“Hmm.” Michael eyed Scott. “Probably better than the morgue.”
Scott straightened up, stopped his antics, and hotfooted it over to join his friends. “Miracle!” he shouted. “Look, a miracle!” He looked at his arms as if they had just magically reappeared.
The six of them broke up a few minutes later after testing each other. In the end, Bethany Anne tagged out and allowed Michael the chance to take the rough edges off his fighting. The men, as amped up as they had been over the last hundred and fifty years, caused Michael serious issues for the first half hour.
Michael’s first complete surprise came when the Bitches caught him in a trap and John delivered a coordinated punch that tossed him a cool fifty feet to slam into the back wall. Bethany Anne hid her smile.
It was a bit satisfying to see him get his ass handed to him by her guys at least once.
The guys whooped and hollered in jubilation. It had been a good tactic.
“Guys?” Scott whispered. He got the attention of Darryl, John and Eric. “Have any of you seen Michael’s eyes glow red yet?” He pointed.
“No,” John answered as he and the others turned. Michael’s determined gaze was locked on the four of them.
His grin was feral, and his eyes blazed red.
“Ohhhhh, shit,” Darryl hissed.
“God,” Eric chimed in as the four of them spread out, “forgive us for the cursing we are about to do.”
“Stop asking for forgiveness,” Scott hissed, “and ask Him to ship us a shitload of Guardian Angels!”
Michael popped his neck. “That was fun,” he whispered in a voice that carried to the four corners into the room. “And I deserved the reminder that training is about learning.” He walked straight toward the four of them, not worried in the least that he didn’t look prepared to fight.
Each of them heard the same thing at the same time. Michael’s voice reverberated in their minds.
Now it is my turn to teach.
—
ADAM.
>>Yes?<<
Have ArchAngel route the video feed of this fight to the ship’s monitors. I think everyone needs to be reminded of why Michael was codenamed “ArchAngel, Warrior of God.”
“FUUUUUUUUUUUCK!” Scott yelled.
She had to duck as Scott’s body flew over her head to slam into the wall before he rebounded with a grunt and fell to the floor. “Getting dangerous to watch,” Bethany Anne muttered, making sure Scott was ok before stepping into the Etheric.
Wish I had some damned popcorn.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
QBS MineLayer 202
Nickie was exhausted. She had sent almost all the minelaying ships toward Earth, and she was happy. Now she was waiting for the ships 302 and 412 to finish and come back.
They had gone a little farther afield.
“Not nice,” the EI said, interrupting Nickie’s head in its descent to the desk in front of her.
“Hmm, what? C’mon!” She looked around before rubbing her eyes. “Ok, thank you, 202. I’m awake.”
“That wasn’t the reason I contacted you,” the EI replied. “I’m letting you know that we are receiving only occasional contacts from the fleet.”
“Mmmhmmm.” Nickie set her elbows on her legs. “That’s normal.”
“Yes, and there are normal answers going back to the fleet, but I’m not sending them.”
It took a moment for Nickie to think through the issues. “How have you checked, and how did you figure this out?”
“I caught a signal coming from farther out which mimicked our signal. The next time we needed to check in I purposely delayed my signal long enough to see if perhaps someone was signaling us, and just a minute ago I confirmed we have a problem.”
“How?”
“I didn’t send the signal which was received by the fleet,” the EI replied. “Something is blocking us while letting the fleet believe we have actively confirmed our status.”
“Let’s move.” Nickie sat up, awake.
“I…” The EI seemed surprised as Nickie sent the commands to move the ship.
“Can’t!”
QBS ArchAngel II, Bethany Anne’s Suite
“Coke?” Bethany Anne asked Barnabas as he entered her suite. He shook his head, a small smile on his face as he gave her a hug and held out a hand to Michael.
Michael surprised him by enveloping Barnabas in an embrace. “I don’t think so!” Michael told him, chuckling as Barnabas tensed. “That guy is mostly gone, old monk,” he said as the two disengaged. “Couch?” Michael asked, and pointed to the sitting area. “I’ve just enjoyed an ass-kicking by four supermen, so I’d rather sit for a few minutes.” Michael headed for the couches without waiting for an answer and said over his shoulder, “I’ve already had two showers today.”
Barnabas eyed Bethany Anne, who shrugged. He is who he is, Barnabas. I’m not sure about everything that has gone on with him, but he and Akio are different than when we left them.
Barnabas nodded his understanding and followed Michael into the suite. “So,” Barnabas began, “you aren’t occupying different suites?”
Michael shrugged. “I’ve come back to make an honest woman out of her.” Bethany Anne had grabbed a Coke and now eyed him as she dropped onto the couch next to him. She elbowed Michael hard in the ribs as soon as she sat.
“Ooof!” His eyes flashed a touch, and his pain was evident.
Barnabas tried to hide his smirk, but he was sure Michael saw it. The strange thing for Barnabas was that Michael had been actively working to get Barnabas to smile.
The previous Michael would have done no such thing.
Barnabas’ mind wandered just a bit, and he found that Michael’s thoughts were either as well locked up as they had been before, or possibly locked up even tighter. When Michael raised his eyebrow just a fraction Barnabas realized what his subconscious was doing, and shut it down.
This version of Michael hadn’t flinched at all when Barnabas had tried to read his mind, on purpose or not.
This discussion, Barnabas realized, was going to change his future one way…
Or another.
QBS MineLayer 202
“202, explain to me why you can’t move the ship,” Nickie queried as she hit the communication button to call the fleet.
Nothing happened.
Her EI responded, “I have fired up the antigrav generators, but there seems to be a null field affecting our acceleration. While we do have some, it has reduced it to the point where it will take fifty hours to make it twelve percent of the way to the fleet.”
“Can you tell if the other ships are affected?” she asked as she twisted far to her right. The bridges of the MineLayer-class ships were not that large. The running joke was you had to get out of the captain’s chair and squeeze out of the bridge into the tiny hallway outside just to change your damned mind.
She flicked two red switches to the right, which provided access to chemically-based secondary emergency rockets in case she needed to change her direction.
Nickie mashed the button and turned to view the screens that showed the stars outside, only to see them barely move before their momentum ceased. The fuel status was going down slowly, but they weren’t making any progress.
She should have already turned the ship almost a third of the way around.
She shut off the emergency engines and turned back to the front, laying her hands in her lap.
“The other ships,” her EI responded, “seem to have control, and are on their projected flight plans.”
“Then why us?” Nickie wondered aloud.
A voice, commanding without demanding, spoke through her still-open comm channel.
“Because you,” the voice answered, its language translated by her chip, “are the leader of this group. And you,” it went on to say in a weird cadence that sounded like two voices speaking on different octaves, “can take us to the Exalted One.”
QBS ArchAngel II, Bethany Anne’s Suite
“I’ll give you ‘honest woman.’” Bethany Anne sipped her Coke, ignoring Michael’s eyes on her and looking at Barnabas.
“Do I need to separate you two?” Barnabas asked.
Bethany Anne reached over and patted Michael’s leg. “He likes it when I give him booboos.”
Michael opened his mouth, frowned, and closed it before he turned to Barnabas and smiled. “So, what are your plans?”
Barnabas shrugged. “I’ve been in charge of enforcing the law for the last hundred and sixty-plus years,” he answered, leaning back into the couch. “I think I’m ready for a change of pace.”
“Retire?” Bethany Anne asked.
He shook his head.
“Monk?” Michael asked.
“Oh, no.” He shook his head emphatically. “I’ve had enough of that in my life.”
“Run a business?” Bethany Anne asked.
“What?” Barnabas looked at her, confused. “Have you mistaken me for Stephen?”
Bethany Anne shrugged. “You said you were ready for a change of pace. I’m trying to see what kind of pace you might be ready to try.”
“I liked my occupation, but that little trip to Devon to…” He saw Bethany Anne’s eyes flare just the smallest amount, “locate a missing person had me interrupt some gangs. Having left my badge behind on the ship, I was free to solve the problem in a very satisfying way.”
Michael started grinning, then snapped his fingers and pointed at Barnabas. “Violence!”
Bethany Anne turned to Michael, then back to Barnabas. “Really?” She read the answer in his eyes. “Huh. I mean, I can’t point any fingers, but I would have put money on you going to play monk, Big B.”
“The effort on Devon was very satisfying.” Barnabas laid his left arm along the back of the couch. “Helped the people I could, and got rid of some of the others by delivering the ultimate in punishment.”
Michael pursed his lips. “Killing isn’t always the answer,” he said after a moment, “but it’s often one of the better ones.”
Michael glanced at Bethany Anne, who didn’t react at all to his comment. That’s three.
“Actually, I gave an eye for an eye. If they came at me with a rod, I took it away and used it on them. Same for any of the other weapons,” Barnabas replied.
Bethany Anne’s eyes narrowed. “How is it that most of those who came at you died? They didn’t all have deadly weapons, did they?”
“Oh, hardly!” Barnabas chuckled. “But you can drive a fairly blunt object though a body if you apply sufficient force.”
“Soooo,” Bethany Anne dragged out the word, “are you saying you want to do something to help people, but you don’t want to do the paperwork?”
“That just about covers it, I think,” he replied. “I don’t want a seven-day-a-week position where I am on call all the time.”
“So lone wolf,” Michael offered.
Barnabas thought about this for a moment before he nodded.
Bethany Anne leaned into Michael’s arm, looking at Barnabas in a fresh light. How long had she kept him in his position because it was easy—just as she had remained Empress? “Have you spoken with my dad?”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” he told her. “Lance came to speak with me not that long after your speech. It was a recruitment effort.”
“What did you tell him?” she asked.
“That I would give it some thought, and that I’d talk to you about it.”
“That…” She pressed her lips together, shaking her head from side to side before opening her mouth to speak. Then she sighed and tapped four fingers on Michael’s leg. “Now his questions make sense.”
Michael looked at her. “Which questions?”
“My dad asked me if I had plans to clean up High Tortuga,” she answered.
“High Tortuga?” Michael looked at Barnabas, and back at Bethany Anne. “A pirate location?”
“Not exactly,” she answered. “It’s a planet called Devon, but we have started calling it ‘High Tortuga’ as a codename. It’s a place where business takes precedence over law at times. I’ve acquired a vested interest in it, and I have ordered a few modifications so we can hide a few ships there.”
“And by vested interest you mean…” Michael left the question hanging.
Bethany Anne’s face split into a shit-eating grin. “I own the planet!”
QBS MineLayer 202
Nickie eyed the speaker through which the alien’s voice had just asked her to take them to…probably Bethany Anne.
She snorted. While she thought a visit between whoever the fuck this was and Bethany Anne would be funny to watch, it just wasn’t proper to make it happen.
“Yeahhhh…” Nickie shook her head. “That’s not going to happen without a lot more information from you.”
“Why?” the voice asked. Once again it sounded like one person speaking in two different octaves.
“You are either ignorant, stupid, clueless, or arrogant. None of those are particularly awesome designations, so why don’t you provide a bit more information so I can narrow down why you are asking me such a blatantly idiotic question.”
There was a moment of silence while Nickie typed on her command keyboard.
N:>>202, can you set this ship to self-destruct?
202:>>Yes. I have control of those abilities.
N:>>Do you need preauthorization?
202:>>Yes.
N:>>Preauthorization for self-destruct granted. Captain Nancy Kathryn Silvers, MineLayer 202.
202:>>What are the triggers for self-destruction?
N:>>If I am incapacitated in any way and this ship is being used to gain access to the BYPS system, you have authorization and my command to self-destruct when we get halfway through the field. If we are traveling at a speed which will fail to give the fleet adequate time to prepare, self-destruct before that time.
At least she had sort of made things right with Thomas. If she were about to die for the cause, she was glad the last thing she had told him wasn’t “Swan-dive into a supernova so your atoms burn out and the only remaining memory I will have will be when I spit on your headstone.”
He had made her a bit mad. Jealous, even. It wasn’t until much later that she found out the woman he was consoling was an old friend from his college days, grieving for a family member whom Thomas had also known.
Unfortunately, she had burned her bridges with him by then, and swallowing her pride wasn’t something she was very good at.
She sighed. If she got out of this, perhaps she would take Thomas aside and explain why she had gone psycho on his ass.
“At this point,” the voice came back on. “I am going to have to agree that I am ignorant in this situation. I will provide my assessment, and if you will correct my assumptions or validate them this might work better. If my calculations are correct, are you willing to take me to your Exalted One?”
Nickie moved her hair behind her ear. “I don’t understand your exact statement regarding calculations, but if you are asking if I will confirm your story, then this is what I am willing to do. The least will be to contact my fleet.”
“That…could be a problem,” the voice answered. “Let see what we can negotiate, MineLayer 202.”
QBS ArchAngel II, Bethany Anne’s Suite
“You own the planet?” Michael glanced at Barnabas and back at Bethany Anne. “How much does a planet cost?”
“When you are Bethany Anne,” Barnabas replied laconically, “you just say, ‘Make it so,’ and it happens.”
“Seems like a cheap way to acquire planets,” Michael mused.
“That’s not true.” Bethany Anne shot a glance at Barnabas, who smiled at her. Barnabas was enjoying this conversation way too damned much. “I worked with a business person who was trying to take over a large group of companies. I made him an offer—”
“He couldn’t refuse,” Barnabas interjected. “Or that’s how Stephen tells it,” he added, as Bethany Anne and Michae
l stared at him.
“Not true. He had a choice, but the other option was a bit more future-proof.”
“Death?” Michael asked.
“Ok, yes!” Bethany Anne muttered. She felt like such a hypocrite. “I was in my Baba Yaga phase, and it was pertinent. I didn’t have much time to deal with the situation, and although I saved the Zhyn, I was rather pointed.”
Michael smiled. “So his choices were…”
“Work for me or die,” Bethany Anne answered.
“What’s the problem with that solution?” Michael asked. “That was what I would have chosen.”
Bethany Anne smiled, snuggling a little closer to Michael. “Maybe that’s why I love you.” Barnabas rolled his eyes and she told him flatly, “I can’t possibly bother you with bloodthirstiness.”
“Well, I have a lot of history on killing too quickly,” Michael replied, nodding to Barnabas. “As does Barnabas. The trick is pulling yourself out of it—which I’m assuming you have, since you are here?” He looked at Barnabas.
Barnabas nodded.
“For now,” Bethany Anne admitted. Her eyes were heavy. “Here, be a good man and stay fucking still for a moment.”
“How long is ‘a moment?’” Michael asked.
“Until I wake up, of course,” she answered, and then she was asleep.
Barnabas glanced at Michael, who had his arm around Bethany Anne’s shoulder. “Your arm is going to go numb, holding her like that.”
Michael nodded. “Probably.” He sighed. “But I’ve waited for this moment for years. I think I can take a little pain.” He looked at Barnabas. “Are you going to do ok? No more blacking out and killing everyone if you go vigilante?”
“My plans are that obvious?” Barnabas asked.
“You were some sort of cop, and you don’t want to change occupations but you also don’t want paperwork. Seems like ‘vigilante’ is the next career choice…unless you are going to do something with Lance?”
“Working with him will give me a large amount of intel, plus I can go on operations for him from time to time.”
Michael looked around the room. “You need a ship?”
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