TOM, for god’s sake can you settle the computer down a little? The buzzing is annoying as hell…
I’m not sure what is eating into the computer cycles, Bethany Anne. I’ll deal with it.
Ashur stayed close to the team. Gabrielle and Scott arrived a few minutes later. Bethany Anne greeted them, “Peace, love and I will kill for some cookies. You don’t have any, do you?”
Gabrielle blinked at Bethany Anne, not knowing why she was asking for cookies. “Nooo, but I imagine we might find some in the galley, why?”
“Just a craving. You wanted to talk?”
Bethany Anne noticed her team, except for Gabrielle, spreading out. “Yes, part of the reason is this craft. Can we go inside?”
Bethany Anne shrugged and turned back to the ship, plugging in the code and the two women stepped in. The door closed.
“Ok, what’s up?”
Gabrielle responded, “First, Stephen has asked me to get with you on moving this ship to a safer location while everyone is gone.”
Bethany Anne considered her request. “Ok, why? Are we thinking that David has a clue about it, and is secretly stalking this ship and is setting up this trap for that reason?”
“No, not exactly. We’re concerned that he might have people in one of the navies of the countries nearby. If that happens to be the case, they could attack while we’re absent. Stephen has told the captains to not be boarded. That could possibly result in the ships coming under fire. If this ship gets hit here, in this compartment, or goes to the bottom with the Ad Aeternitatem it’s going to be a problem.”
“That’s… underselling a little bit. I wish we had the base already, then this would be a no-brainer.”
Gabrielle asked, “What about putting it back where you found it?”
Bethany Anne thought about that.
Bethany Anne?
Yes?
Bethany Anne put up a finger to stop Gabrielle for a second. She tapped her head to let Gabrielle know she was talking with TOM.
I can communicate with the ship now. We can move it to low orbit and leave it cloaked. Nothing is going to disturb it up there.
What about someone finding it? I’m sure there are a lot of radars and telescopes pointed up in the sky above us.
One second… Ok, I have a place that even if we leave it unshielded, we have almost no chance of it being found.
Bethany Anne considered what TOM had just done. Are you connecting to the internet and figuring out this stuff by yourself?
Not… Exactly.
What, not exactly, are you doing?
Well, since we have a learning product that has the ability to sift through the…
Oh. My. GOD! Are you using ADAM for your research project?
You say that as if it was a bad idea.
BECAUSE IT IS A BAD IDEA! How the hell do you know what’s going on with the software? You’ve translated it and stuck it into your own supercomputer, for fuck’s sake. How is it even accomplishing this feat? I thought you told me that human code and your code wasn’t compatible!
Well, I told you that no one from earth would be able to do it. I happen to understand both sides pretty well.
Bethany Anne put her hands to her bowed head. TOM was going to cause her to jump off a building one of these damn days. He was like a teenager sometimes.
“Problems with the little guy?” Gabrielle asked softly.
“Yes! He would drive me to drink if I enjoyed it just a little bit. That is one fucking frustration—no way to get drunk.”
“Just imagine what would happen with your strength and no inhibitions.”
“Yeah, ok I see that. But to answer your question TOM can fly it up and park it next to a satellite. No one is going to get into it up there.”
“Ok. One is done. Here’s number two—the guys want to discuss upgrading.”
Bethany Anne was confused. “Upgrading what, their body armor?”
Gabrielle reached over towards Bethany Anne’s head. Bethany Anne frowned and watched the hand suddenly close into a fist as Gabrielle rapped her on her skull sharply two times. “Ow! Bitch!” Bethany Anne rubbed the spot. “What the hell was that for?”
“Because you’re being as dense as your father.”
Bethany Anne continued to massage her head. “Consider me corrected.” She reconsidered what Gabrielle had told her. “Oh… Ooohhh.”
Gabrielle watched the younger woman. “Don’t tell me that you didn’t think they might ask you? After what you did for John?”
Bethany Anne started talking while pacing in the hallway. “I needed to save John’s life, and I gave him a bunch of blood to do it. He was pretty messed up and I was new at this whole saving people with blood stuff. The way he’s acted towards me since then has freaked me out a little.”
“How he acted towards you?” Gabrielle wasn’t aware that John caused Bethany Anne to feel uncomfortable.
“Right after that, he decided to become my guard for life. It felt like maybe I… I don’t know, coerced him with my blood or something?”
Gabrielle asked, “You wonder if your blood caused him to become your guardian slave?”
Bethany Anne’s laugh rang through the hallway. “God no! I can’t imagine John being a slave to anyone. But he’s so protective of me and all ‘You saved me so I owe you.’ I guess I got scared that I changed one of them to a guardian zombie. And, I’ve been concerned that the others might think that I changed their friend at some level.”
“Some other level? One that they haven’t talked to you about, you mean?”
Bethany Anne stopped pacing. “Yes. I know externally they seem happy, but what about deep inside?”
Gabrielle walked up to Bethany Anne and put her hands on her shoulders. “Hey, Bethany Anne, they’re happy because they believe in you and love you. People follow you, I follow you, because you care about your friends and family so strongly. Strong enough to tell yourself stupid shit like maybe your blood is turning them into zombie followers. Sometimes, my Queen, you are abysmally stupid.” Gabrielle waited for the physical response, but Bethany Anne didn’t say anything.
Bethany Anne took Gabrielle’s head in both of her hands and pulled her forward to gently kiss her forehead. Gabrielle noticed a tear tracking down Bethany Anne’s face when she released her. “Thank you for that. You have no idea how happy the five of you make me.”
Gabrielle dropped her arms from Bethany Anne’s shoulders. Bethany Anne turned around and started for the door. “Let’s do this before I start crying.”
“Can I tell the guys that you…”
“Haaeeeelllll no!” Gabrielle smiled when Bethany Anne surreptitiously wiped the tear off of her face.
The Queen Bitch’s Guards were all waiting outside of TOM’s ship for Bethany Anne to show up. Gabrielle wouldn’t tell them what was going on. The door to the ship opened, Bethany Anne had stepped out ahead of Gabrielle and said, “Get the guys together, I’ll be right back,” and then disappeared.
It had taken Todd a minute to close his mouth. He wasn’t normally around when she did stuff like that.
Some thirty minutes later, the door opened again and everyone turned to see Bethany Anne smiling, with a backpack in her hands. She welcomed everyone on board and told Todd to go get some rest, she was going to take care of the ship for now. At the same time, Captain Wagner came walking into the holding area.
Noticing the Captain, Bethany Anne handed the backpack to Gabrielle and stepped off the ship. She met Captain Wagner halfway and reached out to shake his hand. “Decided to come see her take off this time?”
Captain Wagner looked past Bethany Anne at the craft. “Yes I have, it draws me like a moth to a flame. Are those engines going to be safe on my ship? There’s a rumor that they could take us all out.”
Bethany Anne looked back at the waiting engines placed against the wall. They weren’t much to look at, but you would think they were the most precious things in the world from the way Marcus treated them.
“I’m told by both Marcus and TOM that they’re safe… enough. I wouldn’t explode something right next to them to test their theories, but so long as we don’t have a catastrophic explosion they won’t be triggered to explode.” She had almost had to club the scientist over his head when he was allowed inside TOM’s engine room.
It had taken an hour for the engines to be energized. She had left Marcus handling the movement of the small but heavy devices. He would get instructions from TOM on his laptop, move an engine into the right location as instructed and then step back as the machine closed the protective door and then went about compressing the xenon difluoride to over three-point-two million atmospheres. At this point, TOM would open a very small gate to the Etheric and the energy potential stored in the engine would finally arrive at equilibrium with the energy pressure from the gate. The engines all had enough power to move the IZTAs. If they had substantial need for speed, there was sufficient localized energy in the engine. If they weren’t being used hard, they were powered by the engine, but the connection to the Etheric would instantly replace the spent energy.
Rather like a Toyota Prius battery/gas engine model. Marcus had made an expression of distaste when that analogy had been introduced.
“What are your plans?” Captain Wagner faced his boss.
“When you see the ship turn on the cloaking device, go ahead and open the hangar doors. You’ll be able to tell that something is in the air, but you won’t be able to see it. You’ll be able to tell when I’m out, it won’t take but a few seconds anyway. I’ll bring everyone back to my suites over on the Polaris. Then I’ll bring your protection back over to your ship.”
“Give me a ride sometime?” He smiled at Bethany Anne.
She looked Captain Wagner straight in the eye. “Captain, I’m not going to just give you a ride, I’m going to build you your own damn spaceship.” She turned around and walked back into TOM’s ship, sensing more than seeing the shock on Captain Wagner’s face.
TOM, when we enter the medical bay, take us up.
How high?
Enough that the view is beautiful.
After she closed the doors on the spaceship she had everyone follow her into the medical room. “Gentleman… my bitches, if you please.” The chuckles went around the room. “You are the first humans that looked at the new Bethany Anne and saw me not as someone different, but someone you cared about and that you chose to follow. I have probably never expressed how deeply that affected me on our trip to Miami.”
A tear escaped down her face. Darryl looked over at Scott, surprised. Bethany Anne didn’t cry. “But you guys have had my back ever since Florida. You have taken on jobs that no one else would have thought possible. You have followed me into the pit of darkness and we didn’t stop kicking ass until we climbed on the skulls of our enemies to exit out the other side.” She turned to look at John, “Mr. Grimes, you took a wet behind the ears useless Wechselbalg and turned him into the man he is today. The first werewolf to take down a vampire in hundreds of years.”
She looked at all of her team, these men who had followed her from Florida to Costa Rica, from Romania to Argentina. “Mr. Escabar, Mr. English, Mr. Jackson, as ‘just humans,’ you guys made Wechselbalg respect the ground you walk on. You have given Earth the chance to build our own army going into the future. You fought the Nosferatu before you met me, you have fought unflinchingly since. Now, we go to grind these assholes beneath our heels so we can reach up and prepare to defend our home.”
Darryl said in a soft voice, “Oorah.”
Bethany Anne reached out to Gabrielle, who handed the backpack to her. She unzipped the bag and pulled out six wine glasses and two pouches of blood. The men understood exactly what was going on now. Each one stood straighter, if that was possible, after her comments before.
“Everyone on these ships knows what it takes to wear the badge, the badge of my personal team.” She laid out the six glasses. Gabrielle came up and took two, giving Bethany Anne the chance to open one of the bags and pour each half full. “In this bag is my blood, full of the nanocytes that have been keyed to me. The same blood I gave to John, with one addition.” Gabrielle took the first two finished glasses and handed them to John and Eric, then picked up two more for Bethany Anne to fill. “This blood has the same modification I did for Stephen. If you are near me, I will know where you are. If you have been hurt, I will feel it.” She finished the two glasses and Gabrielle passed them to Darryl and Scott.
Gabrielle picked up the last two glasses and Bethany Anne poured one with the remainder of the first bag, and then opened the second to pour into the final glass. This one she filled almost to overflowing.
Carefully, she sat the bag down and took the full goblet from Gabrielle. The four men came closer, as close as they could in the tight room. “TOM has modified the Nanocytes that are in your glasses. They will propagate, create more of themselves before they stop. The amount you are going to consume will increase multiple times. It will take a few days to a few weeks to finish, but you will feel the effects in a few hours. In a month, I will have each of you in this pod-doc right here to finish and confirm the changes. That will keep you under for a week, most likely. Time, I’m sorry to say, we don’t have right now until our fight with David is finished.”
She looked each person in the eye before moving to the next. “If you elect to drink this blood, you are making a covenant with me to be here until the end, until you are released from your covenant or you die. If you agree that this is the path you wish to take, a future unknown except for the danger, then I can do no less than humbly accept your decision. Your desire to be the group that I use to protect my people, to protect this Earth, to use as I deem necessary to accomplish the impossible. No matter where I need to send you, no matter how deep the pit of darkness we find ourselves. I swear to you, on my name, on my life and on my blood that you will be the most feared group of Guards this galaxy, or any galaxy will know. Right here, right now is the dividing line between your option to stay human, to stay normal, to have a real life. Or, you accept that your life is going to be harder, longer, and more dangerous than any man or woman in their right mind would consider.
“You are the Queen Bitch’s Guards, you don’t run, you don’t cower, you don’t know the meaning of giving up or giving in. We are in this until death takes our souls.” She looked over at John.
“John Grimes, the guard who told me to go and save those back at the camp. I will give my life to see this Earth safe. What is your decision?”
John looked straight in Bethany Anne’s eyes. “Bethany Anne. It has been my honor to know you, to fight alongside you, to do the dark deeds that no one will ever know that we have done on their behalf. You have my covenant, my pledge on my honor, on my name and on your blood that I will be with you Ad Aeternitatem.” Continuing to stare into her eyes, he emptied the glass.
With each man she swore the same thing, each man followed John’s pledge and held her eyes as they drank the blood. She consumed a little from her glass with each one.
Gabrielle felt the four men staring at her. She smiled and gently put the glass on the pod-doc and stepped over and stood in front of Bethany Anne.
The men glanced at each other, what was she doing?
Bethany Anne smiled, she had been here once before.
Gabrielle spoke solemnly. “My father is an old sort, and I have to admit that I admire him for keeping to the old ways.” She got on her knees in front of Bethany Anne, looking up at her.
Bethany Anne looked down at Gabrielle. “Gabrielle, I need you to be my eyes and ears here on Earth and out into the Universe. I need you to be strong for me, Gabrielle. For me, for Nacht, and for the world. Will you accept this gift of my blood? Blood that will strengthen you, connect you to me, and will you work with me to make this world better for Nacht, for the UnknownWorld and for the humans as well?”
Gabrielle bowed her head. “Yes, my lady.”
Bethany Anne h
eld out her wrist to Gabrielle. “Drink, Gabrielle. Swear your allegiance to me and I will provide you sustenance to come back to me. But, if you don’t stop when I tell you, I will put my fist through your skull, do you understand me?”
You could never be too careful with vampires.
Gabrielle looked back up at Bethany Anne’s face, a small smile playing at her lips. Stephen had apparently shared with her the full story. Gabrielle gently took Bethany Anne’s wrist as her teeth grew. The men watched as their team leader drank from their Queen’s wrist.
There, inside a Kurtherian medical room on a ship in the middle of the Mediterranean Ocean on a planet called Earth, five people gave their oath to help change the galaxy.
In the future, their name would change. Still responsible for her safety, Bethany Anne would send them out on impossible operations. Trusting her people to get the jobs done that had to be done, no matter the cost. Others gave them their new designation. They became the Queen’s Own.
May Hell have pity on you should you find yourself on the wrong side of any of the Queen’s Own. One was always a problem, when two came together people started leaving the area.
Should all five show up, those with any intelligence would leave the planet.
Because if the five didn’t handle the issue, then their Queen wouldn’t be far behind.
19
Turkey, thirty miles from the Syrian border
Stephen was bleeding.
The team had made it to the town, and had found a landing site near the location where the satellites suggested those still alive had hidden. Everyone humped their equipment out of the helicopter quickly and the Wechselbalg team grabbed extra food and water rations for the survivors.
The bait.
Everyone had moved out quickly. Todd and Chet had held a perimeter while Ecaterina and Nathan tried to communicate with the people inside the cave that they weren’t there to eat them.
Finally, the door opened and one man stepped out before the door quickly closed behind him.
Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Set One: Books 1-7, Death Becomes Her, Queen Bitch, Love Lost, Bite This, Never Forsaken, Under My Heel, Kneel or Die (Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Sets) Page 122