Forever Defend (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 17)

by Michael Anderle

  “Tabitha,” Achronyx spoke through the bridge’s speaker, “I’m picking up the three Skaine ships breaking from their locations and leaving in separate directions.”

  Tabitha slapped a nearby desk. “SON OF A BITCH!”

  The Captain turned to his right. “Bring us back up to speed!” He calmly asked Tabitha, “Who is that?” as he pointed to a speaker in the bulkhead.

  “That’s Achronyx,” Tabitha answered, her eyes slowly returning to their normal color as she started to come down from her fight response, which had been triggered by seeing the Skaine.

  “Where is Achronyx on my ship?” He was doing his best not to shrink from the hostile woman in front of him.

  “He’s…” Tabitha was about to point outside when she remembered that their ship was back in the Etheric Empire. Her eyes completed their transition as she realized she had just bluffed the Skaine with bravado, arrogance and anger. “…in the shell,” she finally answered, waving her hands around. “He is an AI.”

  “I’m an EI.” Achronyx spoke to the team on their operations channel.

  Tabitha subvocalized, “How about we make it mean Anonymous Intelligence?”

  There was a slight pause before Achronyx answered, “I think I like that.”

  The captain made a general broadcast to the ship to tell everyone that the distress incident was over, they were resuming their flight and they would not lose any time. When he finished, he turned to Tabitha again. “Care to join me in the Captain’s Meeting Room?”

  She shrugged. “Why not?”

  The captain nodded to his second, then stood up from his chair to walk towards his meeting room.

  —

  Captain Gaheel opened the door to his meeting room and waved the five Etheric Empire agents inside. Three went in and two nodded to him but took guard positions outside the room.

  He sighed as the door closed behind him and turned to the three humans. “You are from the Etheric Empire, correct?”

  “Yes,” Tabitha admitted.

  “Is my ship under your control?” he asked.

  She looked confused, if he was reading her facial expression correctly. “No. Why would you think that?”

  “You did a fair job of breaking through my security and affecting my ship’s computers, and getting involved in a discussion with the Skaine.”

  She shrugged. “Your point?”

  Gaheel looked at the woman a moment. “Young female,” he started to say before she put up a hand.

  “If you talk down to me, I’ll take offense. You won’t have to worry about me seizing your ship,” she lifted a black boot above the table a second, “when I put my size-eights up your ass.”

  The captain swallowed. “Your kind is a bit aggressive, aren’t they?”

  “You mean we don’t accept others pushing us around?” Tabitha twisted his words slightly. “No, we do not.”

  “Why did the Skaine run?” Gaheel asked.

  “Because they know us,” she answered, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “But why?” Gaheel asked. “I assume you have fought them lately and won?”

  “You could say that,” Tabitha temporized.

  Ryu spoke up. “Capturing the Battleship Shllet probably caused some commotion.”

  Captain Gaheel turned to Ryu. “And you are?” he asked, swallowing as he replayed the answer the man had given him.

  They had taken out a Skaine battleship?

  “He is Lead Tonto Ryu, and the other even quieter individual is Head Prime Tonto Hirotoshi.”

  “Is that a form of rank?” Gaheel asked.

  Ryu smiled. “Only for the day. She tends to change the titles to fit whatever is going on.”

  Captain Gaheel noticed the female pulling something out of her shirt. It was a circle medallion on a necklace. “This,” she said, “is an official Ranger Medallion. You may use your ship’s communications system to contact this Medallion and acquire whatever information you need.”

  The captain leaned forward and held out his hand, but the woman didn’t take it off her neck. “You can examine it, but if you try to remove it from my neck I’ll break your arm, understand?”

  He nodded.

  He held the medallion. It was solid, but only slightly heavy. “What is this designation?” His finger was playing over a portion of the medallion.

  “That is the number two in our script. It means I’m the second in the Ranger group,” she answered him.

  His eyes looked. “So, up at the top?”

  “Probably close enough,” she admitted. “I only take orders from either Number One, who is my boss, or the Empress.” That was true for any other Ranger as well, but it wasn’t necessary to explain that to him. She considered it a flat organization, and that was enough. If this Captain wanted to make any positive judgments about her status in the organization, that was fine with her.

  “You are authorized to negotiate with me?” he asked Tabitha.

  She shrugged. “Sure. Although if there is something you want from the Empire, I will have to get additional permission. Anything involving my group is good to go.”

  She hoped.

  “Are you aware of Torcellan agreements regarding efforts against our shipping?”

  “Sorry, no,” she admitted. “I’ve been busy in the Etheric Empire’s areas, and most recently, in an unaligned area of space.

  The captain looked at her strangely. “May I ask why your team is booked on our ship then?”

  “Sure,” Tabitha answered. “We were forced to go on vacation.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Space Station Ekuled, Eubos system

  “She’s pretty,” Christina commented when she saw the small feline-looking female who sat in a chair at the entrance to the bar.

  “I agree,” Ecaterina murmured, allowing the cacophony from the bar to wash her voice away.

  “The cat-people are notoriously picky about their friends.” Shi-tan sipped from the glass holding his non-alcoholic beverage. The bartender had asked Shi-tan twice whether he really wanted a non-alcoholic drink, and when Shi-tan’s eyes narrowed, he poured him a local juice that wasn’t fermented.

  “Says a Shrillexian.” R’yhek chuckled.

  “We aren’t picky, we are very open about how it works.” Shi-tan turned to the Yollin. “I understand your main focus in the company is business, so I cut you some slack with your fighting. However, I will observe your abilities are good and getting better.” He waved his glass. “It would do you good to test your abilities every once in a while.”

  Nathan grabbed a couple of nuts from the table the five of them surrounded. “Pain is a great teacher.”

  Christina turned to her father. “You stole that phrase from Auntie BA.”

  “Who stole it from someone else, but that doesn’t make it any less true,” Nathan told his daughter.

  “I can’t believe the Empress is your aunt.” R’yhek tipped back a small bottle of local alcohol. It was actually more like another fruit drink than liquor, but it allowed him to keep his wits while drinking something alcoholic.

  R’yhek explained to Christina that he was just trying to fit in with everyone else. Shi-tan found it humorous when the small human looked around the bar to see if R’yhek was telling her the truth.

  “I can’t believe I beat you yesterday,” Christina shot back. “And I’ll bet I will take out more people than you today.”

  “No, you won’t, young lady,” Ecaterina interrupted her. “Your job is to stay on the outside and watch.”

  “But you get to fight!” she argued.

  “That will be fifty push-ups for being obstinate during an operation,” Nathan told his daughter.

  She turned to her father with a fresh argument on her lips, which died when she caught the look on his face.

  “Well, bistok shit,” she muttered. “We somehow went into ops mode and I missed it.”

  Nathan looked at Shi-tan. “Ok, this is your gig more than mine. Who is going
to start the bar fight? This is our third night here,” he asked as he allowed his eyes to wander around the bar. It was two stories, with the upper balconies opening to the main floor below. There were easily over a hundred and twenty people on the lower level. He figured the top was half full, so maybe another thirty upstairs.

  The area around the bar was crammed with Yollins in mining clothes or variants thereof, with a strange-looking alien or two around the outside.

  Shi-tan sighed. “I’ll give you my professional opinion, but I’m thinking you won’t like it.”

  Nathan shrugged. “I want the truth. I’ll deal with the rest.”

  “Ok.” Shi-tan nodded over his right shoulder. “See the miner there, with the red hat?”

  Nathan kept his eyes on Shi-tan. “Has about seven lackeys around him supporting his ego?”

  “Yes, the very same.” Shi-tan smiled. “Have Christina bump into him and apologize, and then have R’yhek say something that upsets him. He’ll throw a punch, but R’yhek ducks and he hits me instead.”

  “I like that plan!” Christina’s eyes lit up.

  “I like the ducking part of the plan,” R’yhek agreed. “Not so much the you-being-in-the-middle part.”

  Nathan’s eyes had a distant look. “No, we can’t start the fight ourselves. That pushes us too much, I think, for this operation. However, I’m ok if we go over there and see if we can hear anything. If a fight starts, so be it.” He nodded to the women. “Make sure you ladies duck if something comes your way.”

  “Am I still expecting a punch?” Shi-tan asked.

  “Of course.” Nathan smiled. “That’s the best part of your plan.”

  —

  So far Bastek’s night had been rather slow, which was what she preferred. Too often, fights occurred at the Dirtside Bar where she bounced.

  Just last week she had been required to stitch herself up after a melee that had sent seventeen to the infirmary. Fortunately, her medical skills allowed her to not only keep her costs down, but her reputation up. She was rarely in the infirmary, no matter how much blood covered her.

  And she really hated to get blood on her white fur. Her chest down through her hips on the front was almost black, but the rest of her was as white as ice drifting from the sky.

  If she had just been all white, she could have done more hunting in the snow on a planet. It was perfect camouflage.

  In this job she had to wear clothes, which rubbed her hair the wrong way. She didn’t mind shorts and a mini-top, that was fine in civilized society, but long pants and long sleeves were annoying as hell.

  She was working her way through Gronnick’s Third Edition of Alien Physiology when her ears picked up the beginning of the altercation.

  Her head whipped around in time to see the first punch being thrown by Zikie’kol, who was a pompous ass. She was already wincing when he reared back to slam a fist into a human, when she ducked and he hit a—

  “Oh, fuck no!” she whispered as she tossed her book under the desk, pounced up on her chair, and jumped to grab the second-level railing.

  That ass had just hit a Shrillexian!

  “Fornicating boots!” she bitched, as the fists started flying. She noticed a small human being pulled out of the middle by the larger human lady. Probably a kid and her mother.

  Bastek jumped from the rail into the middle of the fray and starting howling.

  —

  Shi-tan was having a blast!

  He took that first punch, moving only enough to allow it to hit his chin, which split open. He popped his horns out of his face and sent a punch back at that buffoon. A mug flew past the front of his face and cracked into the head of a Yollin at a table nearby, causing the three of them to mess up their drinks.

  High likelihood those three had just drawn a ticket to the fight. Shi-tan turned to his left and saw R’yhek dodging a punch, his left hand grabbing another mug.

  He approved. The old mercenary was a sneaky bastard.

  Shi-tan noticed the cat-woman jump onto and bound off her chair, reaching the balcony and running along the rail. She occasionally grabbed a handhold to keep her up there before she howled and jumped into the fight.

  She hadn’t even landed when an errant kick caught her in the hip.

  “Zikie’kol!” She yelled as she went under. A second later, someone screamed as he got pulled down and Bastek jumped on top of him. “You started this shit, and I’m tossing your ass out!”

  “No one speaks to me like that little runt did, so get the fuck out!” the large Yollin yelled back, as he punched out a smaller Yollin who had grabbed a chair.

  Zikie’kol grabbed the chair from the downed Yollin and threw it towards Bastek. She ducked, but winced when she heard the crunch as it hit someone behind her. At this point the people on the second floor were leaning over the bannister, cheering the fight on.

  That’s why she charged them three times the normal entry fee to go up there. Too many came just to egg on a fight.

  The altercation went on for a few moments, chairs and fists flying, and then it went all to hell.

  Someone had pulled a laser.

  Bastek saw the beam pass to her left, then heard a shriek of pain.

  This fight was going downhill fast.

  —

  “We have guns!” Nathan announced when he saw the laser blast go through the smoky area. “New plan, put everyone down fast!”

  “HUMANS!” came from his left somewhere, but at that moment Shi-tan was occupied dodging a knife slice.

  —

  “Oh, perverted canines!” Bastek heard someone yell “humans” and turned to see four younger miners head toward the two females. Her eyes narrowed as she tried to place the four, and then she remembered they had been sent out to mine when they had caused political problems on the main Yollin world.

  Apparently their political beliefs included hating on Humans, usually a no-no in an Empire ruled by those same aliens.

  Torcellan Passenger Ship (translated) Luxurious

  Tabitha was confused. This captain kept asking her questions that didn’t seem to lead anywhere directly. She sure hoped that answer about negotiating didn’t come back and bite her in the ass.

  That would be embarrassing. However, the Skaine had attacked, and frankly she had been too pissed off to remember that her team didn’t have any backup here. She had just started to really lay into that Skaine captain when he broke the connection and left.

  She wished she could be a fly on the wall at their after-action meeting. Someone was bound to ask whether she had been bluffing. She had been, as it turned out, but she had sold it because she had absolutely believed she was going to kick their asses. That would have been a problem if they had called her on her arrogance.

  This time her version of dropping off the three-story building had been taking over the situation, which fortunately had turned out ok. But she was sure Hirotoshi would have some words for her when they were alone, and fuck-all, he would be right.

  Better to be lucky than good, sometimes. However, considering they had almost gotten blown to atoms by a damned battleship on the last operation, they were due a little luck.

  Still, the conversation with Hirotoshi was going to suck.

  “You are on vacation?” The captain had finally come back from wherever her answer had taken him.

  “Yes. After the last operation,” she nodded to Ryu, “where we grabbed a Skaine battleship, Ranger One decided my team needed a break.”

  “And he chose this liner?” Captain Gaheel asked her.

  She nodded. “Yes, he tossed us the tickets and told us to move our asses and make sure we weren’t late…” Tabitha’s eyes narrowed, and she turned to Hirotoshi and Ryu. “That rat bastard didn’t set us up, did he?”

  This time, it was Hirotoshi who answered. “I don’t think he did. Or, it was a small chance, but not large enough to provide us with backup, because what could Dio and the five of us do?”

  “Apparently your rep
utation alone was enough to scare off three Skaine ships,” the captain interjected. “However, may I confirm for the record that you had no plans to be here to help my ship?”

  “That is correct,” Tabitha admitted.

  The captain nodded, turned towards the wall next to his chair, and touched two buttons. A red light flashed twice, then went solid. He turned back to the three of them. “I am recording this for our files. This is Captain Gaheel of the Torcellan ship Hythethaneuk, and I am sending the primary record of an attack on my ship by Skaine enemies. We have video backup which will be attached. Presently I am speaking with Ranger Two, Tabitha, from the Etheric Empire, and confirming information about the attack. Detailed follow-up documents will be attached, or sent shortly.”

  “Hope you don’t think I’m gonna fill out paperwork,” Tabitha told him. “Because I’m on vacation and there is strict ‘no paperwork on vacation’ rule enforcement.”

  Ryu looked at Hirotoshi, who rolled his eyes at their Ranger’s comment. She didn’t do paperwork at the best of times, even when on assignment. Why would a vacation be any different?

  “I just need you to answer some preliminary questions on the record,” Gaheel told her, “so that I may move forward with another form of paperwork.”

  “Better you than me,” she told him and winked.

  “Very good.” He looked at the three of them. “I have three representatives from the Etheric Empire in front of me, and two more outside the door. First, may I have the names of those outside the door?”

  “Katsu and Kouki,” Tabitha answered.

  “They are part of your team?” Gaheel continued.

  “Yes.”

  “And in here we have Tabitha, Ranger Two of the Etheric Empire, Lead Tonto Ryu, and Head Prime Tonto Hirotoshi.”

  Tabitha smirked as she glanced towards the two men with her. “That is correct.”

  “Can you tell me where you were and what you were doing at the time you first thought something might be wrong regarding the safety of this ship?”

  Tabitha shrugged. “We were in our workout area training when the Ship’s Captain said over the speakers there was a distress signal. I’ve read about, seen in entertainment, and been in too many operations where those with nefarious intent used a fake distress signal as bait to slow down or stop their targets.”