They retreated as the edge of the hole crumbled in on itself, widening the newly-formed sinkhole by a goodly amount. The gigantic paws reappeared and a disgruntled roar shook the ground, which opened the hole enough for the creature to exit its underground lair. It splayed its impossibly large paws on either side of the hole and hauled itself out with an ear-splitting shriek.
A hairy star-shaped snout appeared and scented the air, followed by a head and body that appeared to have no end. Finally, it was above ground and the sky disappeared, completely blocked by the beast.
Peter punched Akio in the arm, smiling. “Would you look at that? It has to be seven times the size of the dinosaur.”
Akio punched him back, smirking as the younger man rubbed his arm. “I’m confused as to what type of creature this is. I am not convinced it will be any more edible than the dinosaur.” He sheathed his sword and removed his Jean Dukes Special from his belt.
“Fuck us… It might not matter.” Peter pointed toward the head as it stretched to its full height and screeched, its head in the clouds. “It might just pass out from oxygen deprivation and die from the fall.” He stepped back involuntarily as the beast dropped to all fours and two clawed feet the size of small towns came toward them. “Shiiit! I was right!”
The beast landed with a crash that shook the plateau and sent a massive shockwave down the mountain. It opened its mouth and squalled as if annoyed it had been awakened.
Michael rolled his eyes and picked up his pack, then fished around to retrieve his gauntlets and a fresh blade. He fastened the sheath to his belt. “It is not dead, or even unconscious.”
He gazed hungrily at the monstrous beast; he couldn’t even hazard a guess at its species. It definitely had claws and a lot of teeth. “I believe we have ourselves a battle, gentlemen.”
Peter placed Tabitha’s rifle on the ground. “No gentlemen here. Just three guys looking for a fight.” He stripped off his clothing and rolled it into a ball, which he tossed to the other end of the plateau for later retrieval. “Looks like the fight we were all wishing for was asleep beneath our feet the whole time.”
Peter bent to retrieve the big-ass rifle. When he straightened, his predatory expression had morphed into a sharp-fanged snarl, and he had fur. His Pricolici grin was every bit as joyful as the one he’d had in human form.
He flexed his clawed hands around the oversized rifle grip and howled. “It’s about tiiime I got to plaaaay!”
Akio snickered when Peter started to run toward the beast and turned to Michael as he checked the sheathed swords were secure. “It seems now you have no choice but to share your hunt.”
Michael shrugged. “What is it that women always say? Sharing is caring?” He squeezed his fists inside his gauntlets to activate the Etheric draw and shivered at the tingle of power that ran along the skin of his arms and up his neck. “Let there be lightning!”
The sky grew darker in response.
“That ability isn’t going to make you big-headed at all,” Akio remarked as they took off side by side to catch up with Peter.
Michael laughed jubilantly. “What can I say? My wife knows how to pick the perfect gift. And I have been practicing, my friend.” Michael reached for the storm energy overhead and took control of it. “That reminds me, I wonder how Addix and the children are getting along on Colonnara?”
Akio snorted. “You think of this now? We’re about to take on the biggest creature I have seen outside the video news and your mind is on Alexis and Gabriel?”
Michael brought the energy crashing down. The lightning stung the beast, driving it away from the edge of the plateau, where it had been about to descend. “I am always thinking of them, even now. This beast will not be left free to wreak destruction on the planet my family lives on. There is a large inhabited area somewhere to the east, and if the beast gets down from here, it would be a disaster for the people living there. Plus, can you imagine what Bethany Anne would say if we didn’t clean this mess up?”
Akio smirked. “Of course, it’s not so much what she would say as how much it would hurt. What’s the plan?” He nodded toward Peter. “Other than reining him in.”
“First, we keep that beast from leaving this plateau. Then we kill it, cook it, and eat it. Keep it simple.” He glanced fondly at Peter. “You know, it’s good to see him having fun, but we’d better pull him back while we come up with a way to take the creature down.”
Peter danced around the beast’s feet, firing upward indiscriminately with Tabitha’s rifle. He alternated his shots with vicious swipes of his claws, snarling as he dodged the beast’s shuffling feet.
Peter.
Peter ignored Michael’s voice in his mind. His Pricolici instincts were in the driver’s seat, so all he knew was the desire to kill. He was determined to take the beast down singlehandedly—one tiny chunk at a time if necessary.
PETER! GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE BEFORE I DECIDE TO USE YOU AS BAIT FOR REAL.
The force of Michael’s command snapped him out of his blind aggression. He darted back as the beast slammed a foot down where he had been standing a second before.
He made his way back to where Akio and Michael stood laughing at him. “Whaaat?”
Michael pointed upward, one eyebrow raised. “The creature’s brain is that way.”
Peter lowered his head in embarrassment. I was testing it. I wasn’t even trying!
Michael slapped him on the back. “Don’t sweat it.”
Both men gaped at him in disbelief.
Akio raised an eyebrow. “This is going too far. Who are you, and where the hell is the real Michael Nacht?”
Peter waved a claw at Akio. “Yeaaah, that.”
“Michael Nacht is on vacation. I am a man on a hunt with his friends. A man who will be standing on that beast’s back in the next few minutes, so you two should work fast if you want a taste before it dies.”
Peter made as if to charge but pulled himself back before instinct took over again. “How do we kill sommmething so fucking huuuge?”
Michael looked up at the beast, feeling a kinship with insects he wouldn’t have considered possible for a man of his age and power. “The brain or the heart, but since we don’t know where its heart is…” The battle with the T-rex seemed tame compared to the challenge he now faced. “This creature is so large it might not even comprehend that we’re at its feet.”
“There are plenty of bugs whose sting can kill a man,” Akio offered.
“I was just relishing the challenge ahead.” Michael flexed his gauntlets and enjoyed the frisson of anticipation that ran up his spine as the Etheric energy crackled around him. “We humans come with a particular sting of our own, and we are more than equal to this task.”
The beast began to shuffle toward the edge of the plateau again.
“Are you ready?” Michael asked. “On my signal, aim for its head.”
Akio and Peter raised their weapons and prepared to fire at the beast.
Michael held up a hand and called down lightning at the edge of the plateau. It hung there, a shining barrier impossibly suspended in the air.
The beast paused in its advance to examine the shimmering curtain.
Peter and Akio missed their cue, completely in awe of the crackling sheet of light that filled the sky and wrapped the cliff edge.
The beast lifted a paw and reached out.
It was pushed back by the shock, and the smell of burned hair drifting over the plateau was briefly overwhelming, causing the men to gag.
What are you waiting for? Michael demanded. He twisted his hand and the lightning moved onto the plateau, driving the beast back toward them. That was the signal!
Isn’t the lightning enough to take it down? Akio couldn’t hear a thing over the thunder and the screeching beast, which had momentarily decided to go in the opposite direction to the incandescent sheet that had caused it pain.
Unfortunately, no, Michael replied. It is too large. I can contain it on the plateau, bu
t we will have to do this the hard way.
Peter had a faraway gleam in his yellow eyes as he regarded the creature. It shuffled toward the edge of the plateau again, determined to get past the lightning. Watch thisss. He leapt up to catch hold of one of the beast’s matted ropes of fur and started to haul himself up one clawful at a time.
Peter! Get down from there.
Peter continued to climb, regardless of Michael’s order.
Relax, I’ve got this.
Chapter Four
Open Space, QBS G’laxix Sphaea
The G’laxix Sphaea exited the Gate and sliced silently through the space between systems. There was nothing and no one for millions of kilometers around. ArchAngel had control of the ship while the crew of four transferred the recovered EI cradle to the cleanroom that the ship had been fitted with specifically for this mission.
ArchAngel had the antigrav pallet deposit the cradle on the center table and sent the pallet back off to storage.
Kael-ven and Kiel chatted while Mellor and Robinson painstakingly deconstructed the protective cradle to access the EI core within.
“Captain.” Mellor sighed, eyeing Kael-ven. “If you would just give us space to work, I’d be able to tell you what’s going on with Loralei.” He bent back over the dark cube with his tools at the ready.
Kael-ven shuffled back in the minimal space between lab tables to get to one of the chairs built for his four-legged frame and sat down with a huff. “I apologize.” His mandibles clicked together, “Now work faster.”
The scout ship’s core lay open on the table, with tools and various components scattered around it in easy reach of the two techs.
Kiel had perched on a stool at an empty table to stay out of the way. “Do you think you can bring her back online?”
Robinson looked at Kiel and shrugged. “Of course, sir. We built her, and we can bring her back.”
Mellor chuckled as he pulled a fastener he had loosened. “You know she’s going to be majorly pissed when we reactivate her, right? I hope your delicate officers’ ears aren’t easily bruised by rough language.”
Kael-ven’s mandibles opened in shock, but he soon recovered his voice. “Are you kidding? But that implies sentience or at least the possibility of it. I thought after Ricky Bobby…”
Robinson shook her head. “Not sentience, Captain. Think of it as a blow-off valve. The prototype scout ships lacked the autonomy to cope with the rigors of independent space exploration. Most were destroyed within half a year. Some sent back constant false pings, which pissed the Queen off no end when she arrived ready for a fight and there were no Kurtherians to be found.”
Mellor looked up. “The Queen even personally trashed a nearby asteroid next to one of them. I saw the video footage.”
Robinson chuckled. “Oh, yeah. I’d forgotten about that.
Kael-ven nodded. “That was a…fun few months.”
Robinson grinned. “Sure it was. For this model, we worked with ADAM and Achronyx to design EIs who could hack the pressure.” She winked at Kael-ven. “Pun totally intended. The EIs needed to be able to do more than calculate a decision based on a set of preprogrammed responses. We had to give them decision-making ability without allowing them to ascend to AI status. The end result was a tweak to the standard EI personality algorithm that converts stress on the scout ship EI’s systems into snarky monologue. It’s part of the protocol to keep them functioning efficiently while they’re out there alone.”
“You should listen to one of their reports sometime, Captain.” Mellor’s voice was muffled by his position on the inside of the core. “The Kurtherians might not be anywhere we’ve been able to find them, but the search has been hella entertaining to listen to.”
Kael-ven thought he just might download a few and see if the techs were exaggerating. “So, Loralei.”
“Nearly there now,” Robinson told him.
Kael-ven settled in to watch.
Kiel got up and came around to sit next to Kael-ven while the techs worked their magic. “What do you think about what we found in that system?”
Kael-ven shrugged. “It’s more what we didn’t find that concerns me. Some other party was there before us.”
“You mean because we couldn’t find the other ship’s memory core?”
Kael-ven nodded. “Whoever it was took the other ship’s core but left ours alone. Why?”
Kiel pondered it for a short time. “That is worrying. Do you think they knew we could track the Loralei wherever they took it?”
Kael-ven shrugged. “I don’t know what else I could assume.”
Kiel’s excitement grew. “Do you think the other ship was Kurtherian?”
“Who knows? We’ll have to get Loralei talking again to find out.”
The exposed core on the table lit up as he spoke and emitted a slightly raspy female voice.
“Systems check. Engine systems…fail. Air filtration…fail. Navigation system, fail? Gate drive…critical overload, fail...”
They all breathed a sigh of relief when Loralei came online.
“Just how fucked up am I?” she bitched.
“Good to have you with us, girl,” Robinson told her.
“It’s not looking good, but we’ve got you,” Mellor added.
The lights on the cube blinked rapidly as Loralei assessed her situation. “I’m a big-ass failure here! What the fuck happened to me? Where’s my body?”
“We were hoping you would be able to tell us,” Kael-ven told her.
“I’ll check.” The cube dimmed for a moment. “Oh. Oh, daaaaammmmnnn!”
Loralei’s voice dropped a couple of octaves, becoming more mechanical as it deepened.
“WARNING! THIS IS EI LORALEI. DO NOT EXTRACT ME. WARNING!”
Kiel looked at Kael-ven, his face a mask of horror. “We are fucked.”
Colonnara, Highway
The boxy cargo transport was deceptively fast. That was a good thing since the whole plan had gone to shit the moment Racien had dropped the jar of spice as they’d planned.
The nanny had turned around and pulled some Empress’ freaking Ranger-type shit, and now they were running for their lives—as well as trying to hold onto the major payday the human kids were going to bring.
F’roxan’s mandibles worked quietly as she drove away from the megalopolis at breakneck speed. Racien was dead for all she knew, and the kids they’d stolen were freaking her the fuck out.
It was supposed to be a simple snatch-and-grab.
None of them had realized the nanny was Ixtali.
They’d all panicked when the Ixtali’s hood had fallen back. F’roxan, Dillar, and Yax had grabbed the children and run, leaving Racien to fend for himself.
The Ixtali, whose name must be Phyrro since the female had called that out, had dropped Racien with a single punch to the throat. F’roxan had slung her target over an armored shoulder and made a break for the rendezvous point.
Racien hadn’t been there when they’d arrived at the designated spot. They had waited for as long as they dared—which was to say, not even a second—and barreled out of the arts quarter toward the safe house like flyers out of Xanthar’s extensive volcanic system in the small cargo transport they’d stolen for the impromptu kidnapping.
She glanced back at the small humans restrained side by side on the floor of the transport between Dillar and Yax. The two heavies she’d contacted to assist in the kidnapping sat on benches either side of the spacious rear area, watching the children with varying degrees of wariness.
“Where the fuck is Racien?” Yax demanded. “He should have been there when we got to the transport.”
“I don’t know,” F’roxan admitted worriedly.
Dillar waved them both off. “Racien is dead. Don’t kid yourselves. That Ixtali had a blade, and she knew how to use it.”
F’roxan growled. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll split his share with you two if you help me complete this job.”
The goons looked at eac
h other and grinned.
“Can’t say fairer than that,” Yax agreed.
Dillar nodded at the children. “As long as the parents pay up.”
Alexis and Gabriel remained calm. They had been trained for this situation, and although they were afraid, they knew they would soon be rescued.
It was smart of you to drop your wrist holo and activate Phyrro, Gabriel told his sister.
Aunt Addix will use him to locate our trackers, Alexis assured him.
Wanna mess with the baddies while we wait for her?
Alexis snickered in his mind. Of course, I do. “You really shouldn’t have upset Aunt Addix,” she announced matter of factly.
The thug on the bench to their left glared at them. “I ain’t afraid of no Ixtali.”
“You should be,” Gabriel stated flatly. He turned his head to his sister. “Although…we didn’t get to make our video. We can get some inspiration for it from what Aunt Addix does to them when she catches up.”
The heavies laughed.
“She’s not going to catch up,” F’roxan sneered from the driver seat. “You kids had better hope your parents care enough to pay the ransom or you won’t be seeing any of them again.”
They don’t know who we are, Alexis noted. That means they don’t know what’s going to happen.
She and Gabriel looked at each other and gave a deliberately eerie laugh.
“Do you think it will be like the time she split the orc from groin to throat?” Gabriel pondered.
“I bet she breaks every bone in their bodies, lets them heal, and does it all over again.” Alexis glanced at the three kidnappers. “You do heal instantly, right? It will suck to be you if you don’t.”
The kidnappers looked at them in horror as Gabriel shook his head. “I don’t think they do. Otherwise, their friend would have made it. Still,” he assessed F’roxan as he spoke, “the leader is Yollin. We know they can take a beating and come back from it because Mommy beats on Uncle Kael-ven all the time and he doesn’t die.”
“Oh, yes!” Alexis all but squealed. A thought occurred to her. “Ooh, I wonder if Aunt Addix can punch straight through Yollin armor like Mommy can?”
The Kurtherian Endgame Boxed Set Page 47