The Kurtherian Endgame Boxed Set: Books 1 - 4 - Payback is a Bitch, Compelling Evidence, Through the Fire and Flame, All's Fair in Blood and War

by Michael Anderle

  Chapter Fifteen

  It took them a total of twelve minutes to pull up alongside the new ship. Ricole was surprised that none of her partners were flying, but they explained that the EIs usually handled the flights.

  “Right now we have a bunch of bored super-geniuses who aren’t flying, so for us to do it would take away some of their meaning in life,” Mark answered her.

  “What he isn’t saying,” Sabine added, “is we can’t fly ourselves out of a paper sack, and I doubt this is taking more than ten percent of one of their brains.”

  A new voice came out of the speakers. It sounded like the Queen to Ricole.

  These humans all sounded similar at times. It was annoying.

  “More like ten percent of one percent, Sabine,” the voice offered. “Although I’m giving you a total of five percent of my focus because I’m curious as to what is going on. Another seven percent is focused on everything happening inside my ship, and twenty-seven percent, the largest, is handling a video game effort for William at the moment.”

  “Which video game?” Mark asked. Ricole noticed he had triple checked all his weapons.

  “One for Baba Yaga Productions, having to do with moving the BYPSs—”

  “Holy shit, really!?” Mark’s eyes lit up. “I’ve gotten down to a hundred percent and almost beaten the level. I’ve got to tell you, that shit is hard!”

  “Yes, you are in the top forty percent of all players.”

  “Wait, only the top forty?” He scowled. “I thought I was top ten?”

  “Well, you are only on Version 1.5. I’ve had to adjust the parameters twice for reality updates. The players brought up situations I had not placed into the games.”

  “Oh, is that what the updates do?” He mumbled something, then, “I’ll have to update.”

  “Ok, I have negotiated with the captain of the ship on your behalf.”

  Jacqueline leaned forward. “What does ‘negotiated’ mean, ArchAngel?”

  “I sent a one-pound puck across to slam against their ship. He didn’t believe that you were out here, so I had to prove it.”

  “Why isn’t she handling this instead of us?” Ricole asked.

  “Because one day,” ArchAngel replied, “I will be out in the stars kicking ass and taking names with my Queen, and you will be here kicking ass without me. So learn well, little one, and do yourself and your team proud. Docking in ninety seconds.”

  The connection was severed.

  The four got up and headed toward the docking door. “She sounded just like the Queen,” Ricole commented.

  “Wait till you get a look at her.” Mark winked. “It’s like staring at the Queen.”

  “I’ll tell you later.” Sabine unlocked her pistols. “It takes longer to explain than we have right now.”

  Ricole nodded, unhooking her own pistols’ safeties.

  It was time to rock and roll.

  “What do ya mean, ya can’t see it!” Ch’urn stood up from his chair and stepped down to the lower deck to look for himself. When he checked, the threat scanning and detection systems showed nothing. “Well,” he grumped, “I sure enough heard the loud bang when their warning shot hit us!”

  Ch’urn was a Zhyn—six feet of heavy blue muscles and skin like an old-Earth dinosaur’s. His shoulders were heavy because he worked them so much.

  He preferred to use hand weapons when taking ships, not guns and blasters. He’d use them if he had to, but it wasn’t his preference.

  Drock, a cousin although distant, turned from watching his screen at damage control. “What if they can’t hit us with anything stronger? We could be falling for a trick.”

  Ch’urn smiled, his carnivorous teeth revealed as his tongue swiped across them. “I hope it is. If they connect with us and we can’t see their ship, maybe we want to just take their ship? It’s probably worth more than anything we could steal on this planet.”

  Drock turned back to his console, satisfied. It was the one thing Ch’urn liked about his distant cousin. He might not see the obvious, but if you pointed it out to him he wasn’t so dense as to argue the merits of his own stupidity.

  “All right, I’m letting them connect. I’ll be in the first wave, but I need two volunteers to sneak aboard their craft while I’m talking with them.”

  “Ok, two go in, two stay here.” Jacqueline tossed a coin and snatched it out of the air. “Says we two go,” she pointed to Mark, “and you two gunslingers stay here. Don’t let anyone take the ship.” She slapped the large button at the side of the door, opening it for her and Mark to enter the temporary tunnel and hit the other side’s door.

  A moment later the other ship’s door started to slide open.

  “Wait, did we get a choice there?” Ricole asked.

  Sabine smirked. “No. You will learn that Jacqueline has the hots for getting into fights. She’s right about no one getting aboard though, and if you hear a roar…”

  “A roar?” Ricole stepped back, allowing Sabine to take point. She had the armor; Ricole’s hadn’t arrived just yet. They had found a chest protector for her but needed to manufacture something specific for her physiology.

  “Oh, it’s unique.” Sabine nodded, her hand casually on her belt near her gun. “Can’t miss it.”

  Soon enough there was a crash in the other ship and a roar of pain.

  “That it?” Ricole jumped up.

  “No, that’s just some idiot who got tossed around. I’m telling you, you can’t miss it.”

  There were more noises, metal on metal crunching and something falling plus screams of pain.

  “No.” Sabine put up a hand to stop Ricole from asking. “That’s just someone in pain.”

  A scream pierced their ears. “YOU FUCKING ASSWANKERS!”

  “That’s just Jacqueline being pissed off.” Ricole smiled. “I’ve heard that one before.”

  Ch’urn wiped his lips with the back of his arm as blood seeped into his third-favorite suit. These two humans were more formidable than he would have believed. He kept his eyes on them, but his peripheral vision captured the movement of his two sneakier members as they slipped into the tunnel between their ships.

  He raised his arms and called, “HOLD!” His people backed up, leaving the two humans back to back and looking at him. “How about we make this one on one? I haven’t had a good fight in a long time. What do you say? Either of you have the gumption to take me on?”

  With his question he grinned to show off his sharpened teeth, two of them capped in metal where the tips had been broken off in previous fights. He had kept the skulls of those two and had them boiled to remove the brains.

  They hung over his bed as decorations.

  “What do you think?” Mark asked his mate. “Think he’s being honest?”

  Jacqueline smiled. “Well, if he is fighting, then the other would have to wait. You’re faster with the guns, so you should back me up.”

  “How is it you always have the fun?” Mark asked, looking around. “Aren’t we missing two?”

  “Yup,” she replied. “They tried to sneak aboard the ship.”

  “Oh?” Mark wanted to turn his head, but if Jacqueline wasn’t giving anything away she must know something. “So you fight, I guard, and you get your mad out?”

  “Yes, but remember I get horny after fights.”

  “Why do you think I’m allowing this?” Mark grinned. “I figured there was something in it for me.”

  Jacqueline chuckled as she stepped forward. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll fight you.”

  The large Zhyn looked just a touch surprised but shrugged. “I’m not sexist. I’ll beat you just as easily as I would have beat him. I’m very fair that way.”

  “I’ll bet.” Jacqueline smiled. “Any weapons?”

  “Only what nature provided,” he answered, taking off his weapons belt and kicking it behind him. “Oh, and my caps on my teeth. Some of the tips got broken; the ones who accomplished it I honor to this day.”

  The sni
ckers from his crew told her this wasn’t an honor one desired.

  “Okay.” She unbuckled her guns and waited for Mark to step closer, then buckled the belt around him. “Sorry, but if any of you idiots tried to use them we’d all be dead.” She snapped the locks and he stepped back. Everyone moved backward in the hold. “Any rules?”

  “Well, I’m a pirate so I’d like to think no hitting below the belt, but only you would abide by it so…” He shrugged. “How about no?”

  “Fine with me, bitch!” She slammed her right fist into the palm of her left hand. She grinned at the shock on his face when his eyes flicked past her. Glancing back, she saw two of his crew members walking backward into the hold with their hands up in the air and fear in their eyes.

  She turned back around. “Well, that was fucking rude.”

  Ch’urn’s eyes narrowed as he returned his gaze to her. “I see. You aren’t so stupid to have no one protecting your ship. It looks like it’s just you and me, then.”

  X’ern was a smaller Zhyn, only half the size of the captain, but he was just as Zhyn in his desire to fight as any other. He had one backup member of the crew behind him, H’ick from Engines, who was responsible for getting the other ship away from theirs after he made sure it was under their control. He hadn’t gone five feet into the tube when he noticed a human female standing at the other end. “Well, looks like it’s just going to be you and me then, baby. I get to have a little fun with ya.”

  Sabine’s voice cut across the distance. “I don’t think so. Why don’t I just shoot you here?”

  “With what, that gun on your leg? I could be across there ravaging your broken jaw with my tool before you can pull it out.”

  Sabine’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not sure if my translation software was right, but if it was even close I will shoot off both your legs at the kneecaps and shove one foot up your ass and one foot into your mouth, you dumbass fuckwit.”

  X’ern stopped in the middle to allow H’ick to join him. In a moment he would pull H’ick around and use him as protection as he raced the rest of the way across.

  He smiled, but his smile was short lived when the second body came into view. His eyes went from the human down to the Noel-ni. “Oh, hello, didn’t notice you back there hiding.”

  “Hello.” Ricole’s soft voice seemed to grow louder as it traveled down the passageway. “I don’t think I misunderstood your conversation at all, Zhyn.”

  She gazed at her hand, the nails protruding as she turned it first one way, then the other before placing it on her belt right next to her pistol.

  Her eyes narrowed and her lips peeled back; she went from cute to dangerous in a moment. “Am I going to eat the brains of a Zhyn in a moment, or are you going to put your hands in the air while you walk backward to your vessel?”

  X’ern wanted to spit, but the damned Noel-ni might shoot his eye out for that. He slowly lifted his hands in the air. “Go back, H’ick,” he growled. “No one said we had to take on a Noel-ni. I’m not prepared.”

  “Damn right you aren’t.” Ricole’s hand was outstretched and her pistol was aimed at X’ern’s neck. “Keep walking. We wouldn’t want any accidents with me pulling the trigger, right?”

  H’ick spoke up from behind X’ern. “No ma’am! I’m just the tagalong to check out your engines. If you need to shoot anyone, X’ern is the right one!”

  X’ern wanted to kick H’ick but didn’t for two reasons. One, X’ern was the right one to shoot and two, if he kicked H’ick the damned Noel-ni would probably shoot out his kneecap for unwanted movement.

  Damned Noel-ni!

  Ch’urn noticed that even X’ern was walking backward, his hands held up. No one showed up from the humans’ side, so they weren’t leaving their ship.

  Fine; he’d do this the easier way. He slammed his fist into his palm in imitation of Jacqueline and stepped forward, his focus now completely on the human female.

  Ch’urn reached back with both arms, thrust out his chest, and roared his challenge according to the traditions of his planet. When he was finished, he waited for the human to respond in kind.

  He wasn’t ready for what happened next.

  High Tortuga, Hidden Space Fleet Base, Bethany Anne’s Practice Room

  The chamber had been hollowed out of the rock, and it was completely lightless. The darkness of space offered more ambient light than there was inside the spherical hold. There was a flat surface that led to a door, but only after the tunnel turned twice.

  If a large explosion went off, the turns would prevent most of the damage from going toward the entry.

  This had been Bethany Anne’s project, and while her request to “build me a round domed room sixty feet tall” had been a bit unique, those who had worked with the woman before had just shrugged and gotten down to doing what she’d asked.

  She had told Michael about her project, and he considered it a wise move—get her working on something that might take years to come to fruition.

  But she knew it would work, because she knew it was time to push the right buttons.

  Bethany Anne left her two guards on the other side of the door before entering and locking it.

  She pulled on the Etheric and a red globe appeared in her hand, then stretched her hands apart. The ball increased in size five-fold and the glow softened.

  She sent it down the hallway so she could see.

  Bethany Anne walked thirty steps and turned the corner, dropping her robe. Walking farther while pushing the globe of light ahead of her, she turned again to head toward the final room a hundred steps away. The hallway was roughhewn, and she ran her hand down the walls, feeling the indentations the machines had left as the cutting tools burrowed into the rock.

  No one had come back and smoothed out the stones, which was fine.

  The goal of this location wasn’t to be pretty; it was supposed to be functional.

  Here was her place—her little fortress of solitude—but instead of keeping people out…

  It was to keep anything she did in.

  “We ready for this, TOM?”

  Not exactly, he admitted. But you aren’t really providing me any options.

  “It’s time to pay all the back rent for hitching a ride with me,” she told him, her voice reverberating off the domed chamber’s walls as she strode into the chamber.

  The vastness of the chamber swallowed her small light. She concentrated and started throwing red and blue balls up the sides and to the ceiling. As they floated toward their intended destinations they expanded, turning from red or blue to white and providing light throughout the cavern.

  At the bottom was a naked woman. She looked down and muttered, “I need a Gott Verdammt towel. That rock is going to be cold.”

  She headed back into the tunnel. “I’ll sit on my robe, but someone remind me next time that stone seats suck.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Above High Tortuga, Pirate Ship, Second Quadrant, outside Eastern Hemisphere

  Jacqueline ducked the first punch and had to roll away from a follow-up kick.

  “Damn, you’re a fast one for your size,” she told him, and dodged the second kick that followed the first.

  The captain’s fellow pirates were yelling obscenities at her and support for him. Mark just stood there calmly. Jacqueline wasn’t sure if he wasn’t worried, or was just hiding his concern.

  “Just not worried,” he said aloud, assuming she could pick out his voice.

  “When did you,” she jumped over another kick and slapped away a right hook, “start reading minds?”

  “I don’t,” he replied. “Although he is moving you into a corner.”

  “I see that!” she grumped, accepting a kick so she could roll out of the trap he had tried to set. Her ribs hurt. “I’m just finding out his strengths and weaknesses.”

  Jacqueline was back on her feet by the time the captain had turned back. Excluding his first roar, he hadn’t been the talkative type so far. Her ribs had alread
y stopped hurting compliments of the nanocytes she had inherited from her father, which had been enhanced by Bethany Anne’s technology when Michael brought them aboard.

  Some Weres were just Wechselbalg; changers with human and wereanimal forms. However, there was a modification—a code change, really—that the nanocytes could flip on in extreme conditions, and once the switch was flipped the Were could access it when they needed it.

  Hers had turned on a few years back when Mark was in trouble with carnivorous Weres. Her concern for her mate’s life had brought about her first change, and now he was patiently waiting for her to bring her can of whoop-ass online.

  It was time.

  When Ch’urn kicked out again, the female accepted the kick to her ribs and rode it out of the trap he had been working to get her into. She slammed to the floor of the hold, rolling a couple of times before bouncing up.

  He didn’t mind. He needed to warm his muscles up anyway. While it might have been nice for his ego to lock her into the corner and beat her to death using the walls as his anvil, finding that she could give him a longer fight was a pleasant surprise.

  He cricked his neck as he walked over to where she was waiting. This time her eyes were flashing yellow. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but they were brighter this time.

  “Pretty eyes,” he remarked. “Sorry you won’t be able to use them after this fight. Then again, you probably won’t find that too concerning considering the rest of your damage.”

  “Well,” her voice was deeper now, “I think it’s time to let you in on one of Mother Nature’s little secrets.”

  That didn’t sound ominous or anything, so Ch’urn raised his fist to slam it down on her head.

  His fist was stopped in her hand, but not her human hand. This one was large—an animal’s hand. Her claws were digging into his skin and his blood was dripping onto the floor.