Level Up Bitch

by N M Tatum

  Reggie punched the button that closed the airlock door. They ran into the main cargo bay and laced their arms through the nets on the walls. Sam wanted to let her body go limp and welcome unconsciousness.

  Almost. Just a little bit longer.

  For the first time, Bowser’s face appeared to show some emotion. When his only purpose had been to destroy everything, his face looked like little more than a couple holes in the side of a mountain, a carved face in a pumpkin. But now, they could see the worry of an animal that knows it’s about to die.

  The light flared inside him. He bulged outward, a balloon pushed just a little too far past its threshold.

  And then he exploded.

  A flash of white light swallowed everything behind Ragnarok, and then rushed toward the ship. The hull rattled. Every bolt and screw inside the walls rattled. The team’s teeth rattled in their skulls. Everything went white.

  Sam had plucked Joel out of that crater. Narrowly escaped an explosion that would shatter an asteroid. Had been dragged through space like a shark on a line, milliseconds ahead of a supernova kind of heat… Only to die now.

  She wasn’t ready to die. She wasn’t at peace with it. But she was happy to at least be doing it alongside all of her friends. Dying together. She wasn’t clutching any of them now, but she still hoped they’d sail into the next life together.

  She let go and slumped against the wall. She let the white light take her.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Heaven smelled like burnt ass. Sam didn’t know what she’d expected once she’d crossed over, but she’d at least hoped for something with a better aroma. Nutmeg maybe. Warm apple pie. She thought the afterlife would be like the Christmas mornings from those old TV specials. Crackling fire. Rocking chairs. Laughing. A sense of nostalgia, even though it was happening for the first time.

  But this smelled. It smelled like…

  “Joel.”

  He held a bloody rag to the side of his head, over a gash that stretched from his eyebrow almost to his ear.

  “Hey.” He smiled, even though it clearly hurt him to.

  “We aren’t dead, are we?”

  “No, we are not.”

  Sam sat up on her elbows. She blinked several times before the room came into view. She was in her room, on her bed, with an IV in her arm. She touched her forehead and winced. No blood, but a sizeable lump and days’ worth of soreness. Her ribs were wrapped in compression cloth. A sharp pain shot through her chest when she breathed.

  “To the best of my medical knowledge,” Joel said, “which is none, you’ve got a mild concussion and two broken ribs. We got a call in to a nearby medical frigate. We should be docking with them in an hour. They’ll patch you up.”

  “What about you?” She pointed to the cut in his head.

  “Just a few scrapes. Thanks to you.”

  Sam laid back, the effort of sitting up proving to be too much. “You’ve got a nasty habit of nearly dying. Just doing my part to see that you keep breathing. You should try to pull your weight in that department.”

  Joel smiled and looked off toward the bridge. “I’ll get better at it.”

  Sam followed his eyes. “What about Cody and Reggie?”

  “Cody’s fine. Just exhausted. You’ve been out about eight hours. Reggie and I have both gotten a few hours’ sleep, but Cody’s been going nonstop, making sure none of us die of our concussions in our sleep and no more monsters try to swallow us.”

  Peppy sauntered to Joel’s side and pressed his whole body into Joel’s leg. Joel rested his hand on Peppy’s head.

  “Reggie’s pretty beaten up,” Joel told her. “We slammed into him hard. He’s got a concussion, and his wrist refractured. Without the sweet medical tech from that station, the best we could do was brace it.”

  Something felt off that Sam couldn’t identify. Like a gnawing in the back of her head. Then she realized that what felt off was the front of her head. Her mask was gone.

  Her hands shot up to cover her face.

  Joel’s jaw tightened, and he looked to the floor. Without look directly at her, he handed her the mask. “We had to take it off. We didn’t know if you were breathing at first. We put you on an emergency respirator. I’m… We…” When she had the mask back in place, he looked her in the eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  As the shock wore off, Sam realized that she wasn’t as angry or as horrified as she would have thought. The mask was a crutch. A safety net. But one she didn’t want to lose completely yet.

  Later, sitting in a circle on the bridge, the team looked like they’d been murdered, resurrected, and then kicked around. But they were happy to be alive again.

  “I think we need to upgrade our med bay,” Joel said between measured breaths.

  “Yeah, it’s not a bad idea,” Cody agreed.

  Reggie was the first to raise his glass. “Before all that, to another successful job. We saved Jasob and potentially many lives. And to surviving to do it again.”

  “Yes, and yet again,” Joel began, “without recognition of any sort.”

  “Hey, payment is recognition enough for me,” Sam said.

  “Cheers to that,” Cody chimed.

  They drank, which was a bad idea considering the amount of painkillers they were all on.

  “Now can we talk about how I’m definitely right?” Cody asked. “About the vast corporate conspiracy?”

  Joel sucked in a long, slow breath. “I may be willing to concede that it’s possible that I may not have been totally right about that.”

  Reggie agreed. “I only backed Joel up because I didn’t want him to be the only one who was totally wrong. I’m a team player.”

  “Okay, so now that we are kind of in agreement,” Sam said. “What are we going to do about it? If Layton Corp is really behind all of these infestations, there’s going to be more. More people will be in danger. There could be more of these huge monsters out there somewhere.”

  The intership comm signaled an incoming call. Reggie redirected it to a handheld unit and left the bridge to answer it.

  “Are we even sure those huge things are related?” Joel said.

  Cody laughed at how ignorant it sounded. “The ShimVens were artificially mutated. The Rapoo probably were, too. That volcano thing looked like a giant, mutated Rapoo cousin.”

  Joel threw up his hands in surrender. “Fine, suppose that’s true. There’re thousands of space stations in this system, countless targets. Where would we even begin to investigate?”

  Reggie stepped back onto the bridge. “I know where.” He held up the handheld monitor, displaying its contents for the team to see. “We just got our next job.”

  THE END

  Sarah’s Author Notes

  November 25, 2018

  Writing this series is good for my twelve-year-old self. It’s been bringing me back to the days of playing Contra with my brother. Lately, in my sleep, I’ve been doing the Konami code. Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, B, A, start. Yes, there are some things that we never forget. Putting in this code, that scored me an extra thirty lives in the game, is like riding a bike for me, you never forget it. Thinking back, I probably should have been putting my energy into learning a musical instrument, but alas that wasn’t as much fun.

  My brother and I used to pair up to try and defeat Contra, but even with all the cheating we struggled with the game. So freaking hard.

  The amusement park scene in this book was a lot of fun to write. Some of those old arcade games inspired this series. The other day I took my daughter, Lydia, to an arcade. I nearly knocked the kid out trying to play Space Invaders for her. Her gaming skills need serious work. I think she spends too much time outside playing. Just last night we were playing a time management game together, because I’m sick like that. After about half an hour she asked if we could go for a walk outside. I couldn’t hide the disappointed look on my face.

  Kid, you’re never going to level up if you keep slacking, I thought. Instead of
saying anything, I took her on a scooter ride. Then I told her she had to go to bed early because I had “work” to do. Once the little quitter was asleep, I resumed playing the game, not having to fix her rookie mistakes.

  In all honesty, games are something I always knew I’d want to share with my kid. They were a huge part of my childhood and although I can’t play much as an adult, they still mean a lot to me. Old and new games alike, I think they’re important for our culture.

  Thank you for reading. Thanks for supporting the books. And thanks for being awesome.

  — Sarah

  Michael’s Author Notes

  November 27, 2018

  THANK YOU for not only reading this story, but these author notes as well .

  (I think I’ve been good with always opening with ‘thank you’… If not, I need to edit the other author notes!)

  RANDOM (sometimes) THOUGHTS?

  Ok, this was pretty pathetic. I just figured out that I have nothing but the barest of outlines for Authors Notes for GANKED IN SPACE.

  WTH Michael? I’m slipping.

  So, I went to my favorite BBQ place yesterday in Las Vegas (Jessie Rae’s) and met an interesting man there. Paul is ex-military, ex GM assembly line worker, ex-a-lot-of-things and retired for 20 years at 63 years old.

  For one time in my life, I got to experience just a taste of what it must be like to meet someone I’ve never met before, eat lunch, have an interesting conversation, and never know if I’ll see him again.

  I asked him what he did / profession and he said he was in anthropology. He studied black culture (I found out this meant his studies went back to Africa culture around 300 years ago. The nations of the African continent and all of the tribal warfare etc.)

  I thought this interesting, since that meant he started studying (I figured) decades ago during a contentious time. He said that his first choice was studying anthropology with a focus on females (to help him figure out dating) and that was too confusing, so he went to black culture.

  The difference between Paul and I (age wise) is about twelve years.

  The difference between us in what we worry about day-to-day is much larger. He is now turning his attention to questions of the universe that might be relevant as you see the shadows of life looming in the distance, while I am still working on going up the summit (I hope.)

  We spoke about philosophy, historical perspective on nations in Africa and tribal battles inside those nations, the purpose of Indian culture here in America praying to the dead bodies of animals they killed and slave trading along the Ivory Coast. Along with these subjects we spoke about religion, and BBQ.

  Kinda heady stuff when all I wanted was smoked sliced beef and sausage links with God Sauce.

  That lunch turned into a two-plus hour discussion and I am damned thankful I was able to experience meeting Paul. He was a true conversationalist as how I imagine it must have been like hundreds of years ago in pubs.

  Paul was willing to speak his opinion, listen to mine, answer questions to the best of his ability and just converse on headier topics than normal.

  I hope to meet him again at Jessie Rae’s someday.

  HOW TO MARKET FOR BOOKS YOU LOVE

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  If you enjoyed this or ANY book by any author, especially Indie published, we always appreciate if you make the time to review a book, as it lets other readers who might be on the fence to take a chance on it as well.

  AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS

  One of the interesting (at least for me) aspects of my life is the ability to work from anywhere and at anytime. In the future, I hope to re-read my own author notes and remember my life as a diary entry.

  I’m sitting inside Avenue Café in the MGM Grand hotel eating breakfast. A simple sandwich of eggs, bacon, American cheese and fries with Cajun seasoning.

  The fries are meh, the sandwich is good along with the service and the hostess found me a booth with socket.

  Praise everything holy there was a plug for my laptop. It is a sad state when I’m thankful for a damned electrical jack. “Food? Check! Shelter? Check! Clothes? Check!....” “Electrical socket? %@#*&!!!” --- I saw Metallica’s second tour through the United States last night at the T-Mobile arena. If you have read my author notes in (I have no clue which book) you might remember I’ve seen them on this same tour in San Diego last year.

  That tour was more spectacle, this tour was more … cozy? They brought their setup from their European tour back to America for another 30+ dates and I’m super happy I went to see them again.

  I was closer to the stage (thank you MGM for your invite. Free tickets, hell yeah!) and having seats beat the hell out of standing the whole concert.

  This is the first time I can remember going alone to a concert (my concert partner had to bail and while my wife was more than willing, I know she doesn’t like the style of music. So I headbanged with strangers and enjoyed myself. When I was done (Master of Puppets is my call to head out) I went out and a few minutes later, was walking back into the MGM Grand and didn’t have to dick with parking, leaving or anything. Overall, seeing a concert at the T-Mobile Arena when you are staying at one of the hotels you can walk back to is damned cool.

  10 out of 10 headbangs and a screaming “Master….MASTER!!!.”

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  Ad Aeternitatem,

  Michael Anderle

  Acknowledgments

  Sarah Noffke

  Thank you to all the readers out there who have supported my books. I wouldn’t be here writing this book if it wasn’t for you. It still shocks me that you all like to read my books. I waiting to wake up and realize this was all a dream.

  Thank you to everyone at LMBPN for all you do to get the books to the readers. Thank you to Michael for all the support and opportunities. Steve, I couldn’t do this without your shepherding. Thank you to the editorial team and Jen for making me sound better. Thank you to the JIT team for always swooping in at the last minute.

  Thank you to Jess and Jurgen for being my first readers. Your feedback is so helpful. And more than anything, I appreciate your friendship.

  Thank you to my amazing support network of friends and family. I have been blessed with so many wonderful friends who nurture me and also supply awesome fodder.

  And lastly, thank you to my daughter.

  Books By Sarah Noffke

  Sarah Noffke, an Amazon Best Seller, writes YA and NA sci-fi fantasy, paranormal and urban fantasy. She is the author of the Lucidites, Reverians, Ren, Vagabond Circus, Olento Research, Soul Stone Mage, Ghost Squadron and Precious Galaxy series. Noffke holds a Masters of Management and teaches college business courses. Most of her students have no idea that she toils away her hours crafting fictional characters. Noffke's books are top rated and best-sellers on Kindle. Currently, she has thirty-three novels published. Her books are available in paperback, audio and in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. http://www.sarahnoffke.com

  Check out other work by this author here.

  Ghost Squadron:

  Formation #1:

  Kill the bad guys. Save the Galaxy. All in a hard day’s work.

  After ten years of wandering the outer rim of the galaxy, Eddie Teach is a man without a purpose. He was one of the toughest pilots in the Federation, but now he’s just a regular guy, getting into bar fights and making a difference wherever he can. It’s not the same as flying a ship and saving colonies, but it’ll have to do.

  That is, until General Lance Reynolds tracks Eddie down and offers him a job. There are bad people out there, plotting terrible things, killing innocent people, and destroying entire colonies. Someone has to st
op them.

  Eddie, along with the genetically-enhanced combat pilot Julianna Fregin and her trusty E.I. named Pip, must recruit a diverse team of specialists, both human and alien. They’ll need to master their new Q-Ship, one of the most powerful strike ships ever constructed. And finally, they’ll have to stop a faceless enemy so powerful, it threatens to destroy the entire Federation.

  All in a day’s work, right?

  Experience this exciting military sci-fi saga and the latest addition to the expanded Kurtherian Gambit Universe. If you’re a fan of Mass Effect, Firefly, or Star Wars, you’ll love this riveting new space opera.

  *NOTE: If cursing is a problem, then this might not be for you.

  Check out the entire series here.

  The Precious Galaxy Series:

  Corruption #1

  A new evil lurks in the darkness.

  After an explosion, the crew of a battlecruiser mysteriously disappears.

  Bailey and Lewis, complete strangers, find themselves suddenly onboard the damaged ship. Lewis hasn’t worked a case in years, not since the final one broke his spirit and his bank account. The last thing Bailey remembers is preparing to take down a fugitive on Onyx Station.

  Mysteries are harder to solve when there’s no evidence left behind.

  Bailey and Lewis don’t know how they got onboard Ricky Bobby or why. However, they quickly learn that whatever was responsible for the explosion and disappearance of the crew is still on the ship.

  Monsters are real and what this one can do changes everything.