The Kurtherian Gambit Omnibus 05 - The Fans Version: My Ride is a Bitch - Don't Cross This Line - Never Submit

by Michael Anderle

  “Why do they go to ten if they will break anyone’s wrist at six?” Dai asked.

  “They will not break everyone’s wrist, although I will admit they do cause pain at ten.”

  “You’ve shot them at ten?” Dai asked.

  “Of course. Jean won’t allow you to have the pistols until she checks you out on a pair and confirms you know the dangers of using them. I’ve modified mine to allow you shooting access for the next eight hours.”

  “What happens after eight hours?” Dai asked.

  “It won’t fire and will go terminal if someone tries to take it apart, so I wouldn’t suggest that at all. If you do, make sure you let me know so I can be somewhere else.”

  “Where would you go?”

  “Preferably the Moon,” Akio said, no humor showing on his face.

  QBS ArchAngel

  “Kiel,” Eric nodded to the Yollin who was resting on a couch to the side of the large fighting room.

  “Bitch Eric,” Kiel replied. “Please tell me it is not your turn to fight me?”

  Eric smiled. “No, it isn’t. But, I am curious. Why you ask?”

  “Because I have had my Yollin excrement location beaten and I will admit, I am tired.”

  “One second, Kiel. Computer, note the verbiage translated excrement location and now use ass, please.”

  “UNDERSTOOD.”

  “Well, you did kill someone that people here knew, so they all wanted a piece of your hide.”

  “Yes, I understand that, and I understand that you humans care for your friends at a level we Yollins would not know outside of family, most likely.”

  “Well, to be truthful, I’m sure some of the Wechselbalg just wanted to try you out for size, since you’re a little taller and bigger and carry your own damned armor.”

  “Yes, I’ve had to shed a layer to get rid of the cracks. I couldn’t fight for one solar day while it hardened again. My exoskeleton was very damaged.”

  “Who was the worst?” Eric asked.

  Kiel chittered in laughter. “Are you asking, who was even close to the Queen’s beating? No one. She kept her promise, and I survived, but she made me wish to be dead. I will not harm one of hers without thinking again.”

  “She does have a way of making sure we learn her lessons,” Eric agreed.

  “She is not afraid to get into the warrior’s area and fight, how is that?” Kiel asked.

  “What, I thought your King fought?” Eric asked, surprised.

  “Yes, when he has an armada at his back or a thousand soldiers in front of him. Plus, he only considers a proper fight with someone in his own tier,” Kiel answered.

  “Wonder what level he would find Bethany Anne?” Eric asked, not expecting an answer.

  Kiel chittered again. “He would not ascribe a level to her, and that is a good thing. I am pretty sure he would get his Yollin ass kicked, and he would have to give up the throne. That is why he has so many fighters in front of him.”

  “Why doesn’t someone just bomb him, then?” Eric asked.

  “That is not the Yollin way, it has to be trial by combat. You are only allowed the weapons and armor that you sleep with.”

  “Wait, you guys sleep with weapons?”

  “No, the translation software must have messed up. I meant you are only allowed to go into the fight naked. You can have nothing else with you.”

  “Oh, Bethany Anne would just love that precondition.”

  “She would want to fight without a cover?” Kiel asked.

  “No, sorry, I’m making a joke. I doubt she would like the condition at all. She can be a little prudish sometimes and prefers black over au natural.”

  “It would not bother her to fight without weapons?” Kiel asked.

  “Kiel, Bethany Anne is never without weapons, trust me.”

  —

  “I’m trying to understand this, so bear with me a moment,” Bethany Anne told Marcus. “I heard Scientist Royleen just fine.

  Captain Kael-ven T’chmon chittered, “It is not always easy to accept what our learned say. From what I understand, you humans already have this knowledge, but perhaps not the tools to manipulate it well.”

  “Yes,” Marcus agreed. “Think of it this way, Bethany Anne. There are two types of components, one we understand, which is energy, and one we don’t, which is gravity. You, me, the Yollins, your food, electricity, water, everything is energy at some level. There is much related to mass vs. matter and Einstein’s equation. So, the rock we need to tunnel into is energy. The process we are going to build is going to seek to pull the different energies together into a machine. This machine is going to get most of it right, and some of it wrong. It just means that we won’t have perfect blocks of whatever’s in the machine, but it will be really, really close.”

  “Usually,” Royleen spoke up. “It takes a massive amount of energy to power these machines, but I understand with your Etheric connections, the power is most likely not the problem at this point. So, we can dig into the asteroid and have the materials pulled apart and set up for us. We will be able to sell this back on Earth as the raw materials will be untraceable once they smelt the product down.”

  Bethany Anne tapped her finger on her lips. “We’re wrapping up most of our mass purchases as we are getting pushback from our existing partners anytime the government finds out about our involvement.”

  “Kael-ven,” she turned to the former captain. “I have a question.”

  He said, “Only one?”

  “What, you too?” she asked. “Et tu, Kael-ven, et tu.” She looked up at the ceiling. “I’ve told you I will express to the Yollins that I’m seeking to pass through without a fight. You know I won’t back down from a fight, and so both of us expect I’m going to get one.”

  He chittered his agreement.

  “Fine. I expect to kick their asses, by the way. I know you didn’t expect that in the beginning and I’ve been polite by not asking questions I felt would cause you to give up any Yollin secrets. However, because of work done by Royleen here...”

  “What work did I do for you?” Royleen called out, shocked.

  “Your effort to translate human and Yollin communications were found by my team,” she supplied.

  “But that was secured!” he answered, then looked at his previous captain, alarm in his eyes. “I did not provide support to the humans to get into our computers.”

  Kael-ven waved a hand at the scientist. “It does not matter, humans are devious and smart. Plus, there is a Kurtherian involved, so what is our security against one of them?”

  See, I told you so, TOM said.

  It’s like a get out of jail free card for these guys. Bethany Anne griped. Every time something happens that they could possibly be blamed for, they whip out the Kurtherian card, and everyone's like ‘oh? A Kurtherian was involved? Well, bad luck and all, you couldn’t possibly win against them.’

  We do have a reputation, I’ve tried to get you to believe that.

  Yeah, well having had to live with you for so long, I forget that not everyone is as docile as you.

  Thank you, I think.

  “As I was saying, due to the work that was done, we have our personal Rosetta Stone and are quickly amassing a store of your latest knowledge. What I want to know, is what will it take to create a binding and non-breakable treaty with the Yollin King?”

  This time, both of her Yollin vassals started chittering. Bethany Anne looked over at Marcus who shrugged. “Okay, out with it,” she finally told them, impatience winning when they didn’t stop for over a minute.

  “The only non-breakable treaty with our King is to become a slave system to Yollin, Queen Bethany Anne. Without besting the King in personal combat, there is no other way, or you will be at war with Yollin for a very long time.”

  “Well, that settles it,” Bethany Anne said. “I don’t have the time, so kicking his ass will have to be the plan.”

  Kael-ven’s chittering stopped. “What? You would assume
the reins of the Yollin government as well as your own?”

  “Well, the ultimate authority, sure. But, I’m far too busy to be the governor of the Yollin people.”

  “Well, then who are you going to put in that position?” Kael-ven asked. “I can guarantee that all of those connected to the throne are going to figure out a way to try and be a pain for you, it is all on the honor system.”

  “I know, so isn’t it a good thing I have a vassal that is already bound to me by honor and will want what is best for his race, Governor Kael-ven T’chmon?” she said sweetly, smiling at him.

  This time, the only Yollin chittering was Royleen. Marcus found it amusing that a poleaxed expression on a Yollin, in the right light, looked like a poleaxed expression on a human.

  Tokyo, Japan

  Dai woke up from the phone ringing. He had a splitting headache. He looked over and grabbed his cell phone and looked at the number.

  It was his boss and the time was almost noon.

  He punched the button. “Yes sir! I’m sorry, sir I will be in shortly,” he struggled to get up, his brain pounding in pain.

  His boss’ voice came through the phone. “Never mind that, Special Inspector, consider yourself on rest for forty-eight hours. I don’t want you showing up right now, it is a madhouse with the press around here. All I wanted to say, was good work. Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye, sir,” Dai barely got that out before the line went dead. He leaned back in bed and dropped the phone back on the nightstand.

  Oh God! He had a splitting headache. He turned the other way and found himself staring at a glass of water and two pills, plus a note. He noticed through bleary eyes that there was a porcelain tokkuri and two small sakazuki cups on his little table.

  Oh, it was coming back to him now. He grabbed the analgesics and drank the water. All of it. He was suffering from, he eyed the tokkuri again, way too much sake sometime this morning.

  Akio was correct, it had been a blue or a red pill decision. He might not ever be able to speak about the evening, but he would forever remember that for one night, the fear that came to those in the night from those delivering righteousness was from a partnership.

  And he had been the one who had pointed out those who needed the lessons from a Queen’s Bitch.

  He remembered the red eyes, the fanged teeth and got out of bed, walking over to see if there was any sake left in the tokkuri.

  There was none.

  He had really needed the alcohol after the night they had. He turned and opened the note and smiled. It was Dai’s own personal call me if you need help card, complete with Akio’s signature.

  This was now his most prized possession. He padded over to his bathroom to see if he had even tried to get all of the blood off of himself before crashing last night.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Adjacent Kiel German Naval Base, Germany

  “We have contact,” Terry heard on the team’s channel.

  “Seriously?” Terry bitched aloud to himself then hit the talk button. “Where?”

  “Twelve,” was the reply.

  Terry looked down at the map. They were coming from the south, heading towards the stern of the ship where they were loading. “How many?”

  “Looks like six,” their lookout replied.

  Terry grimaced. Unless they pulled out guns, which were verboten here in the port, this was going to be a physical confrontation. Even so, he had hoped that being adjacent to the base would stop any idiotic attacks and allow them to get out of the port without incident.

  It was past nine in the evening, and the people were working under the sodium lamps, trying to get the ship loaded and underway.

  Robert called in, “Me and the boys are moving to intercept, got anything in backup for this?”

  Terry replied, “I wasn’t expecting to have anyone try to engage us here in Germany. Seems like a stupid place. We don’t even have anything, yet.”

  “That’s probably the point,” Robert said. “Someone doesn’t want you to go in the first place. So, bust up some stuff, run off some of the people and at least slow the project down if they can’t cause enough problems to stop it totally from happening.”

  “All right. Ask the porters to grab something and go into the ship and fail to come back out, like they’re taking a break for a few minutes. Let’s leave them out of this situation. You need me to come down there?”

  “No, you’re paying the bills, boss. You get to stay up there and let us hired hands enjoy ourselves for a few minutes.”

  “Fine, but I want it noted that I offered,” Terry told him.

  “So noted,” Robert replied and dropped the connection.

  Less than a minute later, Melissa came into the room. “I understand we’re being attacked?”

  Terry kept one eye on the monitors showing different parts of the ship and the docks. He kept the two that gave him a good view of the loading area and the inside where the deck hands had started grabbing weapons. “How in the hell did you get that information so quickly?” he asked, not sparing a glance to see she was breathing hard.

  “I was in the inside loading dock checking on some equipment when the first loaders came in with the message from Robert,” she said. “You aren’t going over there, are you?”

  “Huh?” Terry replied, not looking at her. “No. Robert says to stay out of this one since I’m paying for their help. They want the exercise.”

  “Good,” she murmured.

  Terry didn’t hear her comment. “The lucky bastards,” he mumbled.

  She noticed that the toughs had come into the viewscreen he was watching. Her eyes narrowed at Terry, and she turned and left the room.

  Terry was watching the screens and failed to notice when she left.

  —

  “I don’t think you guys have the proper clearance to work in this area,” Robert said. The lead tough was a big man. No hair, broken nose and tattoo on his neck. He had three guys to his left, and two to his right.

  “We don’t need clearance, American.” His voice was rough, like too many cigarettes had been smoked. “Just earning some drinking money, boys, aren’t we?” He looked at his guys, all of them fairly well built. Robert noticed the herky-jerky thinner guy on the right.

  “Thomas?” Robert asked and hand signaled the man he was concerned with.

  “Got him, boss,” Thomas replied and moved a few feet over to give himself a good view in case the guy pulled a knife.

  “Do you guys have a favorite hospital?” Robert asked. “I mean, we aren’t planning on taking you, but I’m sure we can ask dock security if you can go there. If they don’t just dump your broken bodies into the water.”

  “You speak big, little American,” Broken Nose grinned.

  Well shit. Broken nose and missing two teeth.

  “Hell, I’m just waiting for you guys to ask us to dance,” Robert said, looking at the six to five odds, “We haven’t had anyone to test out our new dance moves with since… Well, ISIS right guys?” his team all agreed that was right.

  Broken Nose spat to the side. “I’m not sure why you would be here if you had been fighting over there, but we have some drinking to do, and we can’t do it until we finish our job.”

  “About damned time,” Craig Goulding spoke from Robert’s left. “My dinner’s getting cold, Frenchie.”

  “Awww, fuck!” Robert spat. Craig’s putdown spurred the men to start the fight. Robert had been working on figuring out a way to defuse the situation, not incite the men and Craig just had to add that little bit of fuel to the flame.

  Ducking, Robert had allowed his annoyance to get in the way of paying attention to Broken Nose’s first punch. Robert turned his duck to a back leg sweep, but he didn’t have the momentum to do more than barely bend the guy’s leg. He twisted and rolled away to come back up ready for an attack this time.

  “Almost had you, little boy!” he grinned. “You should tell your friend we like to explain the difference between fighting
us and fighting the French!”

  Robert used both forearms to block a wickedly powerful right hand swing and then used his right elbow to smash his assailant’s nose. Blood spurted out. It caused his opponent to back up a couple of steps, but the pain didn’t substantially slow him down.

  “Oh, fancy moves is it, then?” Broken Nose asked. Robert looked around, and his quick glance told him that his group had it under control. They practiced fast and deadly takedowns, so beating someone soundly without using killing moves took a while longer.