by Nick Webb
Last time it happened to me, I used a type of glue to grab it with my palm and gave them the smallest-fingered rude gesture ever.
Just after I got inducted into the Rangers, back on Earth before we closed the door on that rat-infested place... Huh, rats, I guess everything’s coming up rats for me right now. Anyway, I digress. Back when I was on Earth and had just been inducted into the Rangers, I did all I could to study the original Texas Rangers.
Then the stories about the Lone Ranger and finally American westerns in general as I’m originally from South America on that world. I never wore a cowboy duster until we left Earth and I started doing this job on other planets.
First, because they weren’t fashionable on Earth. I mean, how the hell do you get respect for being a Ranger when everyone looks at you and asks if you’re trying to copy the movie The Matrix? Out here, no one knows about the Matrix, and considering the second and third films from that series, that’s a blessing.
Second, because I didn’t need to keep so much shit on me back then, including special vials of blood in case I became someone’s bitch in a fight. It doesn’t happen often, but every now and then someone is as fast as me, or stronger than me or just downright sneakier than me.
I’m ok with faster or stronger, but sneakier pisses me off.
Now I’ve got a damned military arsenal secreted about my body, including the body armor hidden underneath all these body hugging clothes. With the Kurtherian Nanites I’ve got running through my system, I can change my appearance over time and adjust my body.
Unfortunately, it isn’t quick.
Takes up to a month sometimes depending on what I’m doing. Hair? Well, it will grow twice normal, but that’s only an inch a month for me. So, if I change color, it could take a year to get to a foot without dyeing my hair which I can do, but it feels fake. When I go red, which I occasionally do, it’s because I’m really, really bored, and I need action.
Depending on the solar system and what they think about humans—if they’ve ever seen a human—I’ll change my body. Bigger tits, smaller tits, hips big or small. I can only do slight changes to my height up or down. The nanites do not like adjusting my perfect genetic height. I know this because I tried once to get taller for two damned decades.
Obstinate little nanite bastards.
Within fifteen minutes, three of Tet’gurky’s guys left the room. I could hear a mewling little prick get tossed on a bed some thirty minutes later, bitching behind a gag of some kind. I kept cleaning my fingernails and making sure no one was planning on a hole and run.
As in, plug me full of holes and run.
Because, if that shit did happen, then I was going to get some serious payback. The armor repulses most damage, but it still throws me around. Kinetic force disperses around my body and somewhat into the ground, but it never gets rid of all of it. I can stand most all pistols and a good many of the rifles. Those crew mounted weapons? I do my dead level best to dodge the shit out of them. One sent me through a fourth-story window. At the time, I hadn’t thought to have any sort of anti-gravity options.
So, it was a fight between me and gravity, and gravity kicked my ass. God, I hurt for hours. When I hit the street after landing, looking up at the recently opened window (opened compliments of my body) all I could do was to lift my hand and flip them off and groan. It took me another five minutes to give a shit about rolling over.
So, back to Tet’gurky’s little pug-rat-face. Knowing that the Queen Bitch was on her way went down like a stripper on a pole for a twenty-dollar bill.
Sorry, old Earth colloquialism. Um, like a Kothrin eating a Vulheren. There, I’ve been open-minded for once.
Before Bethany Anne even entered the room, Tet’gurky’s cousin was brought in, tied up like a Christmas present. I guess when the ArchAngel II arrives, people sit up and take notice. There isn’t a prettier and nastier looking BattleShip in my opinion, and every world nearby and many of those far away know what that ship looks like.
Because let’s face it, Bethany Anne is fair, but she doesn’t fuck around. She’s fun, but she isn’t someone to pull a prank on anyone but friends. She is the ultimate ‘here is the deal’ type person and she will pack a punch to make sure you learn.
Like now.
I watched as all of the guys who had been in here went quiet. I guess it matters when someone personally could demolish your world on their say-so.
Jeez, people get so bent out of shape over that one thing.
Rangers don’t get the same level of respect. The Law rarely does, it seems. I have learned that the Law, with Her gun stuck up a criminal’s ass, gets a fuck-ton of respect immediately.
The first through the door was John Grimes, one of the Queen’s Guards and known as a Queen’s Bitch. One of her original four. Behind him was Darryl. The two of them checked out the room as Scott walked in, through the room, and then out a back door to see what was on the other side. That meant Eric was outside somewhere.
I tipped my head and smiled at them. Darryl’s smile broke out, and he headed my way, “Hey squirt!” he said, and I started to stand up only to find myself pulled up into a big bear hug greeting.
“That had better,” I told Darryl, my nose impaling his huge African-American chest, “be a gun, not you happy to see me!” I finished before he busted out laughing and put me down. He ruffled my hair and turned around to view the room when Bethany Anne walked in.
“Gott Verdammt, what a fucking piece of work your airspace is,” she told no one in particular as she entered the building. She noticed the unlucky prick all roped up, “This the POS you need, Tabitha?” she asked me, pointing to the present who was bitching up a storm behind the gag. One of the guys near him kicked him to shut him up.
I popped Darryl in his chest, hitting hard enough for him to feel that shit in the morning.
“Damn, you eat your Wheaties this morning, Tabbie?” he grunted at me, rubbing his chest as I passed him up walking towards my gift.
I reached into my coat, three pockets over and one down to pull out a little pen device. I put it up to mister-tied-up-and-not-going-anywhere and clicked one end as I held the other near his neck under his hair and pushed against his skin. The light turned green. I pulled it up and connected with my cyber-unit. It all checked out.
“Yeah, this is the guy I need,” I told Bethany Anne. She reached down and picked him up with one arm. She made a small ‘push’ motion, and the body disappeared.
Now, there is a lot that will freak people, and aliens, out. There are a lot of rumors both true and false about the Queen Bitch that people, using that term loosely, like to argue about. However, none of the rumors prove more controversial than the one where she can make people disappear from the timeline.
It’s all crap. The timeline part I mean, not the disappearing part. Bethany Anne is able to connect through and use the Etheric due to her Kurtherian integrations. She stuck the pain in the ass in the Etheric for show. She would pull him back out when we left so I could take him for trial back on the world I had come from in search of him.
Everyone in the room that didn’t know Bethany Anne was staring at her with wide, frightened eyes. She looked around and then turned to leave. “I need to speak with you, Ranger Tabitha. Is there anything that needs to be handled with Tet’gurky before we leave?”
I had looked over to see that little pain-in-the-ass beg me with his eyes to say no. So, I nodded slightly at him to let him know I saw his request, and now he owed me. I turned to Bethany Anne, shook my head and walked out in front of her.
Minutes later, we were sharing a Pod as we went up to her ship. The E.I. or Electronic Intelligence on my ship the Achoynix lifted off from the space field and followed us. Strangely enough, the bullshit I had received on landing from their air authorities was silent when the ArchAngel II was sitting up there above us. I seriously doubted they would give me so much trouble next time.
CHAPTER TWO
So, back to Ross
ini’s Bar, Bectal. It’s the usual hive of scum and villainy. No, not really.
Yes, really.
Full of macho alpha types. Doesn’t matter the gender, the type, or the sexual preference, Alphas gotta be Alphas. They have a real itch to scratch when a new face comes into a place.
I’m a new face, and I’m a human face. Most of this part of the galaxy are bipedal beings. Well, except the Queegerts, which I like to call Q-berts. They’re a reddish-orange with an undergrowth of brown. Nowhere as cute as the old video game from my world. They have this hair that goes up the top of their head like a plume. It holds significance and damned if they aren’t touchy as hell about it.
So, anytime one pisses me off, I slap it over. The little Q-berts are about four and a half feet tall, so their hair is eye level and above for me. They are damned dense, so they believe they have the right of way because they are so heavy and hard to move for a lot of species. Their three legs can move them pretty fast.
I’m only five foot four inches, but my nanite-enhanced body can kick the shit out of a Q-bert when I’m pissed. Which is normally anytime they get in my way and babble at me to leave their presence. I tell them, once they land after I kick them, that I’m not in their immediate presence any longer.
One time I had a green Q-bert crawl back out of the trashcan I had just kicked him into. He yelled at me to stand still, so I did. I waited patiently for him to pull off the rotten vegetables and drop them on the sidewalk outside the restaurant I had just left. He turned, lowered his head (and his fancy hair) and started running towards me.
He became a Q-bert kickball, two points for kicking him into the same can once more. Then, stupid ass pulls himself out of the garbage and cleans himself yet again. I had plenty of time to decide whether to kick him or not and decided, this time, I was just dense. So, he comes charging, and I jumped over his ass. When I landed, I turned to watch him continue another ten feet and headbutt a perma-crete wall. The crack could be heard down the alley. I watched as he toppled over and lay prone on the ground.
Perma-crete one, hardheaded Q-bert zero.
I tell you this because while the bar was pretty empty when I got there, two drinks later a Q-bert comes walking in with that Alpha walk that says he is hot shit. I started looking around for a large enough trashcan to use for my goal and found nothing.
Damn.
>>Achronyx, message the owner of Rossini’s bar and provide him a hundred credits. Put damages as the memo for the credit transfer.<<
>>Yes, Tabitha.<<
I waited and took a sip from my drink when a message came up. I turned on the viewer that displayed my messages directly to my eye. Huh, the owner of Rossini’s was named Billet. Nice. I love names I can pronounce. It saves me and them a lot of heartache.
Me because I can pronounce them, them because I don’t change it to something I can pronounce. There are a lot of alien species that get pretty pissy about name pronunciation. I try to tell them that I failed that class (true), and a human’s vocal cords aren’t really designed to handle some languages. (Also true, but I have mods that allow me to deal with them all, I just choose not to.)
Remember, when you want to criticize me for my bad attitude that I’ve had a hundred and fifty years of dealing with sucky situations in localities that are piss poor. I’ve done this while you were probably sitting on your couch eating those damned bonbons. So, kiss my ass about being politically correct.
Both cheeks.
Hey, they are South American ass cheeks, so at least you got something to kiss, sweetheart.
I read the owner’s message back to me. Billet wanted to know why I was sending credits for messing up a bar that wasn’t damaged at the moment. I replied that there was a Queegert in his place that was about to get the shit kicked out of him, and it was definitely going to mess up some of his furniture. So, unless he built the furniture pretty damned solid, it was going to break.
He told me he was watching the security video. I turned and looked up over my right shoulder at the security camera and smiled, then flipped it off.
I have proper manners like that.
Sure as shit, Q-bert walks over, “You are at my table.” Its great eye peering at me, slightly yellow. I was probably no more at his table than if I had chosen the next one over.
“Bullshit,” I told him. The interesting thing about Q-berts is they really don’t have much bluff in them, and you can read their feelings on their face.
Like, pissed off and excited.
“Name?” I asked it. Another trait of Q-berts is they usually will have a discussion with you before they kick your ass. They aren’t stupid, but occasionally how thoroughly they consider a situation makes a lot of beings think them slow.
“Donaai,” he told me, “you have until I beat you senseless to get out of that chair.”
“Wow, Donald, not much on options, are you?” I asked and stood up, pulling my coat away from my pistol. He looked down and noticed the gun.
“What? You would use something as barbaric as a pistol instead of your arms?” he sneered at me.
Hey, I’d say the same thing in his place. The pistol I use is rare, and most beings haven’t seen one. Those that have usually don’t forget them. However, many have heard descriptions, and there have been a ton of knockoffs. So many that everyone questions what’s real anymore.
Fucking barbarians.
I answered him while stepping a little to the side and planting my left foot in a solid position. “I’m going to give you exactly zero chances to be wise and only one warning. My name is Tabitha. No last name. This is a Duke’s Ranger Special. While I could pull it and make your future a non-event, I’ve already paid the bar owner a hundred credits for the damage I’m about to cause.”
As Donald was working through everything I just told him, I put my hat down on the table and flipped off the camera again. I acted like I was scratching the back of my head.
I’m subtle that way.
It became obvious Donald had arrived at the conclusion I meant to go toe-to-toe with him instead of shooting his ass. When his eye opened perceptibly, I lashed out with my size sevens and kicked his heavy ass through the table behind him to slam into the bar, knocking off four bottles of booze that crashed to the ground.
That was going to suck to clean up. “Not paying for the booze!” I yelled over my shoulder and walked toward the busted table as Donald was trying to get himself standing again. I pulled my necklace out from under my shirt. Then, I yanked my pistol and stuck the tip on his forehead beneath his hair and bent down to stare into his great eye. “So, I kicked your ass across the floor, busted a table, four bottles of booze I’m not paying for, and I figure I probably have another forty credits on my tab. Am I using that money to pay someone to drag your dead ass out of here, or am I using it to buy you and me a couple of drinks while you answer questions from a Queen’s Ranger?”
At that point, he glanced at my chest. Not because my tits impress him, although it is a nice rack, rather because my badge glittered on its chain hanging from my neck. It’s a death sentence to have a fake Ranger badge.
You can try to scam people with fake Ranger pistols, but our badges are fucking sacrosanct. The only time we come together as a group is when we hear about someone trying to fake being a Ranger. We’ve been known to lay waste to places when that happens.
Nobody pretends to be a Queen’s Ranger and gets away with it.
“Number?” he asked me, staring at the badge.
“Two,” I supplied.
If you know much about Rangers, you know the importance of our number. My boss, Barnabas, is One. I followed him quickly into the group and became number Two. Unfortunately, Three was killed, and Four and Five are both in retirement. Six died of natural causes. Well, let’s just say not duty related causes. Sticking his personal fun stick in the wrong woman caused his girl to go all sorts of ballistic on him.
Queen’s Rangers might be pretty damned indestructible, but make an ass
out of your woman and give her a fair amount of time and she will figure out your Achilles heel, and there goes your chance for a long life.
So, the next number still running and gunning is Seven. I saw him last year passing through the Menoah Space Station. We had drinks and talked old times until the bar closed down. Good times.
“I’ll take the drink,” Donald told me. I pulled the pistol back, holstered it, and offered him my hand to help him up. He took it, and I easily yanked him standing again.
He looked me up and down, “I’d heard you Rangers were difficult. I didn’t realize how strong you were, too,” he admitted as the bar’s people got to cleaning up the mess. We walked back over to the table I had used, and we both sat down.
“Just curious, which table do you usually use?” I asked him, to break the ice.
He pointed to my chair, “That chair.”
Well, shit. I guess I was mistaken after all.
CHAPTER THREE
Donald and I had another five drinks together. The good stuff, the strong stuff. The stuff that tastes like American southern sweet tea to me, and puts a Q-bert under the damned table. Alcohol, often useful to lower the inhibitions for many species, doesn’t affect me. Which is a mixed blessing. Unfortunately, it doesn’t affect a Q-bert, either.
Sugar, however, really messes them up. I have no idea what a donut would do to them, a Q-bert would probably have an orgasm right here on the floor. Hell, for a good donut, I’d have an orgasm, too.
Damn, now I need a donut.
However, Donald was cognizant enough to spill the beans that the local pain in the ass was a Therine named some shit I couldn’t pronounce. So, I named him Barney. Yeah, after the purple dinosaur. If you saw a Therine, you would totally find his new name funny as hell.
I paid to put Donald up in one of the cheap rooms to sleep off his stupor. I had fifteen credits on my tab left after I renegotiated with Billet. He wanted me to pay for the bottles of broken booze. I emphatically replied I wasn’t. Three shot out security cameras later, he agreed with me.