CONTENTS
Dedication
Legal
Social Links
Series List
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
The End
Epilogue
Authors Notes
What? You are reading AFTER the credits?
DEDICATION
To Stephen Russell
May you recuperate
quickly and
not lose
your mind as you
get better!
GET WELL SOON
IT’S HELL TO CHOOSE - The Kurtherian Gambit 09
Team
Bree Buras
Tom Dickerson
Dorene Johnson
Lisa Mitchell
Heather Paul
Scott Paul
Diane Velasquez
Editor
Kat Lind
Thank you to the following Special Consultants
for IT’S HELL TO CHOOSE
Jeff Morris - Asst Professor Cyber-Warfare
Stephen Russell - Ideas & Suggestions
This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Copyright (c) 2016 Michael T. Anderle
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
Cover art by Michael T. Anderle
Version 1.00
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The email list will be sporadic with more ‘major’ updates, the Facebook group will be for updates and the ‘behind the curtains’ information on writing the next stories. Basically conversing!
I hope you enjoy the book!
Michael Anderle - May 26, 2016.
Series Titles Include:
Death Becomes Her
The Kurtherian Gambit 01
Queen Bitch
The Kurtherian Gambit 02
Love Lost
The Kurtherian Gambit 03
Bite This
The Kurtherian Gambit 04
Never Forsaken
The Kurtherian Gambit 05
Under My Heel
The Kurtherian Gambit 06
Kneel Or Die
The Kurtherian Gambit 07
We Will Build
The Kurtherian Gambit 08
It’s Hell To Choose
The Kurtherian Gambit 09
The Dogs Of War
The Kurtherian Gambit 10
(June/July 2016)
CHAPTER ONE
Paris, France
“If they don’t stop aiming cameras at me, I’m not going to be responsible for the damages.” Bethany Anne murmured to Michael under her breath.
The two of them were walking along Avenue de Champs-Elysees after taking a stroll through Bethany Anne’s Mecca - the Christian Louboutin St Honore’ store on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore’. They were standing in the line waiting to enter the store like everyone else when a couple of those waiting realized who she was. A couple of covert phone camera pictures had occurred and then the social sphere got busy. A couple of camera ‘journalists’ from the gossip magazines came in and started taking pictures, some annoyingly so.
Michael noticed that a few were taking shots from an incredible distance using very long telephoto lenses. He pulled out his phone and quickly typed a note to Tabitha and put it away.
He would have a report from her within the next few hours he suspected, certainly by tomorrow. If there was something to hack and delete, he felt comfortable it would be gone.
If not, he would know more.
Within a few minutes, the manager of the store came around the corner and up to the two of them. He discreetly tried to ask Bethany Anne to step ahead of everyone and come inside.
She absolutely refused, which frustrated the stores manager. Finally, security got involved and explained to Bethany Anne she was causing a small security issue with the traffic and unexpected paparazzi taking pictures outside on the sidewalk.
Waving the manager closer, she pursed her lips and whispered into his ear. The manager nodded once and then walked away to disappear into the store for a minute.
Michael smiled to himself as he continued his visual scan. Eric and John were each half a block away, also keeping their eyes out, but knew that Michael would die before allowing anyone to get to Bethany Anne.
That was good enough for them.
A moment later, the manager stepped out of the store and started handing unique cards that were each signed by him to every one of the people in the line at that time. He bypassed Bethany Anne and continued down the line. When he came back up, he nodded to Bethany Anne and the two were taken inside.
Once this step was accomplished, the manager stepped back outside and explained to each of the customers these cards were good for the purchase of a pair of Christian Louboutin shoes. This was in appreciation for allowing Bethany Anne to step ahead of them, or they could surrender the cards for a $3,000 gift to three charities that focused on helping the families of those hurt or killed in the recent terrorist attacks.
Michael didn’t need any special abilities to hear the raucous cheering going on when those in line found out they held a card for a pair of shoes in their hands.
He watched Bethany Anne, and the only reaction she had was a slight blushing and ducking of her head.
He knew at that moment that not only was she the right pick to help clean up the UnknownWorld, but she was also the right woman for him.
If he could just woo her.
Seattle, Washington - USA
“Are you telling me,” a gruff voice shouted from the phone, “that we have unexplainable tech that can lift stuff up to the moon and God only knows what else and you brains over in R&D can’t even tell me HOW!”
The five men flinched when they heard the slam of a hand on a desk erupt from the conference room speaker.
He continued berating them, “I just had an awful, no let me change that, a scathing conversation with a senior senator in charge of military appropriations. It becomes a pretty one-sided conversation when the CEO of a company the size of ours is not only caught unawares of new technology, but our radar emplacements and security satellites can’t even spot the son-of-a-bitches!”
“But sir!” Jeovanni “Jeo” Deteusche spoke out, “How are we supposed to detect a revolutionary new drive system or even detect these containers when they have a coating on them that reduces their radar signature to something the size…” Jeo had been ignoring his bosses’ vigorous head shaking. Having been with the company for a little over a year, Jeo was fed up with the politics, t
he bullshit R&D priorities, and the snide comments from people who had been ‘in’ the system for over a decade.
This company, he had decided, wasn’t about protecting his country. It was about fleecing the people of the country out of their money in taxes to keep the conglomerate going. They used the constant threat of the Russians or Chinese coming up with new technology in order to maintain the influx of hand-over-fist budget money.
Jeo could imagine just how upset the senator had been when he had figured out, that despite the ludicrous amount of funding, their tech was officially second-class.
By a large margin.
Jeo had been sitting in this room with these other four scientists for the last half hour and had been fuming. He hadn’t wanted to go into defense in the first place, but R&D positions in his areas of interest in advanced metals use and theoretical metal production in low gravity weren't something that enticed too many companies.
Unfortunately, that meant that he had only a few job options despite coming out of one of the highest rated engineering universities. He could have stayed in academia and moved up the professorial track, but he wanted to apply the technology. Not just develop the concepts, sell the licensing, and move on.
He wanted to be a part of a team that was building the next stage of space exploration.
Two minutes ago, before he started what he knew would be his last conversation as an employee of this company, he placed a small little phrase on his Twitter account. One that wasn’t directly connected to him, so he had no idea how they had figured it out.
He shrugged mentally; it wasn’t his to wonder why, but to just type out the twelve characters and then start the last ‘hoorah!’ he would accomplish as a member of the R&D team. He looked at his social account and smiled at the little phrase. It only said:
#WEWILLBUILD.
Moon-Base-One
“Penn, do we have room up there for a few more containers?” a voice asked Michael Penn from the wall, catching his attention.
Penn looked over at the monitor where he saw Bobcat looking at him. A grinning William and Marcus were peering over Bobcat’s shoulder into the video camera from over 200,000 miles away.
Damn. He was doomed. There could only be one reason those three individuals were grinning at him like three Cheshire Cats from their lair back on earth.
They were about to set him up.
Penn took a moment to compose his thoughts and finally replied, “Is it too late to resign?” Their raucous laughter and glee traveled through the etheric link and out his speakers, echoing down the length of his container and clearly audible to everyone in the next container.
Coach stuck his head through the opening, and the movement caught Penn’s attention. When he looked over, Coach asked, “What shit are we about to receive?”, then finished his question with a grin. Penn noticed that ReaLea and Bree had their heads stuck out from behind Coach and were also smiling.
Penn rolled his eyes and turned back to Bobcat on screen, “I take that is a no?”
“Well,” Bobcat replied, “I suppose I could ask Coach to grab your items from your cubicle and show you the door?”
Penn heard the snickers from his team. Penn grumped, “Damned difficult to walk back to Earth, you arse!” Bobcat smiled at him. “So, lay it on me. How many are we talking?” Penn asked.
“Oh, only about ten,” Bobcat started, and Penn felt his tension begin to release slightly, “… to the second power,” Bobcat finally finished.
Even the Coach’s crew didn’t have a comment to that. “You want us,” Penn pointed to himself and the offscreen group, “to pull together a hundred new containers up here?” Penn was trying to sound calm and collected and NOT allow the squeak into his voice that was threatening to call his manhood into question.
Bobcat looked over his shoulder as Marcus piped in, “I was for sending up a hundred and thirty, but the General wants thirty for a base in Australia.” Bobcat nodded his agreement as he turned back to the screen.
Penn answered, “Marcus, you are off my Christmas list this year.” Marcus made a hurt face. “So, is there a reason we need to hide a hundred containers up here?”
This time, it was William who spoke. “Yeah, we need to get some of this off Earth. We should have enough people to help out. Well, twenty or so, to put up there and ADAM is picking up chatter that we have some potential sticky-finger suggestions going on. Like major power players wanting to see what’s up. Easier to move the candy jar than teaching the child he or she shouldn’t get grabby.”
Penn could feel three of his team come up behind him and the three faces on his screen turned to those people over his shoulder. “Hey guys!” Bobcat said, “Want some company?”
Bree responded, “Will you bring more coffee in one of them?”
“Coffee?” Marcus answered, “We just sent you twenty kilograms in a pod a couple of days ago.”
“She’s a hoarder of the stuff,” Coach quipped. “She stores half and then eyes everyone who looks like they are putting too much into the pot.”
Bree slugged Coach, “I’m not hoarding, you poor excuse for a coffee snob. I’m making sure that the coffee is kept fresh!”
The three men on the video watched the two verbally spar. Coach turned slightly towards the barista, “Those are vacuum sealed containers that you are keeping, might I add, in vacuum!”
Bree sniffed, “No rats.”
ReaLea was smiling at the two of them, a glint in her eye.
“How the hell,” Coach began, “are rats going to get up here?”
“Is it completely impossible, one hundred percent, that there are no rats in any of these containers?” She asked magnanimously.
Coach’s mouth turned down into a slight frown, “It approaches it!”
“But, it ISN’T one hundred percent!” Her eyes stretched wide, “And where am I going to be if the precious stash of coffee is ruined? It isn’t like there is a Starbucks around the corner out here!”
“It isn’t like we can’t send up another pod,” Marcus began only to have Bree turn to the monitor and stick a finger out at him.
“If I wanted your take on how to help me with my post-apocalyptic coffee plan, I would have told you what to say.” She turned back to Coach ready to start again.
William leaned towards Marcus, “That lady needs her caffeine, I think.”
Marcus nodded his head, too shocked to say anything.
Bobcat was beginning to understand how Jeffrey felt when the three of them wouldn't calm down. He looked at Penn, who shrugged in response.
ReaLea piped in from behind Penn, “Why don’t we put them together up at L2?”
“What?” asked Bree, momentarily pulled from her coffee conversation with Coach.
“That’s a good suggestion,” agreed Marcus. “We can use the mitigated gravity situation at L2 and start creating a temporary space station with the containers.”
“That’s not a small moon,” quipped Bobcat.
“It’s a hundred cargo containers all jacked together,” finished William. “I think we need to consider how best to connect them together, using the existing brackets. Jeffrey wants them gone post-haste.”
“Do they all have to be connected right now?” asked Penn.
“No,” answered Bobcat, “but as soon as we have everything, we are delivering to you the first eighty. The following twenty will be along soon.”
“When should we expect the first eighty?” Penn asked.
Bobcat looked over his shoulder to Marcus and raised an eyebrow. Marcus grimaced, “Like you don’t already know the answer.” Marcus looked at the screen and smiled, “In about half an hour or so.”
That caused all four of the Moon-Base-One team listening in to stare at the screen like prospective parents who had just been told they were expecting quintuplets.
Bree whispered into the silence, “I’ll get the coffee.”
New York City, NY - USA
“I’m telling you; they have to h
ave technology that they unquestionably need to provide to the world!” Johann Pecora spoke to the assembled men and women in a sub-assembly for the Advancement of the Human Race. While it was a very auspicious sounding name, it held a group of individuals who focused on the advancement of a select group of companies -- Their members.
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