“DIE YOU BASTARD!”
TOM, Thales of Miletus, Kurtherian pilot lost on an alien world broke through his own conditioning and reached deep into the alien’s brain and found the link keeping him alive here in the physical world.
This is my friend, TOM whispered telepathically. No one touches her mind without permission!
Ztopik’s eyes glazed over, dead, as his brain seized, then cratered from TOM’s mental attack.
Bethany Anne turned around and viewed the carnage. She could see at least seventeen of her people on the ground.
Putting her helmet back on, she walked towards the middle of the large cave. The carcass of the Zhool’tai’ch, looking like hamburger, lay some twenty yards to her left.
They had some cleanup to do and she opened her palms, red balls starting to glow in her hands.
Let’s do this, TOM said, I got your back!
I never doubted it, TOM.
New York City, NY, USA
“So, we are in agreement?” the other three ambassadors nodded.
“The President is willing to make the call as soon as we have signatures,” the United States Ambassador told Zhou.
Ambassador Zhou opened his briefcase and pulled out the document and placed it on the table.
The document had many countries already pledged by their signatures. The U.S. Ambassador’s eyes widened in surprise. He picked up the document and read through the who’s who of major and minor countries represented.
He failed to see Japan, Australia or Germany on the document, but there was sufficient space for them to be added later.
He reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a pen. With a flourish, he signed the document on one of the top lines and put the pen back in his jacket. “Sorry,” he pulled it back out and held it out to Ambassador Emeka. “Do you gentleman need to sign as well?”
The other two ambassadors took their turns and signed the document before the U.S. Ambassador accepted the pen back and he moved it to the other coat pocket.
That pen was going to be worth money one day.
Unfortunately, he wouldn’t realize that it would be infamous, known as the Pen of Destruction. It was true, some would say, the pen did accomplish what the sword never could.
“There is no time like the present to make the world’s will known,” Zhou said to the US Ambassador. “Here is the location of one of their ships presently over Japan.”
“We can’t fire a sub nuke over Japan,” the Ambassador stated.
“True, but if they move east or west, we have them,” Zhou said and the U.S. Ambassador nodded and reached out for the information the Chinese Ambassador provided.
Japan, Earth
Captain Natalia Jakowski hugged Yuko and shook Akio’s hand. “See you when we see you,” she said and walked back into the G’laxix Sphaea. Her crewman closed up. She walked up to the front of the ship and sat in the captain’s chair.
It was her week to rotate into this ship and she loved it.
Within a minute, the sleek craft crested above the tree line and started to break towards the west, heading towards Europe to drop off a couple of stashes.
They were barely over the East China Sea when the alarms started squealing.
“We have inbound SLBM, Trident II D-5 on intercept,” The G’laxix Sphaea’s E.I. said.
“Implement defensive Puck field, seek and destroy!” Captain Jakowski spat out. Admiral Thomas had them run drills all the time and being nuked was but one of them.
The holographic tank sprang into view in front of Natalia’s seat. She pulled her hands apart and it zoomed out, showing the location of the submarine-launched ballistic missile.
“Defensive Puck field in place. Calculating intercept of incoming missile at seventeen point four nautical miles.”
Seconds later, G’laxix Sphaea responded again, “Missile has been destroyed by kinetic collision. No nuclear explosion, chance of radioactive residue calculated as likely.”
“Fuck those assholes!” Natalia bit off the rest of her comment. “G’laxix Sphaea cloak us.”
—
“SIR!” the radar operator on the US Ohio class submarine called. “We’ve lost the target.”
The captain’s sharp nod accepted the result.
He had followed his orders, may God have mercy on the souls who made that decision.
—
Bethany Anne and her team had exited the base after searching through it multiple times. What they could grab, they did.
The rest? Well, they planted devices to implode the caves.
>> Bethany Anne.<<
Yes ADAM.
>>The G’laxix Sphaea has been fired on by a nuclear missile over the East China Sea.<<
WHAT! Those near Bethany Anne watched as her eyes started glowing. They quickly looked around and then checked their own tablets for news.
>>The ship and all crew are well, but Captain Jakowski is asking if she should continue the operation or leave?<<
Tell her we can do another run as necessary, leave Earth. Tell my commanders I want a meeting ASAP.
Her eyes never dimmed during the whole trip to the QBS ArchAngel.
CHAPTER FIFTY
QBBS Meredith Reynolds
The attractive South American reporter looked into her compact mirror and checked her makeup and hair. Putting the compact away, she smiled and nodded to her camerawoman.
“Ready, Giannini?” Sia asked her friend, who nodded to her. Sia moved the camera a little to the right, and really looked at her friend. “We don’t have to do this, if you want to stay on Earth.” She nodded behind her. “The last ship going to Earth leaves in three days.”
Giannini shook her head. “No Sia. I’ve seen enough these last three years. I don’t know what the Earth’s path is, but my path…”
“Our path,” Sia interrupted.
“Our path, my heart, is to go to the stars and report what we find out there,” Giannini smiled. “I used to think that I needed to rise up in the eyes of my bosses.”
“And now?” Sia asked.
“Now, I need to rise up in my own eyes, to be what all reporters need to be,” Giannini answered, straightened her shoulders and looked ready to start her commentary.
“Oh,” Sia asked, adjusting the camera so she could get Giannini’s profile and the large park inside the Meredith Reynolds in the background. “What’s that?”
“Those that tell the truth, report on our government and support the people,” Giannini answered.
“Wow, big pants to wear,” Sia’s muffled voice replied. “What do you think Bethany Anne is going to say about you reporting on the government?”
Giannini smiled. “Who do you think gave me the pants to put on?”
Sia smiled. “You’re on in three… two… one…”
“Hello,” Giannini spoke to the camera. “My name is Giannini Oviedo and I’m coming to you from the Mark Billingsly Memorial Park inside the QBBS Meredith Reynolds. This is our last report before the Etheric Empire’s ships cross the line separating this solar system, and the Yollins’…”
—
The President looked down at his desk at the piece of paper laying on it. A knife, with an imprint of a vampire’s skull on the hilt, buried deeply into his desk pinned it in place. Neither had been there just three minutes ago, when he stepped out to use the restroom.
He reached forward and grabbed the knife, having to lever it back and forth before he yanked it out.
He opened the letter, his lips compressed as he read the words.
“There are two ways I will finish this war you started. You can try again and I will rain fire from Heaven on your places of power, completely obliterating your ability to wage war, or you can Leave Us The Fuck Alone. If you choose option one, I will start at the top, just as easily as I put this knife in your desk.
And, as I told the Chinese, there will be nothing left of your military except machines blackened by fire and people praying for the souls of your
dead. You DO remember how that ended, don’t you?
Queen Bethany Anne, Etheric Empire
The Queen Bitch.”
Dulce, New Mexico, USA
Paula drove the last twelve miles in the Jeep she bought off of Craigslist. These damned vehicles cost an arm and a leg, even for something fifteen years old.
She had shopped at the Goodwill back in Phoenix before purchasing the Jeep and driving out to Dulce. With no communication from Patrick, she had a good idea what must have happened to the base while she was making her way back from Europe.
She parked the car at an old gas station a mile from the front entrance to the base. Once communications had stopped, Paula had started working hard to check her back trail, making blind moves, randomly choosing a different city to fly to and wait a couple of days before flying again.
Eventually arriving back in New Mexico.
She opened the Jeep’s door and got out, reaching back for her backpack to make sure she looked like she was just an average backpacker this afternoon.
Placing the aviator sunglasses on her face and the olive green baseball cap on her head, she pulled her hair out through the hole in the back and started walking the trail leading out from behind the building into the trees.
An hour later, she stepped out from behind the tree she had used to study the building a couple of hundred yards away.
No one moved, and nothing looked like it had been disturbed in days.
QBBS Meredith Reynolds
>>Bethany Anne, there is a female watching the Majestic 12 base.<<
Bethany Anne stopped looking at the readiness reports and reached over to the fruit bowl to grab an apple. Cleaning it off, she said, “Show me.”
A video came up on the wall in her ready room and she bit into the fruit. She pointed with the hand that had the apple at the screen. “Hey, that looks like the chick in the MJ-12 images.”
>>There is a match on her jawline and mouth.<<
“Call John and make sure he gets to watch this,” she said and took another bite of the apple, her crunching filled the silence in the room.
Two minutes later, there was a knock on her door.
“Come in,” she called and turned to toss the apple core into the trash, the noise of the apple landing in sync with the door opening.
“Brought Jean with me,” John said and the two of them walked in, stepping towards Bethany Anne and looking at the wall to see what she was watching.
“THAT BITCH!” Jean shouted, pointing at the woman on the screen. “That’s the fucking twatknuckle that was stalking our men!” She snorted in disgust.
“ADAM, are you recording this?” Bethany Anne asked.
“Yes,” he responded.
“Good,” Jean said and pulled out a chair beside Bethany Anne. “What are we about to do to the geriatric cuntquat?” she asked, sitting down.
“Not so much us doing something to her as her former friends,” Bethany Anne said and then reached into the bowl of fruit a second time. “I need some popcorn.”
“Heard that!” Gabrielle’s voice came from the hallway outside. “We got time?”
“Yeah,” Bethany Anne called back. “Looks like she’s studying the building to see if there’s a trap.”
“Well,” Gabrielle said as she came in, carrying two bags of popcorn, a Coke and three other beverages. “There is one, right?”
“Yup,” Bethany Anne said. “Lots of alien explosives all around the area.”
Five minutes later, the room was crowded with all the Bitches, Peter, Nathan and Ecaterina and little Christina Bethany Anne coloring on the table with her back to the video. The little girl, now almost four, reached towards the fruit, her finger growing a claw and stabbing an orange. She pulled it off her claw and her finger returned to her normal human looking finger again. She put it to the side and picked up the green crayon and started filling in the trees.
Frank and Barb arrived, with Lance and Patricia right behind them. Stephen and Jennifer were right behind them.
Jennifer asked what they were watching and Barb said this was the bitch that had been stalking the guys during the camera shoot and who they had figured out was behind the ambush in Europe. “Oh,” Jennifer responded. “So, we going to kill her?”
“Oh, hell yeah,” Cheryl Lynn said from in front of Scott. She was leaning back against her man, his arms around her. “Can’t wait to see the pretty explosion.”
“Hey, move over!” Bobcat called out to the general laughter as he, William and Marcus arrived. Those in the middle picked up chairs and handed them to those closer to the door to store out in the hallway.
“ADAM, duplicate this image on the ceiling as well as the other walls,” Bethany Anne said. “Except the one in front of Christina, don’t want anyone not able to see the ending to the movie.”
Fifteen minutes later, the general conversation in the room quieted down to where the only noise was little Christina’s coloring.
The woman started walking towards the building. She reached it, and adjusted her backpack, knocking on the door and calling out. She stood there for a minute before trying the open door.
The view in the video went higher up in the air, at least three hundred feet and another two hundred north.
Everyone in the room cheered and shouted with joy as the building exploded, raining shrapnel down for almost forty-five seconds.
“Got you, bitch,” Bethany Anne said.
“Now that,” Lance said smugly, “is good television!”
Barb said, with exasperation, “Frank, sweetheart, why are you writing this down?”
“It ends my book,” his voice clearly heard by all in the room as he told his wife, “It’s perfect!”
QBS ArchAngel
Bethany Anne looked at the Yollin who was staring back at her, “Are you sure about this, Kael-ven? There isn’t an option for you to reverse this decision and I don’t want you to regret making it.”
“There is no regretting my choice, Queen Bethany Anne,” he said. “I have spoken to my people and we are in agreement.”
“Even scientist Royleen?” she asked, a smile teasing her lips.
“Yes, even the ever hardheaded Royleen sees the truth, now.”
Bethany Anne pursed her lips. “You’ll have to allow me access to your thoughts. If it were only me, I would be okay, but for me to accept this offer, I will have to confirm for the sake of my people.”
Captain Kael-ven T’chmon nodded and lowered his head. Bethany Anne placed her hands on both sides of it. While not strictly required for her to read his thoughts, it helped her with the alien minds.
Tell me when you have the thoughts, TOM.
I’m in. Hold on a moment. TOM replied.
Seconds later, he came back. He is being forthright, Bethany Anne.
She pulled her hands off of the Yollin. “Stand up, Captain Kael-ven T’chmon.” She chewed the inside of her cheek. “You are an anomaly. I would like to know, what has changed your peoples’ minds?”
His large mandibles opened wide a moment before closing. “With us requesting your help, this is not an attempt of subjugation,” he said.
“No?” she asked.
“No,” he told her. “It is a Revolution.”
FINIS
Join us for more of
The Kurtherian Gambit
coming January 2017
Right after…
(turn page for the the next book).
MICHAEL RETURNS TO A WORLD CHANGED…
BUT HONOR DEMANDS HE FULFILL HIS PROMISE
12.25.2016
Author Notes
THIS IS IT!
ONE YEAR OLD A FEW DAYS AGO.
Written November 11, 2016
As always, can I say with a HUGE amount of appreciation how much it means to me that you not only read this book, but you are reading these notes as well.
Just one year and nine days ago, I released the first book of The Kurtherian Gambit series titled Death Becomes Her. I
n that time, this series has taken off to become a sleeper hit. I’m probably one of the most successful authors no one has heard about because of FANS who love not just the first book, but ALL of the books.
The Kurtherian Gambit Omnibus 05 - The Fans Version: My Ride is a Bitch - Don't Cross This Line - Never Submit Page 54