“Third greatest adventure module of all time,” Edward responded, in a clipped fashion, his breathing shallow.
Colin looked back at his friend. Dammit, Edward was losing it.
It took Colin a minute to finally get Edward walking back to the UFOs on his own. They got to within thirty feet of Jesse when Colin realized Jesse was just sitting there, rocking back and forth.
“You got this, Edward?” Colin asked his friend, patting him on the back and when his friend nodded, he let go and jogged back to Jesse. “What the hell, Jesse?”
“It’s gone,” Jesse answered, rocking back and forth, arms wrapped around his knees.
“What’s gone?” Colin looked around, hoping the voices weren’t attacking them.
“The camera, it’s gone,” he answered.
Colin squeezed his eyes shut, wanting to yell his frustration. “No way, we have got to find the—FUCK ME!” he shouted, and jumped back away from Jesse, pointing past his friend. “Red eyes, Red EYES!” Colin took another couple of steps back, running into Edward. Jesse didn’t look, he just crawled towards his friends, turning around when he couldn’t go any further.
“Hello, children,” a deep voice said from the direction they were facing. They couldn’t see the speaker; their lights flashed across the stalagmites, casting shadows throughout the large cave.
Their blood ran cold when a whispering voice spoke from behind them, “Tasty, tasty childrennsssss.”
“Oh God,” Edward wailed, his voice as high as a child’s.
That’s when a hand grabbed his shoulder.
French Airspace, Near the West Coast of France.
The four French Rafale delta wing fighters came screaming along the shoreline, heading towards Le Havre on the north coast. Le Havre is located northwest of Paris. It was a large commercial container ship dock for transporting materials overseas and for receiving products for shipping inland.
As the jets headed north, cutting across Rennes, six black shapes surrounded them.
Captain Charles Ardant in the lead aircraft looked over, then looked again when he realized he wasn’t looking at one of his own men off his wing.
“What are you doing?” he spat. Everyone in the French Air Force knew these aircraft.
“Warning you,” came the reply, in French.
“We are in French airspace!” he argued. “You, TQB, are not allowed in French airspace without permission!”
The voice chuckled and said, “You had control over your airspace as long as we wanted you to. That you felt you managed it was allowed, not earned. We are loading our last containers from Le Havre. If you so much as come within firing range, you will be immediately shot down.”
Charles was forming a reply when the TQB Black Eagle and his five wingmen shot off and disappeared into the sky ahead of them.
Leaving the four Rafale fighters, each cruising at 750 knots, behind in mere moments.
“Base,” Captain Charles Ardant said, “we have a problem.”
Washington D.C., USA
“I see,” a voice broke into the conversations inside the DUCC. Multiple cell phone lights whipped around to find a female figure in dark red armor, face protected behind a mask, in the corner staring at them. No one could see the face behind the mask, but none doubted who it was.
Two men pulled their guns, aiming at the woman. She casually waved a hand, and both men dropped their pistols, the metal burning hot. “I came here to talk you toadstools, not worry about you shooting some of your own people.” One of the guys reached down for his gun, then jumped back when it fired. The bullet embedded itself in a metal cabinet.
The armored figured looked over at the agent that had tried for the gun. “Keep that up,” she said, “and I’ll rip your spine out your ass.”
The agent looked at his gun, looked up at the figure, looked down at the weapon, and when he flipped his eyes up to her again, she was playing with a ball of red energy.
He straightened up.
She pushed the ball of energy, and it floated towards the middle of the room. It expanded to about eight inches, fading from red to pink to white.
The room was illuminated for the first time in a while.
“Anyone else want to play General Custer?” she asked the room. “Because that was your only warning. Keep this shit up, and the DUCC will be an inferno. I’ve had enough of your bullshit.”
“We are your country, Ms. Reynolds!” the President protested, his anger apparent.
She walked over to him and grabbed his head, getting down in front of his face. Two more agents tried to jump in. She kicked both away. One hit the third agent coming in, both of them going down, the other hit the wall before he bounced off and hit the floor.
“When you shot a nuclear warhead at my ship,” she hissed, “you became the enemy, you irredeemable knob wanking gag sacking rambling spunk experiment.”
The President’s hand grabbed her arm, trying to remove it, to stop the pain as she continued to squeeze. She stood up, leaving her hand on his head. She looked to her left and shot out a small bolt of blue at the last agent who was trying to bring up his pistol. The blue ball hit his arm, causing it to seize. He grabbed it with his other arm, crying out in pain, dropping down to one knee.
She said, “Keep it up Charlie, and the President’s head goes pop.”
She looked around the room. “There isn’t a thing in this room that’s getting through Jean Dukes’ latest version of my armor. When I leave our very one-sided conversation, maybe you should look up Jean Dukes in the Navy’s records. Your loss, my gain. Perhaps you should have treated her better, and not covered up what happened.”
Bethany Anne let go of the President’s head, allowing him to massage it. She held her hand out a foot in front of his face. “Here, you move too much, and this will blow your head apart.” A red ball appeared and grew to about three inches in diameter. She pointed at it. “I wouldn’t touch that, but feel free to blow your hand off if you don’t believe me.”
She left it floating in front of him as she stepped back. “You asswipes tried to kill my people. You threw a nuclear bomb at them, in cahoots with the Chinese. Well done! I’ve managed to get two superpowers who don’t trust each other enough to piss on one another if they were on fire, to toss nuclear weapons at my people.”
No one doubted this lady was still pissed.
She paced down the area between the long table and the wall, heads following her. “If your military hasn’t figured this out, you might have killed millions of Chinese in that attack.”
“Bullshit,” a grey-haired man in a dark blue Washington power suit called out at the end of the table.
She shrugged. “I don’t really care what you believe, as my people and I won’t be here to worry about the fallout, and that is the hint right there, tweedle-dickhead.” She walked around the table, the armor moving with her, not solid like they would have guessed. “You asswipes have possibly started the end of the same damned world we’re trying to save.”
She put up a hand to quiet the same guy. “Don’t give me the whole bullshit about the technology, Moses,” she said. “It’s mine, and I said no to sharing it. Anything else is stealing. You think stealing is okay? Well, not to the one who would be stolen from and as you can see, I don’t need a cop to defend what is mine. That I didn’t crush your useless asses was probably a mistake, I can see that now. But where I come from, turning the other cheek was a good idea when it helped my people cope with going into the next system, not having killed a bunch of fellow humans before we left.”
“Na ah ah!” She turned and waved a finger at the President. “You won’t be blaming my ass for this, and I’m not sticking around. I’ve got a fucking calendar date with destiny already. You created this mess, you FIX it! You should have time to figure out a solution, that’s all I can give you. I’ve got bigger problems, ones you wouldn’t believe if I told you.”
She walked back towards the President, the red ball casting a ruddy
glow on his face. The agent she had kicked into the wall was waking up, the others were trying to figure out something to do, but coming up with nothing.
Bethany Anne took three steps back towards the metal door and turned back to face the room. She held out her hand, and the red globe floated back to her. She flicked her fingers, and the globe disappeared. She put her hands on her hips, the armored mask retreated, and a beautiful woman, black hair tied behind her head, stood looking over them.
She looked at everyone there, her eyes now piercing their souls. “You aren’t alive because of superior firepower, but superior ethics and mercy. Mine. I’m leaving this world, but know this, you pencil-dicked Neanderthals and cloven-footed bitches, you never had a fucking chance.”
Bethany Anne’s eyes started glowing red, the same red as the globe she had just winked out of existence. “My name, as I understand my father informed you, was Bethany Anne Reynolds.”
Her face took on another demeanor, one that caused more than a few of the people in the room to blanch. “I’ve been called Queen of the UnknownWorld, Queen of the Etheric Empire…”
She pushed out waves of fear, freezing everyone in the room, their spasms a reaction to the chemicals their bodies were flooding into their systems.
“But I am now, and I will ALWAYS be the Queen Bitch. You ever, and I mean EVER, attack me or mine again?”
She leaned forward, eyes crackling with energy. “I will fucking flatten your country, you understand me?” She looked up and down the table, making sure she had everyone’s attention.
This time, even the President nodded his understanding.
The fear stopped, people gasped for air, some not looking at the fearsome woman and so didn’t see when she disappeared.
Her light vanished, but then the electricity was returned to the room, and they heard the locks to the doors click open.
Computers came back online.
“Don’t,” the President gasped out. “Don’t chase her.” He looked around for his military liaison. “Tell the military to leave them the fuck alone, right goddamn now!”
The President turned and looked where she had just been standing. “And tell our partners we drop any agreements that we will take up arms against TQB.”
Even idiots, it seemed, understood threats when that threat could crush their heads just by squeezing their fingers.
New York City, New York
Ecaterina noticed Nathan’s face as he was about to take another bite of his pizza. He blanched. “What is it?” Ecaterina looked around, trying to see if anyone was about to attack them.
He shook his head. “Not around us, I just got notified that ADAM used our Pod for Bethany Anne.”
This time, it was Ecaterina who blanched. “Does she know where we are?”
“I’m sure she always knows where we are if she wants to,” he said. “We just take for granted that she won’t ask.” Nathan pushed the last of his pizza away, having lost his appetite.
Ecaterina reached over and grabbed his last partially eaten slice. “I’m telling you if she ever found out she wouldn’t do the horrible things you think.”
“Huh, you obviously still believe vampires can be nice,” he said and pointed to his chest. “I, on the other hand, have been around them for decades and believe they can always have a bad hair day.”
Nathan leaned forward. “And when a vampire has a bad hair day?” He raised an eyebrow. “Lots of people have a bad hair day!”
Ecaterina rolled her eyes. “You are melodramatic!” she complained, then finished off his pizza. “Why don’t you ask ADAM for another Pod?”
“I’m telling you, she won’t find this nearly as funny as you think,” Nathan told her, then subvocalized his request for a connection to ADAM. “What kind of time are we looking at for pickup and where?” Nathan leaned his head down into his hand, covering his eyes. “Is it over?”
“Is what over?” Ecaterina asked.
“Right, is there anything we can do?” Nathan removed his hand from his face and nodded to his mate. “No, we can join, but we don’t have anything like that. Okay, uh huh, yeah, we will.” Nathan made the symbol they needed to be going.
Ecaterina picked up their trash and tossed it away. She turned around and caught a news report and stood there, watching.
Nathan, his eyes showing that he was concentrating on a conversation using the bone induction speaker in his head came up and grabbed Ecaterina’s hand. He was going to walk away when she pulled him, hard. He turned in confusion, and she pointed up to the TV.
It was Bethany Anne and John, in armor, on top of the Empire State Building. He watched in amazement as they got into a Pod and took off, turning and racing into the distance. The video, as near as he could tell, had been shot with a phone camera. He tugged on Ecaterina’s hand, and they moved towards the door.
They stepped out of Joe’s, and he took a right. Nathan spoke softly, “Yeah, we’ll go there. Meet the pickup on the top, later.”
“What is it?” Ecaterina asked.
“Seems we missed the fun, because Bethany Anne, Tabitha, and John took care of it. But, there was an attempt to capture TQB personnel not that far from here. ADAM grabbed our Pod earlier to move Bethany Anne and John from the top of the… well, you saw the video.”
The couple took a right at the next corner. Ecaterina asked Nathan, “Why did we miss the fun?”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
Ted’s Apartment Building, New York City, NY
Tabitha looked at the two sleeping bodies and took a deep breath. She reached into the Pod and grabbed the woman. John reached in after she stepped out and unhooked the man. Together, they carried them off the roof of Ted’s apartment building and went down to the top floor.
They had seen the police tape below and hoped they didn’t have any issues.
John went first. There was yellow and black police tape across Ted’s door. John ignored it. He twisted the doorknob and pushed, easily breaking the lock. He turned around, allowing his back to separate the tape instead of Ted. He walked over to the couch and put him down. When he turned around, Tabitha was already carrying Monica into the bedroom.
John walked out to make sure no one was rushing up the stairs after them.
Tabitha passed by John and maneuvered Monica through the doorway without bouncing her head against the doorframe. Not that she hadn’t wanted to, at least one time.
No, that wasn’t fair. She didn’t want Ted, and Ted couldn’t handle her, that’s for sure. Maybe, just maybe, this couple could make a go of it.
There wasn’t an explanation Tabitha could make up that might allow them to give Ted some time to figure out what to do next, so she did the next best thing.
Walking out of the bedroom, Tabitha reached inside her coat and snagged seven Etheric Empire coins. It was, in this denomination, about fourteen ounces of gold. Maybe, if he was lucky, fifteen thousand dollars if he melted it down. She put them down on his desk, beside his computer keyboard.
It wasn’t much, but seven coins and her good wishes were all she could give the guy. She walked out, closing the door behind her. She tapped John on the back of his armor as she turned to go back up the stairway to the roof.
The black armored giant turned and followed the Queen’s Ranger up to the roof.
Soon, they were in the Pod, leaving Earth for the last time.
G’laxix Sphaea
“Captain Jakowski, we have orders from the Queen. She says ‘It’s time.’” EI Sphaea announced.
“That’s it, folks,” Natalia said as they watched over the last Pods leaving Le Havre and racing up into the night. She smiled. “Let’s have some fun on our way out of here.”
Down below, there was a long line of police cars, lights flashing as they had arrived at the port hours earlier, but when the Black Eagles showed up, the Police officers had halted their rush into the port.
Especially when three of the one pound pucks hit the ground, sending up geysers of dirt near
them.
Now, the cops were on the outskirts, but it had been a tense response. Well, at least on their side. A few hotheads had started heading towards the port again when some of the first containers had risen into the air, two of the police cars were flattened, and none of the cops knew how it was done.
Captain Jakowski told the EI, “Take us down, I want us just fifty feet off the ground. Put us over the Security gate and then uncover, Sphaea.”
Le Havre Port, France
French cameraman Michelle Jordan was busy getting shots of the containers leaving, the TQB Black Eagles and the long, very long, line of police cars, their lights flashing in the distance. He turned to get a few more shots of the last containers leaving. He pulled the view out, to get a wide shot of the whole port when the ship uncovered.
The Kurtherian Gambit Omnibus 05 - The Fans Version: My Ride is a Bitch - Don't Cross This Line - Never Submit Page 73