John was just getting started. By the time the first gun’s bullets started erupting out of the muzzle, John had already cleared out half, about twelve, of the men that had been in this second wave.
But, the damned terrorists were flowing in like floodwaters.
“Son of a bitch,” he swore. Next time they told him he couldn’t have any grenades, he was going to tell them to go fuck themselves.
John cranked the power up to eight. Bodies started flying backwards as John placed his shots carefully, trying to use the exploding bodies as a beaver would use trees to create a dam to slow the stream.
Where the fuck were all these assholes coming from, anyway? he wondered. Was there a ten for one special on terrorists in Belgium this week?
He took two more shots when Bethany Anne’s scream of pain hit him.
—
Anna screamed as David raised his gun to shoot Bethany Anne, who was lying on the ground, again. Anna jumped him, beating him on the head and ripping at his hair. Too incoherent to make sense, Anna’s tears flowed down her face as she tried to rip into David’s eyes with her nails.
David stumbled backward under the weight of the woman as he tried to block her. Finally, he put his pistol up under her left breast and pulled the trigger twice.
“NOOOO!” screamed someone behind the bitch as Anna’s struggling stopped, and she collapsed off of David to the floor.
David looked up into the red, flaming eyes of the woman he had just shot in the back, fixed on him and promising him pain beyond imagination.
The Devil herself had risen up! David aimed his SA XD-S right at her face and pulled the trigger.
CLICK.
Oh shit! He pulled the trigger repeatedly.
CLICK CLICK. FUCK! He threw the gun at her. She slapped it out of the air.
David ran out of time when the red-eyed demon with talons for fingers stabbed his chest, and squeezed his heart. “I’m done with you useless limp degenerate whoring sack sniffing forsaken fucks!” David’s body had barely hit the floor when Bethany Anne, her wrist slit, was forcing blood into Anna’s mouth. “DRINK GODDAMMIT!” she screamed at the woman, whose eyes seemed to be losing the will to live.
“I’m not losing another fucking friend to this useless pile of self-serving shit bags, DRINK!” Bethany Anne pulled on the Etheric. “LIVE DAMN YOU!” she screamed and jolted Anna with Etheric energy; Anna’s body spasmed.
“Look out!” the ex-President screamed and Bethany Anne heard a pistol go off behind her.
She bit off a curse and looked to see what was happening. The ex-President was trying to shoot men coming through the window.
He was a better President than he was a marksman.
BETHANY ANNE!
I got this, John, she sent to him. Stay up front if it’s bad.
It’s a fucking tidal wave of terrorists, he replied.
Good, when I finish here, I’ll be fucking them up over there.
What?
Anna breathed in heavily and Bethany Anne looked down, a bloody tear dropping from her face when Anna’s eyes cracked open. Bethany Anne turned. “Okay, Mr. President, your job is to protect this woman.”
He turned to look at Bethany Anne, her eyes glowing red, streaks of pulsating red veins webbing her face. Her voice, dark and dangerous as her eyes focused on the men, spoke loud enough that all in the large ballroom could hear over the noise of gunfire and shouting.
“You want me?” she asked. “You got me!” She walked towards the other side of the room, hands outstretched, and red balls of energy started materializing in her hands. She ducked a couple of bullets aimed in her direction. “The Queen Bitch is in the house, motherfuckers!” She threw two red balls of energy that slammed into the front two terrorists. Both bodies crashed backwards into the wall, the fronts of their bodies burnt, their eyes open, pupils gone and nothing but the whites of their eyes visible.
The terrorists right outside the window started screaming in fear.
—
John, relieved Bethany Anne was okay, amped up his speed when he heard the screams of the men behind him.
John’s smile turned maniacal when he felt the beginning of her fear reach the lobby. John added his own and now, the terrorists knew real terror.
John laughed. “You guys let loose the djinn tonight!” He turned his right hand pistol up to ten, then his left. “Let’s see how well your bodies stop a Dukes on ten, you naked cock ball wanking fuckwits!”
Bodies started exploding… and John’s hands started hurting.
Fuck it, they would heal.
—
ArchAngel said, “Captain Jameson, fourteen locations identified from the SAM missiles fired.”
Captain Paul Jameson was standing in for Gabrielle, who was back on the QBBS Meredith Reynolds. “Do we have any Nightshades down yet?”
“Twelve seconds until deployment for locations one through seven on the screen. Two other Nightshade deployments will be on target within seventeen seconds for the rest.”
Paul chewed on his cheek, thinking about whether to hit the first group ASAP. But that could give the second targets an extra five seconds to react. If he waited until all were all target before release, that was five extra seconds to send up additional SAMs.
SAMs that seemed particularly effective. How they were tracking them, he hadn’t figured out quite yet.
“Wait three seconds then deploy first group, deploy second and third Nightshades as soon as possible.”
“Understood, Captain Jameson.”
—
Anna, struggling against the fear, was holding onto the ex-President’s arm like a lifeline. He had put the gun to the side, doing his best to just stay with Anna, holding on to her and fighting to not run away. He had to yell at more than one person who might have stumbled across Anna already. He had no idea how Bethany Anne’s blood had helped the woman heal, but he saw it done.
He was still in shock about David. His security guy had cold-bloodedly shot Bethany Anne in the back, right in front of him. He hadn’t reacted. Oh, he would have liked to have thought it was because he didn’t see it.
No, he saw it happen, but he had been locked in shock even when Anna had jumped David, stopping him from shooting Bethany Anne again. It was when Bethany Anne reached into David’s chest and crushed his heart that he started moving again.
Then, Bethany Anne crumpled when Anna had looked dead… Hell, probably was dead.
The first few shots in their direction prompted him to pick up David’s pistol, find the extra magazine he had on him and start firing back. All the times he had chatted with the secret service, and them giving him rudimentary instruction had helped.
A few seconds ago, he was sure that they were all going to die. Now, he wasn’t sure any terrorists were going to survive the night.
What had they unleashed?
—
Bethany Anne grabbed the man who was desperately trying to crawl back over the window and pulled him back, screaming. Her punch caved in the side of his head. She jumped up to the windowsill and then off the sill to land ten feet below on the grass.
She bent down and picked up a Kalashnikov and started cracking off shots at those running from her. Walking forward, she fired until she ran out of bullets. She bent down and grabbed a fresh magazine and continued firing. She heard John laughing from behind her and to her right. She dropped the rifle and ran that way.
—
Ayaan was kneeling down, trying to open the latest box when they were hit. The four others up on the roof of the building were celebrating when the whistling started. Ayaan looked up, seeking to identify the noise was when Ahmed beside him exploded into red mist.
Now, the men started calling out to the holy one, but their cries couldn’t be heard.
The three others exploded one by one, the whistling loud enough to hurt Ayaan’s ears as he lay flat on the roof, praying to the Prophet for his life.
The noise left as quickly as it arri
ved and Ayaan looked around at the gore and body parts strewn about the rooftop. He crawled to the side of the building, leaned his head over the side and threw up.
—
John could feel Bethany Anne’s presence as she came up from his left. He had precious few targets. Well, live targets.
There were some who were wounded, and perhaps they might be saved. But all John cared was they were out of commission and not a threat.
It was up to others whether they lived or not.
—
The five Black Eagles, the missiles after them spent, arrived too late to get involved in the firefight. Black Eagle One landed in the courtyard, trying to find a space without too many body parts.
Rishaan jumped out of the Black Eagle and palmed it closed. It rose up a hundred feet in the air. It was the easiest way to keep nosy people from trying to get into it, yet keep it almost immediately available for use.
He walked over to the door, meeting John coming from the other direction.
John holstered his left pistol to shake hands with the pilot. “Rishaan, good to see you. What happened?”
“SAMs, John,” he told the Queen’s Bitch. “I don’t know where they got the technology, but they were able to track us for a little while. We stayed close enough to them so they didn’t return.”
“I was wondering why you didn’t just outrun them,” John observed.
“ArchAngel wasn’t sure if they had logic to come back and hit you here, so we stayed out there as bait until their engines spent their fuel.”
“Away from land?”
Rishaan nodded. “Yeah, if they hit a boat, well we tried our best to minimize the casualties.”
John looked around the courtyard. “I’m sure we would get the blame for the deaths, instead of these poor, misunderstood bastards.”
Rishaan looked around at the carnage. “Shaytan’s dogs, all of them.”
John turned to the hotel to check on Bethany Anne and Anna.
This night could only get worse, not better.
“Rishaan,” he called out.
“Yes?”
“Get back in your ship and stay close. I might need to call down a few attitude adjustments.” John said as he walked into the hotel. He was covered in blood and guts and needed a shower, bad.
“My luck, someone got this shit on video,” he said as his foot crunched something he didn’t want to think about under his shoe.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
QBBS Meredith Reynolds
Reynolds, The Meredith Reynolds Defensive E.I.’s male voice came over the speakers, “General we have unexpected incoming.”
Lance looked up from his desk in main defense operations. To date, it had been a very sophisticated office for Lance, Dan, Kevin and a few others to use. They expected to be busy once they went across the line through the annex gate, but not here in their own solar system. He looked over at Dan who shrugged and got up from his desk to join Lance.
“What do we have, Reynolds?” Lance asked.
“Sporadic and faint positive hits one hundred twelve kilometers off area 312, outside the docks, sir.” A hologram appeared, showing the QBBS Meredith Reynolds with the docks highlighted in orange, and a faint blue light flickering off to the side.
“Velocity?” Dan asked.
“Matching with us at the moment,” Reynolds answered. “It was slowly approaching until three minutes ago.”
“Is that why the ten and five thousand kilometer warnings didn’t go off?” Dan asked.
“Yes, at that point, the speed and radar signature attributed a minimal threat assessment.” the E.I. replied.
“Huh, something for the after-action report,” Lance commented. “Reynolds, backtrack likely origination point.”
“Five days ago, Earth orbit.”
“And there is another item for the AAR,” Dan said. He looked over at Lance. “Country or our unfriendly UFO group?”
“I’m going with unfriendly UFO Group for five hundred,” Lance answered as he rubbed his chin. “But, is this a kamikaze, an attack, or spying?”
“At the rate we’re heading towards the gate, everyone on Earth must know we’re going to meet up at the annex gate and probably leave within the month, right?” Dan said aloud, but didn’t expect to get an answer.
ADAM, however, did come over the speakers. “Dan, the generally held consensus is that the Etheric Empire will stay at the annex gate for an unspecified amount of time.”
“You know, ADAM, you’re better than the morning paper,” Lance told him.
“Thank you, General.”
“So, why is he staying out there?” Dan asked. “You think we should send out a greeting party?”
“Well,” Lance started before ADAM interrupted.
“ATTACK! Bethany Anne is UNDER ATTACK at the event in Belgium.”
“Well, shit!” Lance spat out. “There’s our answer.”
“Reynolds!”
“Sir?”
“Put up the gravitic shield, set it to four kilometers focused around the docks.”
“Meredith!”
“General?” the feminine voice replied.
“Issue the emergency warnings. Shut down the mag-trains and lower the blast doors between docks and In-World.”
“Yes sir,” she replied and cut her connection.
“Well, their ship just lit up,” Dan said as he pointed to the hologram. “Here it comes.”
“Reynolds, calculate the lag between when the attack on Bethany Anne started and when that ship reacted,” Lance said to the E.I.
“Could be on a pre-planned time schedule.” Dan advised.
Lance agreed, “Yeah, but I’d still like to know.” The two men watched as the dot rapidly approached. “I wonder what the hell they think they’re going to accomplish?”
MJ-12 Ship XJ 03
Antony Rikert, main pilot on this trip for Majestic 12, spoke over the internal comm system, “Hey, hope our packages are ready down there. We are less than forty-five seconds from ejection.”
Tyler came back, “We’re good here, one to go. How we looking up there?”
Antony looked over his dash. “So far, nothing seems to be coming after us, so that’s a good thing.”
“That fucker is huge, Tony,” Tyler shot back. “They might think we’re going to smash on the side or something.”
“Possibly. But check this out. For some insane reason, they have a large glass viewing area where a bunch of docks are. I’m thinking we shoot our packages over there. They can sacrifice a couple of guys taking out the glass instead of trying against the massive metal doors and once the air has escaped, go in that way with the additional sacrificial warriors.”
“I’ll tell them the plan down here,” Tyler replied.
“Works for me, Antony out.”
—
John Abdullah Khizen nodded his head to the man locking his helmet on. He turned with care in his spacesuit, shuffled across the deck, and with help, lay down in the ejection module. They looked like metal caskets to him.
Perhaps that was appropriate.
The Kurtherian Gambit Omnibus 05 - The Fans Version: My Ride is a Bitch - Don't Cross This Line - Never Submit Page 45