“That is preposterous,” Ixtelina, her mind in total shock, argued. “No one goes to war over information!”
“Apparently, you didn’t have information on our species in your database, did you?”
“Well, of course not. We have…” Ixtelina stopped talking. Dammit, this Empress just confirmed another bit of information from her.
“Don’t worry about it,” the Empress waved her utensil, “I know you have no information about us.”
“Why do you say that?” Ixtelina asked.
“Because you still wonder if you can hire someone to attack us.”
Ixtelina squeezed her hands in frustration inside of her sleeves. What was this Empress doing, reading her mind?
“Just think about this,” Bethany Anne told Ixtelina, “do you think the group that is looking to find Kurtherians and kick their asses is going to give a fuck about whoever you can hire to attack us?” The Empress turned to her guard, “We can go, Darryl.”
She turned back to Ixtelina as they started walking away, “Bring your hired mercs on, we could use the target practice.”
Ixtelina watched the group walk away and head toward the hallway that led to All Guns Blazing.
Ixtelina stood there as Ixgalan walked up to her side, “We need to go back to headquarters, this is way above us.”
Ixtelina nodded. “They need to know what we know, and provide guidance.”
The two Ixtalis never noticed the grins of the humans that had heard the conversation, or the way the humans seemed to make fists and bump them with each other as the two aliens left.
Matthew, one of the crew members working in the mining and ores group, watched the two aliens move through the doors and shook his head. He turned to his two friends who were enjoying a lunch break, “One of these days, this part of the Galaxy is going to figure out you don’t try to get one over on the Empress.”
Alicia, on the same working shift and sitting next to him, just snorted her agreement.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
QBS Achronyx, En route, Eubos
Tabitha had stored her stuff in the Ranger’s Cabin. She was easily able to tell it was her cabin because Bethany Anne had apparently been on board, and stuck those damned yellow sticky notes, complete with arrows, pointing her down the hallway to her cabin door.
She had taken down every one of the yellow stickies on her way down the ship’s hallways.
The envelope affixed to her door had the Empress’s handwriting, “Yes, this is your room, Tabitha.”
She pushed open the door and took in her room. The bed wouldn’t allow sleeping for two very easily. “Achronyx?”
“Yes, Ranger Tabitha.”
“Are there any beds that handle two people on this ship?”
“Every bed will handle two people,” the EI replied.
“Mmmm,” She moved over to the bed and started looking it over. Sure enough, she didn’t have a six-inch mattress, but two, three-inch mattresses. She looked around and found a lock. Flipping it, she was able to pull the under mattress out, and the bed became a double.
Apparently, companionship was permitted. Or at least the understanding it could happen.
She bumped up against the other wall.
“Ok, close quarters when it is opened up.” She shoved the second half of the bed back under and locked it in place.
She grabbed her go bag, tossed it on the bed and looked around. Sitting down on her bed, she opened her envelope.
Tabitha,
Those in Eubos did not get the request to refrain from slavery. Slavery will not be permitted. I suspect it will take a while for the understanding that no slavery, means, no slavery! I would provide the stories on how bad it is, but then you might be as pissed off as I am about it and I don’t want to be the one to color your response.
Make it stop.
Bethany Anne.
She stood up, “Achronyx, call the team to the meeting room.”
“Confirmed, Ranger Tabitha. All team members notified to assemble in the main meeting room.”
Tabitha walked to her door and opened it. She took a step out, paused, then turned back and stuck her head into her cabin.
“Achronyx,” she whispered, “How the fuck do I get to the team’s main meeting room?
—
Tabitha walked down the hallway to the room the team would now use to meet, and interestingly enough, it was also where they would eat. She waved to her four Tontos and went to the coffee maker and punched in her order.
Moments later, her hot chocolate was ready. God, she would have killed for a body that could eat as much chocolate as she could now, and not show it.
Well, she supposed she had killed once she got it, did that count?
She noticed the table the Tontos were sitting had lifted out of the floor and locked into place. The right side of the rectangular room was empty, but she could see the outline of another table set into the floor. T
This table held ten, easily, no reason to pull up another table.
She set her hot chocolate down. “Here is the short, short version,” she started. “There have been sightings of slavers over in the Eubos system even after our Empress sent an edict forbidding the practice. Our responsibility is to go to Eubos, make friends, and slap some heads around if need be. They are now under the aegis of the Etheric Empire, and apparently, we need to give them another memo. We will be armored up at all times, everybody will have their partner, and we’ll kick ass and decide if we take names or leave corpses.”
She took a sip of her drink, “Questions?”
Katsu spoke up, “Data acquisition?”
Tabitha smiled, “You have to ask?”
“Ranger Tabitha,” Achronyx interrupted, “We are twelve minutes from Gate Transfer, do you have any ship commands?”
Hirotoshi spoke, “Go in hot.”
She smirked, “Going in hot is ALWAYS going to happen.”
“Understood, Achronyx will always go through transfer gates in armed fashion.”
Tabitha turned to look at the nearest speaker, “No! That wasn’t what I was suggesting.”
“You do not wish to go in weapons prepared?” Achronyx asked.
“Well, yes,” Tabitha replied, but then looked at Hirotoshi and pointed to the speaker and mouthed, See?
Hirotoshi shook his head.
Tabitha rolled her eyes. “Achronyx, we will go in hot until I say otherwise. Do we need to be seated anywhere specific?”
“The bridge has the most defensive protection, and the best seats for protection in case we need to go through evasive maneuvers.”
Tabitha stood up and walked her mug over to the sink and set it into the cleanser.
“Let’s do this.”
She waited for the guys to go first, to confirm which way she needed to go to get to the bridge.
Capital City, Planet Yoll
Kiel made his way across town and quietly entered a building that had a total of four different restaurants. Three at street level, one up on the top floor. The building next door had a landing pad at the top.
Not that Kael-ven actually needed one, but he preferred not to show off his Pod’s capabilities if he could help it. Kiel, on the other hand, would have shown off if he was allowed.
Nothing was terribly sexy about Kiel’s walking abilities, however.
Kiel was playing with his dinnerware in the small, private dining room when there was a sharp knock. He had barely stood up when a Yollin head stuck itself in, looked around and then ducked back out. The door opened further, and Kael-ven walked in. Kael-ven’s annoyance was obvious when the door shut behind him.
“Captain,” Kiel reached out to shake Kael-ven’s hand before the four-legged Yollin reclined on a couch made for his body type. Kiel turned back to his side of the table and reclined in his chair.
“As the humans would say,” Kael-ven muttered, “God, it’s good to be called Captain again.”
“What, Plenipotentiary Leader Kael-ven isn’t
to your liking?” Kiel asked.
“No, but King Kael-ven, andTraitor Kael-ven are the ones I hate to hear the most because I expect to see one of the Empress’s Bitches show up when they say something bad about Bethany Anne.”
Kiel shrugged, “They can’t be everywhere.”
“Well, they are certainly watching me closely enough,” Kael-ven agreed.
“Trust issues?” Kiel asked.
“What? No.” he waved the thought away, “They are concerned my,” Kael-ven pointed to the door, “security isn’t up to standard.”
Kiel looked towards the door, “They seemed fine,” he scratched a mandible, “perhaps it would have been better if they had come in here and checked under the table.”
“Trust me, he wanted to.” Kael-ven reached for the drink that was waiting for him, “but I told him if you were in here, not to disrespect the Yollin Mercenary leader that way.”
Kiel shrugged, grabbed his own drink and took a sip, “It wouldn’t have bothered me, as many times as John, Eric, Darryl or Scott would practically pick me up and look under my feet before Bethany Anne would come in.” He chuckled, “Like I had a chance to hurt her, either.”
“You could have had a bomb on yourself,” Kael-ven pointed out.
“Uh,” Kiel stopped a moment, “yes, I guess you are right. I hadn’t considered that.”
“No matter, Eric came down yesterday and tore all of my people new assholes about their sorry abilities. Then he showed them their mistakes. One person chose to be offended by Eric.” Kael-ven paused, “He’s not with me anymore.”
“What, Eric killed him?” Kiel asked, not surprised.
“No,” Kael-ven chuckled, “but he is in the hospital recuperating. He is allowed back on the team if he wants to come back. However, no one cares to give any of the Empress’ people lip anymore. By the time Eric was done with my guard, the guard was apologizing and saying over and over again he was happy he was learning the lesson from Eric, rather than from John.”
Kiel chuckled, “Eric does like to make it seem like the beat down he is delivering is, ‘only half the shit John would do to you, so you better tell me thank you for not letting John teach you this stuff.’”
Kael-ven nodded, “Right after he broke my guard’s leg, that human is amazing.”
“No,” Kiel corrected, “he just makes John seem that much worse.”
Kael-ven lifted his drink in Kiel’s direction, “Good point.”
A moment later, one of the security guards knocked and stuck his head in to announce the waiter was here. Within moments, the two Yollins had ordered, and the door was shut once more.
Kael-ven reached into a leather bag and pulled out a small tablet. He logged in and chose an app that would block all known bugs. He looked up to Kiel, “Physical?”
“Checked the place out, clean.”
“Ok,” Kiel-ven accepted his assurance, “What do we have?”
Kiel brought out his own tablet, “ADAM?”
The AI spoke from his table, “Yes, Kiel?”
“I’m in a secure room with Kael-ven. Would you transfer the recordings from today into his implant?”
“Certainly,” ADAM confirmed. A moment later, Kael-ven’s eyes became a touch distant, as he focused on the conversations he heard in his ear, due to the implants he had received from Bethany Anne. His mandibles started grinding together.
“Idiots!” He finally ground out.
“Finished?” Kiel asked, and Kael-ven nodded his head.
“Ok, thoughts boss?”
Kael-ven tapped his fingers on the table, “Oh, it doesn’t surprise me. They are going to waste a lot of good Yollin blood trying to bring back the old aristocracy system. I’ve seen the latest reports and spoken with the head scientist on the Yollin population challenges here on our planet.”
“What did he say?” Kiel asked. It was no surprise that the biggest issue facing Kael-ven was how to deal with the burgeoning population. It was the reason Yollins had been going to space for decades and had become the aggressive species they were.
“He said we have no damned population problem!” Kael-ven spat out. “It seems King Yoll made it all up, purposefully keeping our capabilities with population engineering in the past. We could bring back all Yollins to our own planet, and have centuries more growth. Hell,” he waved towards the ceiling, “those on the Space Stations could come back down and not be so damned crowded.”
“So…”
“Furthermore,” Kael-ven continued his tirade, “that sphincter plug of a King created useless engineering requirements that hampered our ability to produce bigger buildings. Which, when you see some of the structures we have created, makes no sense. The only times when we built to our capabilities, the engineering went through the King’s group. In those instances, amazing feats of intellect occurred, and no one cared to question the King about how only a few of the buildings made it so high.”
“And…” Kiel tried to interrupt once more, unsuccessfully as Kael-ven continued.
“May that rat-faced-finger-fucked-shit-goblin forever be tormented in the acid belly of a Deer’ghlock!” he hissed as he slapped the table.
Kiel waited a moment to see if Kael-ven was finished.
“What?” Kael-ven asked, rubbing his hand.
“Ok, just wondering about that tirade. I seem to have noticed a little Bethany Anne inspired motivational conversation there at the end.”
“Oh yes,” Kael-ven tapped the side of his head, “I took to memorizing some of the colorful language she used on multiple occasions.”
“Do you have any idea what it means?”
“Not a damned clue. For instance, what’s a rat?” Kael-ven started chuckling, “I have no idea.”
“Something ugly, I’m sure. I imagine in the future, whole university classes will be based around some of her colorful language, and tearing it apart to find the nuggets of wisdom each contains, no doubt making up complete stories about the true meaning when really she just meant they were fucktards.”
“Another one of my personal favorites,” Kael-ven admitted.
“OK,” Kiel got back to the problem at hand, “Straiphus?”
“Talk with the Empress, find out what they know, and how we might help if she needs us.”
“That simple?” Kiel asked.
“I would think you need to worry more than me.” Kael-ven pointed out, “You are the mercenary in her employ. My job is to help run Yoll. She is responsible for the rest of Yoll’s territories in her Empire.”
ADAM interrupted, “Do you want me to patch Bethany Anne in at this time? She has left a meeting and has a few minutes.”
“Yes,” Kael-ven answered.
Both Yollins had waited a moment before ADAM came back on, “Bethany Anne, Kiel, and Kael-ven are on the other side of the line. They are discussing the situation with Straiphus and want to make you aware of what they know.”
“Hi guys,” Bethany Anne’s voice popped in, “Sorry, no video.”
“That’s a shame,” Kiel spoke up, “My muscles have muscles now.”
“How the hell can a human tell?” She asked. “You guys have that chitinous armor, so aren’t your muscles hidden?”
“That is why he is saying he has more muscles,” Kael-ven answered, “There is a favorite tactic of military focused Yollins to implement that strategy.”
“Which strategy?” she asked.
“The time-honored strategy called lying-through-our-mandibles to get a female to touch us in appreciation,” Kiel answered.
“Same shit, different species,” she muttered, but there was humor coloring her voice.
“Yes,” Kael-ven answered. “I don’t want to continue taking up your time with Kiel’s attempts at humor.”
“No, it’s ok, I find it funny,” she replied.
“Ok, may I admit I didn’t want Kiel taking up more of my time with his attempts at humor?” Kael-ven ignored Kiel’s smile at her catching his lie.
�
��Mmmhmmm,” her voice came across the tablet, “Now, that I believe.”
“I didn’t think you could read minds at this distance?” Kael-ven questioned.
Never Surrender (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 16) Page 12