Bethany Anne took it as a good sign that she wasn’t immediately getting embarrassed at the thought of her dad having sex. Letting Patricia eat, Bethany Anne decided to see if she could get a rise from her father. “Dad, who’s going to be best man at your wedding?”
Unfortunately for her Lance had no problem answering. “Kevin. I asked him and he said he’d be happy to oblige.”
Patricia wielded her fork like a Catholic school nun with a pointer. “You better tell that man no titty bars! I’m not having my man ruined right before my special day.” She turned her fork back around and stabbed a tomato.
Bethany Anne decided to turn the tables on Patricia since her dad hadn’t given her the response she wanted. “How about you, Patricia? Who’s going to be your maid of honor?”
Patricia smiled and looked at Bethany Anne. “Well… actually I was kinda looking for a good time to ask if you would be my maid of honor.”
Lance Reynolds had seen a lot of things in his life but rarely, oh so rarely, had he ever witnessed his daughter rendered speechless. Even his bark of laughter at her plight didn’t change the ‘deer in the headlights’ look she had on her face. Her expression was priceless!
The Queen Bitch’s Ship Polarus
“Are you fucking KIDDING me?” Bethany Anne was sprawled out on her bed. Gabrielle and Ecaterina had joined her for a special ‘ladies only’ planning session.
Gabrielle shrugged. “What’s so difficult? Aren’t you honored to be asked?”
Bethany Anne pulled a hand up off her left eye to peer at Gabrielle. “Of course I’m honored. It’s just I’ve never done anything like this before! For fuck’s sake it’s for my soon-to-be stepmother. What do I do if she chooses a hideous dress?” Bethany Anne hid her eyes again and mumbled in prayer, “God please don’t let it be taffeta, yours truly Bethany Anne.”
Ecaterina was amused. “Who is going with you? Maybe they might have some way to help her choose something not too hideous?”
Bethany Anne sat up and rubbed her eyes. “That’s actually a different issue. The changes to Patricia’s body are already pretty dramatic so she doesn’t feel like she can invite anyone she knew BC, before-change. So, she’s asked me to invite two ladies she admires greatly.”
Gabrielle clapped her hands. “Really? Oh, this is just delicious! Can I be there when you ask them?”
Bethany Anne cocked an eyebrow at Gabrielle. “A little bloodthirsty aren’t we?”
Gabrielle smiled. “No pun intended?”
Bethany Anne rolled her eyes.
Gabrielle continued, “I’ve lived a long time and I’ve been to many weddings. Well, if they were held at night.” She paused and looked up, thinking. “Damn, this is going to be my first daytime wedding in five hundred and thirty-four years…” She looked at Bethany Anne who had such an astonished expression it was surprising. Gabrielle thought back over what she had just said to figure out why… The blood drained from her face. “Oh. My. God.” She covered her face with her hands so her voice was muffled. “I think I want to die now.”
Meanwhile Ecaterina had thrown herself on Bethany Anne’s bed and was laughing so hard Bethany Anne was sure they could hear her over on the Ad Aeternitatem. Even with Ecaterina laughing directly into her duvet.
Bethany Anne pushed her and then slapped her hard on the ass. “Damn, Ecaterina, stop laughing your Were-cooties into my sheets!” She turned back to Gabrielle who had walked over to lie down on the couch.
Gabrielle moaned, “You’re never going to let me live this down, are you?” She looked over to regard her queen.
Bethany Anne tapped her finger against her lip in mock concentration, then shook her head. “Nope, probably not, but I’m going to have to put it aside and unwrap that juicy nugget another time. If you can help me get the laughing hyena over here to clam up for a second, I have an important request.”
Gabrielle stood up and walked towards Ecaterina who had rolled over to see the two women staring at her. The laughter died on her lips. “No! I’ll be good, I promise! You two find someone else to be evil towards.”
Bethany Anne complained, “I can’t!”
Ecaterina and Gabrielle looked at each other then at her. Ecaterina was the first to ask, “Why not?”
This time, it was Bethany Anne’s turn to smile maliciously. “Because the two ladies who are going to have so much fun with me during the wedding are Tweedle dee,” she pointed at Gabrielle, “and Tweedle dum,” pointing at Ecaterina.
Gabrielle looked shocked. “Us?” Was that a hint of trepidation Bethany Anne noticed around Gabrielle’s eyes?
Ecaterina’s Romanian accent was significantly more noticeable than it had been, “Patricia is wanting Gabrielle and myself to be the maids who honor with you?” Bethany Anne nodded. “This is ok. I’m happy to do it, I just have one request.”
Bethany Anne was surprised that getting Ecaterina to be a bridesmaid was going to be so easy. “Sure, what is it?”
Ecaterina pointed at Gabrielle. “She is Tweedle dum, I am Tweedle dee!”
Gabrielle turned to grab a pillow from the couch and sent it rocketing towards Ecaterina who barely closed her eyes before she was hit squarely in the face.
Round one of the pillow fight, was on!
TQB Base, CO, USA
William was walking around the new Black Hawk helicopter admiring the robust look of the bird. “Bethany Anne knows how to do things right, doesn’t she?”
Bobcat was following William. “I knew there was at least one thing I loved about that woman.” William looked over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow at Bobcat who shrugged and smiled. “Just one or two, well maybe three.” Both men smiled and continued examining the helicopter.
Bobcat asked William, “How long will it take you to get the extra armament and Pods ready to go?”
“Why, are you expecting to need them here in the middle of the United States soon?”
“Of course not, but always be prepared is my motto.”
William snorted. “That’s the motto for the Boy Scouts, you dick.”
Bobcat grinned. “Consider me the last Boy Scout!
“That’s the name of a movie, moron.”
“Geez… what’s caused you to be Mister Fat And Unhappy this morning?”
William walked towards his new manufacturing machines that had been set out on the floor of the workshop in a very particular order. It had taken him two days to move the heavy sons of bitches. “Have you looked at the instruction manuals for some of these things? You damn near need a PhD to understand them!”
Marcus stuck his head out of his office. “I have a PhD.” William turned around and shot him the finger.
Bobcat finally caught up to William. “What the hell do all of these things do and why did you want them so badly?”
William’s face turned blissful. “My man, with these I can do anything! If I have a 3-D drawing to work from I can have the part in hours. I don’t need to wait on an outside shop and I don’t have to wait on other people. It’s just me and my little manufacturing babies.”
“I thought all of this 3-D printing stuff was for plastics?”
William’s face was surprised as he turned to look at Bobcat. “Plastics? Not only can we print plastic but we can also do elastomer, metal, and biocompatible materials.”
“What the hell do we need to print biocompatible materials for?”
Marcus’s voice came from his little cave again. “Replace bones and other items in a person’s body that have been blown to bits. It’s a dangerous world out there and Bethany Anne is going to make it even more so!”
William stared over at Marcus’s empty office door. “I hadn’t considered printing bones.”
Bobcat asked, “What have you considered?”
William shrugged. “We would use biocompatible material for anything that needed to interact inside the body. For instance, certain surgical tools could be printed up easily. If you had a weird situation with just one person you could
print a tool that would only work for that person’s body. I had considered something like hip replacement so never mind.”
“What about a metal that could be put inside a person’s body?”
William turned to look at Bobcat. “Like changing out a bone or creating a skull plate?”
Bobcat stared at his friend. “Don’t be so stupid, I’m talking about Wolverine’s claws!”
William barked out a laugh. “Adamantium? I don’t even believe that shit is real. But there’s a company called Liquid Metal that produces an amorphous alloy of a few metals. I think it’s something like Beryllium, Zirconium, Titanium, Copper, and Aluminum… Wait, that’s not right. There are only three at one time. It’s supposedly two times stronger than Titanium.”
“Do you have some around here?”
William said, “Hell no, do you know how expensive that stuff is? What in the world would I use it for in the first place? I have all of the different metals I could possibly use. I could practically build my own Shelly for fuck’s sake.” William grinned. “But I would absolutely love to have some to play with!”
“So why don’t you get some?”
“Do you have any idea how big a hole buying some of that would blow in our budget?
Bobcat looked at his friend, then dramatically pointed to all of the new machines and then pointed a thumb back at his new helicopter. “What budget?”
They fist bumped, their faces alight in glee.
Key Biscayne, FL, USA
Bethany Anne, Ecaterina, Gabrielle and Ashur arrived in Bethany Anne’s closet. They had finally cleaned up her bedroom after the massive pillow fight. The three ladies walked down the stairs to find Patricia and Lance, while Ashur made a beeline for the backyard.
Bethany Anne stuck her head into Patricia’s office, where she found both of them working. Lance looked at her with a smile on his face. “You ladies aren’t very quiet, I could hear you laughing when you arrived upstairs.”
Smiling, Bethany Anne said, “You can blame Gabrielle for that, she’s the one who threw the first pillow!”
From outside of the doorway Lance could hear Ecaterina’s voice. “Dammed accurately too!”
A snort came from the same direction. “You are the one who called me Tweedle dum!” The two women behind Bethany Anne started cracking up again.
Patricia, with a pensive expression on her face, looked at Bethany Anne. “I take it the request came back okay?”
“You can’t tell? Come on into the living room and we can work on some of the details.” Bethany Anne smiled to help calm Patricia’s nerves. “Come on, come on!” Lance stood up and reached over to help Patricia out of her chair and then pushed her toward the door.
Once the five of them were ensconced in the living room, Patricia hugged each of the three ladies letting them know her deep appreciation for accepting her request to be bridesmaids.
Bethany Anne started the conversation. “So, have you considered a minister for the wedding?” Bethany Anne looked over at her dad who looked like he would rather be in the middle of a battle than talking wedding plans with the women.
Patricia looked over at Lance who was smart enough not to presume he had an answer. She gently nudged him in the ribs and returned her attention to the three ladies. “We thought we might ask one of the ship’s captains to officiate for us. Do you think one of them would do it?”
“Absolutely!” said Bethany Anne. “But Gabrielle brought up an option if you’re willing to consider someone else?”
Patricia and Lance looked at Gabrielle.
Gabrielle considered throwing the pillow from her chair at Bethany Anne, but there were too many easily breakable items in this room. “Well I seem to remember that Michael became an ordained minister back in the mid 1700s or so. I just thought it would be kind of cool to have the oldest living minister officiate your wedding.”
Bethany Anne added, “Not to mention you thought he would be a little uncomfortable if someone asked him to officiate!”
Gabrielle shrugged. “Well, it isn’t often I get a chance to poke the bear.”
Ecaterina quipped, “If you want to poke a bear, I can always ask my uncle to give you a chance.”
Gabrielle stuck her tongue out at Ecaterina, then she looked thoughtful. “I don’t know, what does he look like, is he attractive?”
Ecaterina made a face. “Vampire-bear sex? Ewww, that’s my uncle!”
Gabrielle added, “On the mountainside!”
Ecaterina glared at her. “You better not! I walk around that mountain and if you go have sex with my uncle I’ll always have to wonder whether or not you two bumped uglies where I’m walking.” She huffed, “I’d have to find a whole new mountain.”
Gabrielle retorted, “Like you and Nathan left that mountain virginal! Tell me you guys didn’t ‘bump ugly’ every few hours!”
Ecaterina stuck her nose up in the air. “The beautiful relationship I have with my mate shall not be besmirched by considering our activity at such base levels.”
Gabrielle turned to face Bethany Anne. “They shouldn’t be called werewolves, they should be called rabbits!”
Gabrielle barely heard the pillow before it hit the back of her head. By now all five of them were laughing pretty hard and it took a few moments for everyone to settle down.
Bethany Anne turned to Lance and Patricia. “What do you think? Would you like to be married by the oldest living ordained minister? I’m willing to ask him. Please, pretty please, with a cherry on top? I would just love to ask Michael about his role as a priest and get all the juicy details!” The glint in her eyes told Patricia all she wanted to know. The worst that would happen would be that Michael said yes. Patricia turned to Lance.
“Would you mind if Michael married us?”
Lance looked at his fiancée. “Why would I mind if Michael married us?”
Patricia made a face. “Well, he is responsible for killing so many people, over a thousand years.”
Lance tried to sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger. “Yes, but dey vere all bad!”
Patricia looked back at Bethany Anne who shrugged. “I doubt they were all bad but he was very strict and did what he said he’d do. I’m sure you could argue the sins of the deaths should be laid at those up the chain of command.”
Gabrielle’s smile grew wistful, as she had forgotten about that aspect of Michael’s past.
Patricia nodded. “Yes but if it wasn’t for him, Lance wouldn’t have you right now. I don’t know the Michael from those times. The one that I’ve been around doesn’t seem to be some horrible guy. Who knows, maybe he’ll find a girl he’ll want to latch onto at the wedding.”
Lance asked, “How are we going to get legal documents for back here in America?”
Gabrielle waved her hand. “Stephen can provide those for you. He has plenty of people he can call to get you legitimate licenses for Romania and a couple of other countries. I couldn’t tell you what it would take for a ceremony on the ship.”
Ecaterina spoke up, “I don’t know how it’s done, but I will be happy to look into it. Maybe we will need to do the same thing for one or two other couples.”
Bethany Anne asked Ecaterina, “Who else is getting busy?”
Ecaterina shrugged. “No one specific yet, just rumors.”
The rest of the evening was spent talking dresses and other items women have spoken about since time immemorial.
Bethany Anne never provided an ‘out’ so that her dad could excuse himself. She wanted to see how long he would stick around. Damned if he didn’t make it all the way through the evening. He even served everyone refreshments about twenty minutes into their discussion.
Bethany Anne squinted at her dad during some conversation about centerpieces. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she would swear he had something up his sleeve. He would occasionally mess with something on his phone and then put it away. He was being patient, too damned patient. But he stayed right there beside Patricia with his arm a
round her shoulders as the four ladies talked. She finally just gave up trying to figure out his secret.
Lance kept his smiles to himself, seeing his daughter looking at him from time to time. He happened to be testing a new product from one of their companies. It was a special transceiver that was worn behind the ear, hidden from view. It would vibrate the bones in the ear, allowing someone to ‘hear’ without using headphones. The sound couldn’t be picked up by sensitive microphones.
Or… lady vampires.
13
TQB Base, CO, USA
Lance Reynolds frowned at the klaxon and its accompanying light splashing red highlights around the area. The last time he had been here, his daughter had gone into this room and then disappeared. He had sworn he would not come back down here while he was the base commander.
Good to know he was true to his word.
Bethany Anne had called Michael to find out how to open the door. He explained she just had to call a specific phone number and enter a fifteen-digit password after the tone. It was old technology, but it was effective. He playfully asked if she was going to find someone that she could change? She replied instantly, “Yes, I’ve decided I’m going to change Tabitha and leave her with you to train. You didn’t get the opportunity to train me, so I figured you could work it off.” She sweetly told him goodbye before he could sputter out a retort. Bethany Anne had been told ‘but you didn’t hear it from me’ that Michael was flustered trying to work with his first female tech support person. He had apparently used his ability to read her mind only to find her in the middle of a sexual fantasy with him as the star attraction. He had enough control to finish his conversation without giving anything away, but it had caught him by surprise and he wasn’t sure what next step to take with her. She was a first class hacker but she came with a few extra challenges for him.
Later that week Nathan had come to Bethany Anne to discuss a strange conversation he’d had with Michael. Nathan thought Michael was trying to ask very discreetly, ‘was Ben an excellent person and if perhaps Tabitha might be a better choice to be on the ships?’ Bethany Anne had broken out laughing and after she got herself under control she told Nathan that he should tell Michael, ‘Ben is gay, that’s not a problem is it?’ Nathan admitted since telling Michael this he hadn’t received any more such inquiries from Michael. Hopefully, Michael didn’t think to ask Tabitha if Ben was gay, or the ruse might fall apart.
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 138