All’s Fair in Blood and War (The Kurtherian Endgame Book 4)

by Michael Anderle

  He jumped and caught the net to climb over. For one, they seem to operate codependently. The Ooken’s psyche was under considerable stress at being cut off from the rest of its kind.

  Bethany Anne chose not to touch the filthy ropes. So our theories about them having some sort of hive mind were on the mark? Her lips pressed together in thought as she floated down. That’s going to be a pain in the ass if even one of them spots us.

  Michael let go of the net a little way from the floor and landed gracefully at Bethany Anne's side, smiling wryly. Then I suggest that we stay out of sight, my love.

  They made their way deeper into the ship, Michael taking the lead while Bethany Anne kept their backs guarded. It was difficult to navigate, since the only way to move around was to work their way along the living walkways, avoiding pockets of Ooken.

  Bethany Anne sighed at the sight of yet another turn in the walkway. It feels like we’ve been walking forever, and everything looks the damn same.

  Michael swerved around a slick puddle in his path. Watch your step, he told Bethany Anne. There’s something slippery-looking here.

  Bethany Anne bent to examine the viscous liquid Michael had avoided. This is the same substance we saw at the colony. I didn’t see the substance they found on Loralei after the initial encounter, but I’d put any money on that being the same stuff as well.

  Michael examined the opalescent smear at their feet. It does look the same. Is there any way you can confirm it?

  Bethany Anne patted herself down. Yeah…no. I left the lab in my other armor.

  TOM interjected. Did you forget I was here? I can analyze it.

  I didn’t forget. Bethany Anne sent TOM mental images of every painful way to die she could think of in the space of half a second. And, no, I’m not doing it, so don’t even entertain the idea.

  TOM sniffed. Sorry I offered.

  Michael cocked his head in confusion. Doing what?

  Bethany Anne took a resealable bag from her utility belt and knelt to scoop a sample. TOM can analyze the substance if I get it into my system. Since there’s no way to inject it at the moment, that leaves only one option. I’m telling you both right fucking now that I am not putting the mystery goop in my mouth.

  Michael shrugged.

  Bethany Anne strode off before either of them could debate it with her. We need to move our asses. The analysis can wait until we get back.

  Michael took one last look at the shining puddle and set off after Bethany Anne. It would help if you knew where you were going, he teased as he came up beside her.

  Bethany Anne waved a finger toward the glow a few levels down. I’m going to guess we’re headed down there.

  Michael paused. Yes, that looks to be the core chamber as I saw it in the Ooken’s mind. However, we are entering an inhabited section of the ship. I can sense other minds ahead.

  Bethany Anne looked around, expecting to see an Ooken. We're still good for the moment. What are you going to do when we get into the core chamber?

  Michael hesitated before answering. I have a way to destabilize the core, but it takes some concentration to bring into being.

  Bethany Anne chose to let the hesitation slide for the time being. How many Ooken can you sense between us and the core?

  Michael skimmed lightly over the surrounding portion of the ship. I’m reading twelve, but it’s not clear since their minds are much the same.

  Bethany Anne's hands caressed the grips of her Jean Dukes Specials. That’s not so many.

  All it takes is one to alert the others, and then we have to work that much harder to complete our objective.

  Bethany Anne debated a second, then sighed and dropped her hands to her sides. So we just kick the door in and you do your…whatever it is you’re going to do.

  Michael smirked. Nothing more complicated than concentrated Etheric energy contained in a super-hardened shell.

  Michael was looking far too pleased with himself for the solution to be so simple. How does that equal a force large enough to destabilize… Oh, unless you… Her eyes narrowed in appreciation. That’s clever, honey. You set the energy to accumulate without any restriction on the draw, then the pressure builds until there’s an explosion of Etheric energy.

  Michael nodded. We just need to make a rapid exit once I release my hold on the ball. It can get somewhat messy when there is organic matter involved.

  Bethany Anne scrutinized her husband carefully. Why does that sound like the voice of experience talking?

  Michael clammed up and focused on his cupped hands.

  Bethany Anne snickered as the reason for Michael’s embarrassment occurred to her. I think I just got a bit closer to the truth about your T-rex hunt. You blew it up? Really?

  Sucked to be the creature.

  14

  QBS Izanami, Bridge

  Alexis, Gabriel, and K’aia were playing video games on the wraparound screens while Addix worked quietly on one of the couches built for her species when Izanami appeared.

  “We have a situation,” the AI announced.

  Addix looked up from her tablet, and her mandibles twitched with curiosity when she saw the dark aura surrounding Izanami’s avatar. “What kind of situation?”

  “A Leath ship has just entered the system. There are a number of Ooken seekers on a course to intercept.”

  Addix shrugged. “The Leath have the best technology apart from Bethany Anne's. They will fight off a few seeker ships easily enough without a need for us to reveal our position.”

  Alexis pulled her neural headband off and dropped it on the couch. “Have you got a video feed, Izanami?”

  Izanami inclined her head a touch. “I do.”

  “Then put it up onscreen, please,” Alexis requested.

  The occupants of the Leath ship were oblivious to the danger they were in until it was too late.

  The seeker ships shot down the defensive missiles and surrounded the Leath ship. They opened fire, targeting its most vulnerable spots.

  The Leath ship was too bulky to shake the seekers off. The seekers dodged the next round of defensive fire, nipping in to cause damage and darting back out again before the Leath could react.

  The twins watched in stunned silence.

  K’aia paced angrily. “We should go help them.”

  Addix shook her head. “The safety of Alexis and Gabriel is my only concern.”

  Alexis didn’t like that one bit. She wheeled around with a fierce expression, pointing at the screen. “So those Leath have to die?”

  Addix shrugged. “If it means that you and your brother do not, then yes.”

  Gabriel's eyes remained on the screen. He spoke up finally. “I don’t think they’re going to die. Look.”

  A Gate opened as Gabriel spoke, and the seekers herded the beleaguered Leath ship toward it.

  Izanami disappeared in a spray of pixels. She came back a moment later as a dark shape shot away from the Izanami and after the hijacked Leath ship.

  “What was that?” Addix inquired.

  “That was Loralei,” Izanami informed them. “While I could not allow the children to be discovered, Loralei was available to follow. My Queen will know how best to deal with the matter when she returns.”

  Gabriel turned to Alexis after Izanami disappeared again. “Do you think Izanami considered how Mom will react to finding out there are a bunch of Leath who need saving?”

  Alexis shook her head, lost for words for once.

  They waited and watched nervously to see if Loralei would make it through the Gate.

  Her small ship sped toward the shimmering circle, disappearing through the event horizon in the barest second before it snapped shut again.

  Location One, Outer Wall

  John crept up behind the guard and thrust his knife into what he hoped to hell was its brain stem.

  Akio was having none of those problems on the other side of the gatehouse. His swords caught the firelight from the mounted torches as he parted the Ooken on
that side from its head.

  Both guards slumped.

  John punched the air with his knife hand. My guard hit the deck first. Point’s mine.

  Akio was about to argue when a keening wail went up inside the walls at the same time a blanket of lights winked on across the colony.

  John froze on the edge of the wall. Motherfucking… Did we make that happen?

  Akio listened intently to the psychic distress in the air. It appears so. Plan B?

  John's sharp vision picked out the Ooken emerging from the lighted buildings. He didn't need Akio's mind reading ability to work out that they were pissed. Plan B, he agreed.

  The Pod arrived as the Ooken made the base of the wall.

  Akio kept the tentacles at bay while John jumped aboard, then John covered from the Pod’s hatch with his JDs dialed to eleven.

  Akio's feet left the wall a fraction of a second before John took out the tentacles that had been coming for him, along with a huge chunk of the wall.

  Akio fixed John with a hard look as he walked past him into the Pod.

  John shrugged as he holstered his pistols. “What did you want me to do, let them drag you down there?”

  Akio’s face didn’t move.

  John rolled his eyes, muttering something about overly dramatic reactions as they made their way to the front of the Pod to get eyes on the Ooken below.

  “You know I can hear you,” Akio told him. He turned his back to John and laid his swords out for cleaning.

  “Oh, I know,” John replied. He grunted to get Akio's attention as the pucks screamed past at high velocity. “Plan B worked.”

  Akio turned to look at the brand new craters exploding into being on the viewscreen. “It would appear so.”

  The Pod shot upward, taking them out of range of the spray of debris from the multiple impacts. Wood, metal, and plastic bloomed upward and outward in a hundred-foot circle around the former colony.

  John grimaced as the dust settled far below. “That wasn’t the outcome we were hoping for. The point was to get information before obliterating the place.”

  Akio didn’t pause in the meticulous cleaning of his swords. “On the contrary, we learned something invaluable to the wider mission. These,” he waved at the destruction below, “are alerted when one of them dies.”

  John's brow furrowed. “The others need to know about this. I'm calling it in to the Admiral.”

  Federation Deep Space Research Outpost, Ooken Ship

  Bethany Anne held a bubble of Etheric energy over the nook they were using as cover, creating a temporary shield to prevent the Ooken from discovering them. Michael.

  I'm going as fast as I can, he replied calmly. It's a bit challenging with the noise pollution.

  Bethany Anne didn’t tell him she’d dialed down her hearing the second TOM had offered. I know. It sounds like the place fax machines come to die.

  Michael let his hands drop. This isn't working. We need to get inside the chamber and work from there.

  Bethany Anne waved a hand toward the chamber. We already risked alerting them.

  The shrill cry went up across the ship again, echoing eerily in the spaces between the walkways. It got almost unbearably louder when the Ooken began swarming from the central trunk onto the living walkways.

  Michael's mouth twitched. How many are there?

  Bethany Anne risked a quick glance around the wall at the walkway they were on. Fuck me.

  Michael frowned. That many?

  Actually, a few more than “fuck me.” They’re all headed for the walkway where we left that Ooken. It must have come around. She scowled in frustration. I should have kicked it a bit fucking harder.

  Michael snorted softly. It would have been much more challenging to mind read a dead Ooken.

  True. Bethany Anne ducked when an Ooken dropped onto the walkway from the level above. Get down, there’s one about to pass us.

  The Ooken swung past, using all the available space to maneuver at a rapid pace along the walkway. Its tentacles crept along every surface as the Ooken felt its way along as well as using its eyes.

  Bethany Anne and Michael held their breath when a stray tentacle curled around into their hiding place and slapped the wall above Michael’s head.

  Bethany Anne opened her hand and tapped the Etheric, ready to make calamari rings of the Ooken's face if it got a single inch closer to her love.

  The tentacle receded, and Bethany Anne and Michael shared a relieved look when the Ooken moved on as quickly as it had appeared.

  She dropped her connection to the Etheric for the moment. We can't stay here much longer.

  Michael nodded his agreement. Let’s move.

  They took a nearby net to the level below and continued working their way down until they reached solid metal. Looks like they have to do things a bit more normally down here, Bethany Anne remarked, slipping into another alcove.

  Michael indicated the Ooken guards patrolling the corridor outside the core chamber. He calculated the distance from their present position to the glowing entrance. Can you take us in through the Etheric?

  Bethany Anne activated the blades on her armor’s gauntlets and moved to stand between Michael and the Ooken. Perhaps naked, but not on a moving ship with all this armor, and not without ADAM to calculate the exit point.

  Michael kept low as he darted across. Yet you brought us to this ship with no problem.

  Bethany Anne lifted a shoulder, looking out to check the position of the guards before she crossed to the next available cover. It's one thing hopping down here from the Izanami, but the odds of us not getting spaced in the process are the kind only someone with a death wish would take.

  Michael slid around to stand beside Bethany Anne with his own blades activated. Then next time we go naked.

  Or we take the lighter armor. Of course, we could always just walk the rest of the way and take the guards out. They're going to work out we're here any minute.

  Michael shrugged. If you insist. I do like this set, despite the drain the effort to Myst it would cause. He frowned, feeling a shift in the Ooken consciousness toward excitement. They’ve figured out where we’re headed. We have minutes at most.

  Bethany Anne darted forward to remove the guards blocking their way. Well, fuck. We’d better get our asses into that chamber, then.

  The first Ooken reached Bethany Anne just in time to meet the upward swing with her left blade. She moved on, denying the second Ooken a chance to react.

  Her momentum brought her around again, her right blade flashing downward to sever the Ooken’s tentacles even as she completed the spin and sliced clean through its skull with the left.

  She turned to Michael to offer him the third, but he was occupied with the glowing sphere he was growing in his cupped hands.

  The third Ooken held back. It blocked the walkway between Bethany Anne and Michael and their goal, shrieking at them unintelligibly.

  Bethany Anne took a step toward the Ooken and held up a finger. “I'm going to ask you to move, but something tells me you wouldn't do it even if you could understand me.”

  The Ooken took a step forward and screeched at them again.

  Bethany Anne glanced at Michael. Do you understand any of what it’s saying?

  Michael lifted an unconcerned shoulder. It's not saying anything much as far as I can tell. He nodded at the walkways above. But then, all of the Ooken up there are also singing from the same songbook. Death to someone—I would hazard a guess and say they mean us—and revenge upon their enemies. Again, I assume we are the intended recipients of this present example of stellar hospitality.

  I would say it’s a safe assumption. Bethany Anne waved the hand she was holding up at the Ooken, slicing it cleanly in two with a thin sheet of Etheric energy. Time to throw that dick-punch while we still have breathing room.

  Michael watched his wife stride through the spreading blood. How very quaint of you. Have you been watching old British sitcoms lately?

&nbs
p; Yes, because I have so much time for tv. Bethany Anne lifted her hands in a shrug, and an energy ball appeared in each. I want to get done and gone.There's no reason to keep it quiet if they already know we're here. Get ready, we're going in.

  Michael drew fast and hard on the Etheric to fill the shell he'd created with expanding energy. We don’t have too much time before it explodes, he warned Bethany Anne.

  This won't take but a minute or two. Bethany Anne threw both energy balls at the core chamber’s doors. She stalked into the chamber with her arms raised as the solid metal doors were flung back.

  Michael stayed a few paces behind her, putting the finishing touches to his creation while he gave Bethany Anne room to conduct her bloody symphony. He found it somewhat difficult to concentrate on his task when her every graceful move drew his gaze.

  Etheric energy flowed from Bethany Anne's hands, eviscerating everything in its path. The Ooken who rushed Bethany Anne were cut down in their tracks. Those remaining froze for a moment.

  Bethany Anne bared her teeth and waved a hand to end their existence. “Too fucking late,” she ground out as the sections of their bodies slid to the floor.

  She joined Michael at the railing around the ship's core. Well?

  Michael held up his hand to show Bethany Anne the pulsating energy within the sphere. It's time.

  Bethany Anne searched with her mind to get a lock on Gabriel and Alexis. She grabbed Michael firmly and nodded. Whenever you're ready.

  Michael prepared to release the energy. On three. One… Two… He flung his hands forward.

  JUMP!

  15

  Federation Deep Space Research Outpost, QBS Izanami

  Addix turned to see what had tripped her senses as Bethany Anne and Michael stumbled out of the Etheric into the transfer area on the bridge. She nodded at them. “Good work.”

  Izanami took them out a safe distance while Bethany Anne and Michael joined Addix and the children at the screens and watched the death throes of the Ooken ship.

  Explosions ripped through the ship, blowing it open. The outward force when the hull burst drove the ship back into the rings, throwing up splashes of displaced rock and dust.