they can take away from trade. That means we have the monumental task of training a race who needs to grow a little backbone. We are that backbone, for the moment.”
Bethany Anne looked around. “It’s time to kick our efforts into overdrive, people. I encourage all of you to go back to your jobs, kick ass, and work with your staffs. We need you to come up with new ideas and new solutions. Find ways we can close the distance between our expected delivery times, and yesterday. Am I understood?"
“YES, MA’AM!” the crowd yelled back.
She smiled at them. “Dismissed!”
She stood at the front and spoke to the few who came up to talk to her. She listened to a few ideas and smiled, sending them to the appropriate person in the organization who would be addressing that problem.
Lance walked up to her. “Bethany Anne?”
She turned to him. “Yes, Dad?”
A couple of the people around her nodded and stepped back. They could tell when it was official business because the General would refer to her by her title, and she would reply in kind. They walked away with smiles on their face; just the little moment of the Empress calling the General her dad made her more human.
Less of a figurehead.
“Patricia was wondering if you would have time to stop by this week, maybe touch base on some of her thoughts about the war packages?”
“Of course,” she told him. “Do we have the archives set up to print the books and comics?” She thought for a moment. “And the cards for the games?”
“Yes, yes, and yes,” he told her. “Plus, we have limited the print run with scarcity in mind so that they will have something to gamble with."
“Can you go right now?” she asked him.
He checked the time. “I’ve got a conversation with Kevin about the new mobile Reynolds he’s building in ten minutes.”
Bethany Anne checked her schedule.
ADAM, move my meeting with Jean until tonight before dinner. Tell her I’m tagging along with my dad to see about the new Reynolds.
>>Done. She says that works out better for her anyway.<<
There was a pause…
>>Sorry, I wasn’t supposed to admit that last part.<<
Humans have been copping out on stuff for more than a thousand years. We are all busy.
“Why don’t we swing by, see if Patricia is around, then I’ll go with you to see Kevin?” she asked him.
He nodded. “Works for me.”
“Hey!” The two turned to see Admiral Thomas walking toward them. “Give an old man a lift?”
Bethany Anne reached out to them both as he neared them. “You don’t look a day past thirty, Bartholomew.” She smiled when just the tiniest part of his lip curled in annoyance.
Hey, it wasn’t her fault his parents named him something he didn’t care for. She wasn’t about to call him Bart, for fuck’s sake.
Why not just call him “B”, like he had requested for all his life, and was one of the points in TQB’s favour when they made the initial call to contact him about the job?
ADAM, where is Patricia?
>> Shopping, fourth floor, men’s section.<<
Seconds later the three of them popped out into the large shopping area, seventh floor, in front of a shop.
They all heard the indrawn breath.
“Empress?” A woman’s voice inquired softly.
2
QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Prime Guardian’s Office
Peter looked at his two subordinates, and then at Todd and his two. “Guys, we need more recruits. We can’t just shanghai people willy-nilly into the Guardians.”
He leaned back. “It’s time we started accepting others if we are going to implement our own version of Death Dealers to another planet.”
The sucked-in breaths from around the table amused Peter as they realized who he was talking about. “She isn’t that strange, Tommy,” Peter told him.
“Sir,” he nodded, “all due respect, she is fucking frightening.”
“Well then,” Todd told them, “I guess it’s a good thing she’s on our side, isn’t it?”
The four men and two women nodded their agreement.
“Ok,” Peter asked the group, “who’s volunteering to ask Gyada if she is ready to take point again?”
“I think that kind of risk belongs at the top.” Todd smirked, looking at Peter. “Besides, you heal quicker.”
He eyed his friend. “Yeah, I figured as much. Just seeing if I had any abnormally courageous individuals here."
“Sir, she isn’t going to hurt you, right?” Tina, his second, asked.
Peter shook his head, “No, she’s actually very pleasant. She’s incredibly old. Her time trapped in those caves in Russia, stuck in a Were form thinking about her children hurt her. It’s taken a lot of time for her heart to heal since Boris and his team saved her, and I’m sure it hasn’t fully healed, yet. However, I can tell you she is walking death and I’m the one who is going to potentially be sending her down a road that is going to cause her pain. And frankly?” He looked to them all, “I hate to ask a friend to do that.”
“But needs must when the devil is driving,” Todd quoted.
QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Open Court, Level Seven
Sarah recognized the three who appeared in front of her office and a whisper escaped her lips. “Empress?”
She was surprised when the Empress turned towards her. “Sarah!” She wore a smile.
Sarah’s internal voice was screaming, Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit! She’s coming in here!
Sarah stood up from her desk and stepped out from behind it, calling to her son over her shoulder. “Johnny?”
Bethany Anne winked at Sarah as the little boy came out of the back of her office. He was playing with two model spaceships, using his hands to fly them around. “PEW PEW, TAKE THAT YOU SKAINE SLAVERS!” He twisted the first ship in his hand, then flew it into the wall and bounced it off, dropping it with a shouted, “KABLOOIE!”
He bent down to pick up the ship and stepped forward as he looked up. His mouth opened and he couldn’t speak.
He stared at the Empress, who was smiling down at him with a glint of humor in her eyes. “Hello, Johnny.”
Beside her, Sarah surreptitiously wiped her eye. This woman was everything she could ever wish for in a monarch, and then some.
About three months before, she and Johnny had been guests on a tour of the ArchAngel II, the preeminent ship in the Etheric Empire’s fleet, conducted by the head of the Empress’ Rangers, Barnabas himself.
Sarah was a single mom, and she hadn’t told Johnny much about the military side of the Etheric Empire. The fact that Johnny’s dad had been killed in an operation back in human space was all she could share before her heart folded in on itself. She didn’t hate the military; it was just too hard for her to talk about it.
Even to her son. Someday, she had promised herself, she would tell the young man all about his father—just not that moment. The someday moment had yet to occur.
Until Barnabas had stopped in front of her little business and rented a chair from her son.
The visit to the mighty ArchAngel II had captured Johnny’s attention, and she could see Earl’s, her husband's, blood flow through her son’s veins as he soaked it all up. God, she felt like she had let Earl down.
But it was so damned hard.
Sarah had thought the tour would be a fast thirty minutes, but Barnabas seemed to know exactly what Johnny wanted to see and he found the right people each time to explain things to the young boy. Her heart broke as she realized Barnabas was providing the kind of detailed explanation Earl would have given their son had he been alive.
He had always been the teacher, no matter the subject.
About an hour into the tour Barnab
as had turned to her and pursed his lips. “Sarah,” he had asked, “may I show Johnny a video we have on the corporal?”
Sarah’s mouth had hung open for a few seconds. “You have footage?” she had finally asked. She had quickly nodded her agreement before Johnny figured out whatever Barnabas had decided to surprise him with.
She noticed when Barnabas reached up to his collar and spoke softly. A full hour later the three of them entered a small theater with a table at the bottom. They took seats in the bottom row as a voice greeted them.
“This is ArchAngel. I have a video of your father, which ADAM compiled at the direction of the Empress for you to see, young Master Brunner.”
Johnny turned to his mom, his eyes glistening. “Dad?” he whispered, and she nodded.
“Would you like to see it now, or would you like to wait until you are older? The Empress says it is your choice,” the AI asked him.
“Please?” he asked. “Please, ArchAngel, Empress?”
It wasn’t a short video. It ran for over twenty minutes, showing Earl first as a young man going to college to be a teacher, before he received that fateful phone call.
One that informed him his friend Samantha had been killed in a terrorist attack in France. He had told Samantha’s mother that he understood and appreciated her call.
He slowly hung up the phone and grabbed his keys. He didn’t have class for another four hours, but his classes had become irrelevant to him now anyway.
He never went back to that college. Rather, he left his apartment and went to the Navy/Marines recruiting station. Standing in front of the two doors, Navy to the left, Marines to the right, he looked at their posters. Pressing his lips together, he realized he wanted…no, he needed to be on the sharp end of the stick.
He had turned right into the Marines’ office and never looked back.
Two years later, in a nowhere little dirt town protecting a group of civilians who probably didn’t appreciate his support, Earl’s vehicle ran over an IED and in the blast that tore up their vehicle, he lost a leg. When he woke up on a stretcher, he could see his sergeant’s face and knew something was wrong.
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 71
