The girl was giggling.
R’yhek opened his arms as she jumped fifteen feet across two tables and landed on him. She used him like a pole as well, but thankfully, no claws. Then she was next to him. “Dad called it!” she told him, and looked behind her. “Oh, sucks to be him.”
Nathan appeared next to them, his huge hand on his daughter’s shoulder. For this battle she had chosen to be the size of a full-grown woman, but he easily pushed her behind R’yhek. She smiled into the monster’s eyes. “Mom’s over there behind Shi-tan!”
The Pricolici turned and scanned the rest of the bar.
It was chaos.
The large group that had entered was mostly down already in various states of damage, thanks to Shi-tan. To his left, Bastek, the female cat-alien, had bounced her charged baton off two heads, and two aliens who had brandished weapons had been shot.
The barkeeper had his hands up, eyes taking in the scene around him in fear.
“Whoomp!” Shi-tan yelled as he jumped up in the air and replicated the human wrestling move he had been studying, turning sideways in the air and slamming his elbow into one of the aliens who had been struggling to get back up.
Christina flinched when she heard either bones or exoskeleton crack.
Nathan stayed in his monster form and walked over to the barkeeper, who needed to look higher and higher as he approached. The monster reached into a large bag dangling from his hip and pulled out Beethlock’s head.
He was still alive.
Nathan stared at the head in his hands, “Youuuu willll payyyy forr thiisss messs. Givvve theee barrrkkkppppeeerrrr yourrr crrredit nummber!”
Nathan turned the head toward the barkeeper, whose eyes flicked back and forth between the monster and the literal head of the criminal group in this city.
“Why?” the head asked.
Nathan slammed Beethlock’s head into the bar, which caused the electronics in the eye to fritz, before holding it in front of the barkeeper again.
“Two Two Frile Frile Con-temm,” the head spouted.
Five minutes later Bastek had provided medical assistance to as many of those in need as she could before the six members of Bad Company left the bar. Nathan had shoved Beethlock’s head back into the bag and Shi-tan was carrying the pieces of Beethlock’s body, chuckling the whole time about the can of whup-ass they had just opened.
“The spies show nothing between us and the ship,” Ecaterina told her husband, “so why don’t you change back?” She put a hand on his arm.
A moment later, Nathan was back with them.
“Beethlock,” Nathan growled as he walked down the sidewalk, a few aliens giving his group uneasy glances, “you don’t come into our backyard and fuck with us. My people will kick your ass and then they will tell the big bosses.”
Christina had moved up next to her dad, and she opened the bag and peeked in. She smiled at the robotic head looking up at her, “Which also happens to be us, bistok-shit-for-brains,” she told it before she closed the bag again.
—
Bastek walked next to Shi-tan, who looked down at her. “Yes?”
She looked more closely at his arm, “I’m going to need to give you a couple of stitches, or you should spend a bit of time in the Pod-doc.”
Shi-tan twisted his arm to see the cut she was talking about. “How did I get this?”
“Probably that wrestling move,” Ecaterina called back. “The guy you hit on the ground had some metal on him.”
“Huh.” He nodded. “Was probably that.” He put his arm back down and looked at Bastek. “I’ll take the stitches. The Pod-doc takes away my scars.”
“You want them?” she asked before rolling her eyes at the smiling Shrillexian. “Of course you do. Marks of honor and all of that.”
“Of course.” He shrugged as they all paused a moment to let some mechanical traffic cross in front of them. After crossing the street, Shi-tan kept nodding at those they passed who stared at the robotic body parts he was carrying. His smiles caused them to avert their eyes and hurry off to whatever it was they had been intending to do.
He laughed when one young alien turned and ran into a wall, bouncing off it and grabbing its forehead in pain.
Bastek slapped his shoulder. “Don’t be mean!”
“I’m not mean!” Shi-tan shot back. “Mother Ecaterina up there told me I needed to work on not looking so angry all the time, so I’m practicing my smiling.”
“Your smiling,” Ecaterina called, “Is a faceful of sharp teeth!” She dodged a small stump jutting from the concrete. “Try being nice without looking like you intend to eat someone.”
They walked another five steps before she added, “And I’m not ‘Mother’!”
The five of them chuckled softly, except Christina who patted her mom on the shoulder. “Yes you are, Mom.”
Ecliptic Orbit around Howz, Aboard Prometheus Minor
“So,” Nathan turned Beethlock’s head so he could see what remained of his body, “we have your head and your body parts. And we have the option of putting you back together or spacing you and allowing all your parts to re-enter the planet’s atmosphere, which would destroy all evidence.”
“Huh.” R’yhek scratched one of his mandibles. “That’s both incredibly devious and very impressive, Nathan.” He looked at the parts. “Who could find a body if it was nothing but burnt atoms spread all over the atmosphere?”
“I thought so,” Nathan agreed.
“What is it you want?” Beethlock finally spoke. “And why am I supposed to trust you will do what you promise?”
“Because between the two of us,” Nathan said, nodding to Shi-tan, who had entered the large room and turned toward them when he noticed the alien parts on the table top, “I’m the only one who seems to keep his word.”
Shi-tan picked up a hip, leg, and foot. “I wonder what happens—”
“Leave that alone!” Beethlock tried to shout. “Stop fucking with my parts!”
Shi-tan’s eyes narrowed. He leaned over the table toward the head, “And you are who, to give a Shrillexian orders?”
Beethlock stayed quiet.
Shi-tan nodded at the leg, and Nathan winked from behind Beethlock. Shi-tan gave the alien an evil grin, full of teeth. “I’ll just go put these on my wall of trophies, Beethlock. You can negotiate with me for them.” He picked up the parts and walked out of the room.
“WHAT?” Beethlock actually got out a shout this time. “That animal is leaving with my body!”
“That animal,” Shi-tan called from the other side of the door, “heard you!”
The door cut off anything else Shi-tan might have said.
“Keep pissing off those in Bad Company,” Nathan told him, “and I won’t have much left of you to give back.”
“Now,” Nathan spoke loudly enough for the head to hear him as he walked five feet over to a wall that had a tool bench and lot of tools. He grabbed a foot-long half-inch-diameter rod which had a four-inch box on one side and a connector on the other. “I’m thinking you need to provide us with information for this negotiation.” He picked up a connector and turned to face the table, eyeing a port he had found earlier on Beethlock’s head. He turned and put the first connector back, then pulled out another and locked it onto the rod.
He stepped back to the table and palmed the head. “What are you doing?” Beethlock asked as he noticed his jack’s door slide open.
“Making sure you keep your side of the bargain,” Nathan answered as he jacked in the probe. He set the head and probe back down on the table. “For you to get your body back and get back down on Howz, you have to perform three tasks. The first is answer my questions, the second is apologize, and the third is take an oath to your new criminal boss.”
“Who’s that?”
“I was hoping you’d ask,” Nathan grinned and walked around to where Beethlock could see him. “Welcome to Bad Company, you little pissant.”
Inside Beethlock’s head, his h
alf-organic and half-electronic brain screamed in fear.
WHO ARE YOU? he asked, realizing that something had insinuated itself through his firewalls while Nathan had been talking to him.
My name is Prometheus, the entity answered, and you are now my bitch.
Nathan smiled as a green light clicked on and Beethlock’s eye dimmed.
“He will be conversing for a while with Prometheus, R’yhek.” Nathan called to the door, “And you can come on back in, Shi-tan.”
The door opened and the Shrillexian walked back in with the body parts under his arm. “This would have been kind of funny to put on a wall,” he grumped as he placed the chunk of body back on the table.
“Yeah, true.” Nathan clapped him on the shoulder. “Pepsi time?”
“Oh yeah,” R’yhek agreed, and started for the door himself. “I got dibs,” he called over his shoulder as he went through the doorway.
“I wonder if he knows the ladies got into the stash after their spa?” Shi-tan asked Nathan as the two men left the room. A few moments later the room darkened as the EI shut down unnecessary lights.
If one had exceptional hearing, one just might have been able to hear Beethlock’s scream as he gibbered in fear, the EI reviewing his criminal life right inside his own brain.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Noel-ni Mother Planet Dorasei
>>If that missile explodes it will harm at least seventy-two percent of the people within thirty feet, Bethany Anne.<<
Guess we’ll just have to play catch, she told him.
“Guys, I’ll be right back.”
“Why?” John asked as he continued to monitor the situation while holding the young Yollin in his arms. He trotted back toward the vehicle Bethany Anne had been using.
The Bitches saw Bethany Anne put out an arm toward the incoming rocket, and it slammed into her location. Those around her screamed as both Bethany Anne and the missile disappeared.
“Someone shoot that ass!” John bitched. “I’ve got my hands full!”
Down the street, the Noel-ni policeman stared at the place where the Empress had disappeared in confusion until he noticed three of the alien guards staring straight at him.
“Oh—” he got out before two of them, arms blurring, shot him. He crashed back into the street, moaning.
—
“DAMMIT!” Noel-ni Officer-in-Charge Co’mins was screaming into his radio. “Who gave Tellek a damned rocket? And where did the Empress go?”
“Sir,” someone reported, “they’ve shot Tellek!”
“Good!” Co’mins snapped back. “It saves me from doing it!”
“But, sir—” Someone else wanted to argue, but Co’mins had heard enough.
“Listen to me.” His voice went cold as he hissed, “If we don’t maintain a healthy Empress, we might find a shit-ton of rocks laying waste to our finricken planet!” He saw someone holding up another radio and mouthing, “President.” Co’mins wanted to start slapping the idiots around him who weren’t paying attention to those they were supposed to be protecting and watching out for.
“Last time I checked, the empress of a powerful star-faring race doesn’t randomly kill people. Help her people find out who she hit before she disappeared. Co’mins out!”
He slammed his radio down, cracking it. “Someone get me a new finricken radio!”
He put a hand out. “Channel?” he asked. He was handed a headset and told the number. He switched the channel and hit the connect button.
“Co’mins here, President Aerlix.”
—
Bethany Anne reached out to where she calculated the tip of the missile should strike. As it drew near she started twisting her body, pulling her hand away from the missile, and as it slid by her, she moved herself and the metal-based missile into the Etheric.
It made it about twelve feet before it exploded in the whiteness of the Etheric, pelting her with a few pieces of its casing and the strong surge of energy that was its real payload.
Most police tried to use non-deadly weapons.
Bethany Anne wasn’t outside the range of the energy that was designed to electrocute its targets, driving dysfunction through their neurosystems.
Her armor intercepted it and used it to power up, which was a good thing since Bethany Anne had collapsed to the ground from her effort.
>>That took a bit out of you.<<
Fucking metal shit. She rolled onto her back. I’ve got to figure out how to move metal into the Etheric better than I do.
Well, TOM cut in, now that I can see what happened, we can work on it. However, I can’t promise anything. Our understanding never involved moving large amounts of metal. My tribe worked to move organic bodies. Anything we know about metal travel and the Etheric is more accidental than planned.
Noted. Bethany Anne grunted and turned over, pushing herself up off of the ground. Ok, guys, let me juice back up for a minute, then we will go back like a blazing inferno.
—
“Incoming on your six,” Darryl’s voice declared in John’s ear. “Looks like a worried mom.”
John placed the Yollin girl in the car and turned around. He put up a hand and spoke in Yollin as the mom crossed the distance at a healthy pace. “She’s fine, so slow down.”
The mom, her mandibles clacking in fear, looked at the armored alien and then tried to see around him. He stepped away from the vehicle and pointed inside. “Get in with her. When the Empress gets back, I imagine we will cut this short.”
“In?” D’leck asked him. His accent was a little strange.
“Yes, in,” John confirmed. He looked up and drew D’leck’s attention to the sky.
D’leck stopped just outside of the vehicle after seeing Sis’tael was ok and looked up, her mouth open.
There was a monster spaceship coming out of the clouds, and it looked deadly.
—
The president was not happy.
“I have a Yollin superdreadnought coming through my atmosphere right now, Co’mins. I’m sure you’ve seen the same video I have, where our police officer shot at the empress of the alien race?”
Co’mins glanced to the side, his aide mouthing “officer stunned, not killed” and he shook his head.
“Before those aliens shot our police officer!”
“Stunned him,” Co’mins replied.
“What?”
“I’m being told that they stunned him, they didn’t kill him.”
“Well, thanks for small favors. Perhaps our people aren’t going to war…if we can find their Empress.”
The monitors around the van Co’mins was using as a mobile Ops Center started displaying the giant warship parting the clouds as it flamed through the sky, burning the atmosphere like the Chariot of Death itself.
Co’mins felt the first few drops of sweat leaking down his forehead. “Sir, the Navy—”
“Will be unable to fire inside our atmosphere, as we don’t have Naval units that large. Also, our systems have been locked. I’ve got citizens screaming at me right now. So get your people on the ball, find that Empress and…”
The president’s voice dropped off, obviously seeing the same thing Co’mins saw.
The Empress was back, and she was on fire.
—
Jhrex tried to move his muscles, but his body just kept spasming. The crowd around him had already been moving away when the aliens yelled in his own language to “get back on pain—”
They never declared what the pain would be, and frankly Jhrex wasn’t too interested in finding out.
His friend had tried to help him, but with one look the alien had caused him to jump back.
Then she disappeared.
He was busy trying to get feeling back in his arms when she reappeared, and Jhrex hoped that maybe she could reverse whatever it was she had shot him with.
But then he saw her blazing face and the lines of bright red breaking through her skin. Her helmet was off, and red balls of energy blazed in her han
ds before she threw them into the air.
“BRING ME THE ONE WHO HURT MY SUBJECT!” she screamed, her bright red eyes staring at Jhrex.
For once in his life, Jhrex wished he hadn’t pranked someone, and at this point he wasn’t sure if his father could get him out of this trouble…
Or not.
—
Darryl walked toward the Noel-ni and clicked a command in his HUD as he touched the Noel-ni’s spasming body. He waited while his armor siphoned off the energy. The convulsions of the youth, if Darryl had figured his age correctly, started to slow down.
“You are in a world of hurt,” Darryl whispered to the alien, “so stand up and take your punishment like an adult.”
—
An alien came over and put a hand on Jhrex, his spasms slowed and the alien grabbed his arm, helping him to stand and started marching him toward the Empress.
Jhrex looked to his left, noticing six police officers coming from a block away.
“Don’t even think about it,” the fiery woman said, and reached for him.
—
Seconds later none of the aliens were on the ground, since the Empress had disappeared, and the vehicle she had been riding in went straight up into the air. That left the police officers with no one to deal with except those who had been on the side of the street moments before.
—
The president terminated the latest phone call, his lips twitching. The Empress’ ship could apparently operate just fine inside atmosphere, and she was traveling toward the capital.
Even now, that massive ship didn’t look friendly. Worse, her ships in space were arrayed above her, and their Navy didn’t give a damn for the instructions his people had offered. When he had tried to get a direct connection to the Empress after she reappeared, he found himself talking to someone who looked just like her.
But wasn’t.
She called herself ArchAngel and she informed him that the Empress would be there in moments.
And so she was.
The Noel-ni had arranged a large podium and stage where they had been expecting to meet with the Empress after she completed her parade and arrived here in the main area of the city.
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