He looked over to his friend who shrugged. “Why the hell not, right?” he asked. “It’s not like we’re going to be around to deal with the repercussions, right?” Richard looked into the camera, “My name is Richard, I’m a Nacht, a man of the night. My name, many years ago, was Auran the Merciless.”
Jesse breathed out, “No fucking way!”
Richard looked over at him. “So, you’ve heard of me?” Jesse nodded emphatically. “I just want to say the information on Wikipedia is accurate, I made sure of it.” Richard turned back to the camera. “We are about to leave Earth to fight in the stars because we be Bitches…” he turned to his friend who laughed. They clasped each other around their shoulders and smiled.
Together, they turned back to the camera and spoke at the same time, “We be Gabrielle’s bitches!”
With that, Samuel nodded to Colin to shut off the camera, which he did quickly. “Uh,” he waved to get the guys attention.
“Yes?” Richard responded.
“Why did you guys scare the shit out of us?” Colin asked.
“Well, there’s a lot of shit around here that can get you in trouble. If you let it be known, the government is going to confiscate all this video, and probably you too, and stick you in a hole so deep you’ll never see the sun shine let alone get out of it. My boss thought it would be good to get you out of these caves before you saw too much. Unfortunately, we were too late. So, we figured we might have a little fun.”
“That was a jackass thing to do!” Edward called out. “My knee is fucked up for fuck’s sake!” he pointed down to his messed up leg. “All for a little fun?”
Richard raised an eyebrow, then his eyes started glowing red. “It could be a little fun,” he told Edward, who was now speechless. “Or I could just,” two fangs glistened in the lights, “have a bite from your neck and leave your dry husk of a corpse here, Edward. Which is it going to be? Gabrielle will never have to know that I decided to get takeout one last time.”
Edward shook his head vigorously.
“There’s a reason,” he continued, his voice full of menace, “that I’m called Auran the Merciless.”
With that, the red-eyed man turned around and headed back towards the cave’s mouth.
The other man pointed up. “Do you realize that above you several hundred feet, is the US military? I’m sure they would LOVE to know how you got down here. Don’t worry, all of the stories about military torture wouldn’t apply to you, right?” Samuel asked them.
Samuel waved. “Cheers, mates!” he said and then slowly his eyes started glowing red. “Do be good children, or as my friend explained, we could leave you here, husks that are never found.”
The second scary-as-shit man turned around and walked off into the distance, disappearing rapidly.
Colin handed the video camera to Jesse who numbly took it. “I’ve got a degree in engineering. There is no fucking way I want the military probing my ass.”
Jesse looked down at the camera. “Do we keep it?”
Edward whispered, “We sure as hell don’t leave it here, what do you think this is, the Blair Witch Project?”
They turned and looked at Edward who finally looked over to see his friends looking at him. “What?”
“Oh my God,” Jesse said. “You fucking genius!”
Colin slapped his friend on the chest. “Dude, we are going to tell the truth, fake it as a documentary, make a shit-ton of cash and nobody will be chasing our asses at night!”
Jesse turned, trying to work through all of the emotions over the last little while and shook himself. “I don’t know,” he called back to his friends. “I’d let Stacey Karkrossa near my ass anytime.”
In the distance, Samuel smiled. At any time, you could trust a young man to turn everything back around to sex.
Those three would make it just fine, and he and Richard were going to be movie stars here on Earth when the two of them, previously always living in the dark, now had just a bit of their story told.
Even if no one ever believed it.
G’laxix Sphaea
Scott and Darryl smiled at Barnabas as their Pod opened on the deck. “We got it, old man. Coke didn’t know what hit them.”
“I see,” Barnabas said, keeping his own counsel. “So, you were successful with the recipe?”
“Yup, all the way to the special vault in Atlanta, where the recipe was stored.” Scott pulled out a sheet of paper. “Got it right here, you can read it and weep.”
Barnabas pursed his lips. “Just curious,” he mused, “why would a company divulge exactly where the special recipe was located?”
The two Bitches looked at Barnabas and then looked at each other before looking down at the paper Scott was holding. “Damn, we have to compare against someone.”
“Who?” Scott asked.
“Why not me, gentleman?” Barnabas asked. “I’m sure my recipe is correct.”
“What recipe, and how did you get it?” Scott asked, his eyes narrowing.
“From the mind of one of the executives down in Mexico,” Barnabas said, allowing a smile to play across his lips.
“Ooohhhh, Mexican Coke.” Scott murmured, “You are a devious bastard, Barnabas.” He looked at the old vampire. “I admire that.”
“High praise, coming from you, Scott,” Barnabas agreed.
“Well, shit. I guess we’ll need to confirm the ingredients in ours,” Scott looked over at Darryl. “What do you think?”
Darryl’s eyes narrowed. “Do we trust Number One over here?” he asked his friend, nodding in Barnabas’s direction.
“Well, with my wife, sure, my knife probably, but…” Scott started before Darryl interrupted.
“Are you even married, yet?”
“Damn, don’t start on that now,” Scott put up a hand. “It’s not on me. Cheryl Lynn is all freaking out over the coming battle. She says doesn’t want a husband for ten days before she has to bury him.”
Darryl turned to look towards the front of the ship. “Hadn’t thought of that.”
John and Tabitha took the Pod into space to connect with the G’laxix Sphaea. “Don’t be hard on yourself, Tabbi.”
“Kinda hard not to, John,” the young Ranger responded. She pointed at the world, quickly falling away. “My choice of men just went down a bazillion-fold. Now who am I going to go out with?”
“Well, ahhh,” John started, then realized she had a point. “Perhaps you like Weres?”
“A wolf, really?” Tabitha snickered. “Do you see me taking any shit from a hotheaded Werewolf?”
John scratched his cheek, wishing the stubble didn’t grow back so fast. “Tabitha, I don’t see you taking any shit from anyone, whether he’s a Were or a Vamp or…”
“That’s an idea,” she muttered. John stopped his comment and rewound it. “No, that’s not an idea. Getting serious with one of the Tontos?”
The sharp CRACK of Tabitha’s slap on his arm was quickly replaced by the “Ow, Ow OOOOWWWW!” she yelped, rubbing her hand as it healed.
“Forgot about the armor, did you?”
“Why, was it that obvious, captain?” she retorted, then noticed John looking at her. “What… Oh, dammit, moved the captain to the wrong place in the sentence. It’s my Spanglish.”
“It’s your Spanglish?” John grunted. “Here I thought it was your inability to handle pain and high intellectual conversations at the same time.”
“Keep it up, captain… shit, nothing is coming to me,” she grumped, “and I can’t use sexy jokes, cause Jean will kill me.”
“You and me both, sister,” John nodded. “So, back to your dating life.”
“What dating life?” she complained. “Let me give you a hint, the docket is open, nothing scheduled. Hell, nothing penciled in with disappearing ink. I got more cobwebs in… Oh, for fuck’s sake!” She threw up her hands.
“Aren’t you being a little, oh, I don’t know, particular?”
Tabitha stared at the tiny dot that w
as the G’laxix Sphaea. “I don’t think I’m asking too much,” she said. “Alive, breathing, four moveable limbs and another that can relax and harden… No, not too much.”
“Let’s see,” John stuck up his fingers. “Let’s count them. First, between what heights.”
“I’m going to change those numbers.”
“When?”
“Next week.”
“What about hair color?”
“That’s not negotiable. Sorry, redheads aren’t for me. I need some darker color, it’s in my genes.”
“Uh huh, you just killed both Scotland and Ireland with fourteen percent and ten percent respectively.”
“If you hadn’t noticed,” Tabitha replied dryly, cocking a thumb and pointing over her shoulder, “We just left a hundred percent of Ireland that way.”
This time, it took John a moment before he shook his head, “Sister, that was a serious stoner moment for me.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “So, where were you two when I called? I think Bethany Anne said something about terrorists?”
“Oh, Mosul,” John said.
Tabitha’s eyes lit up. “I KNEW IT!” she crowed. “You two were out killing terrorists weren’t you!”
“Wait, what?” John retorted. “You just said that Bethany Anne told you… told … you…” John replayed in his mind what she said. “You sneaky bitch.” He pointed a finger at her. “Now THAT’S why you won’t get a guy, you’ll catch them at EVERYTHING.”
Tabitha shrugged as the Pod came in for a landing on the G’laxix Sphaea. “What can I say, I’m a Ranger.”
John shook his head. The doors on the Pod popped open, and she unclicked and jumped out, swinging her assets like she was what every guy wanted.
All the way until she failed to notice a large hose running across the floor and tripped over it. John closed his eyes and shook his head again.
Bethany Anne was right, she was going to be a difficult match. So far, the odds had it she wouldn’t have a serious boyfriend inside of five years.
John, when he made the bet, hadn’t thought anything about Tabitha too deeply and bet she would be in a relationship inside of six months. He considered her intelligence, her figure, and great personality and thought, Why wouldn’t she?
Now? Now he had to agree she was one of the most scarred people in the group. One of these days, he needed to corner Gabrielle and find out exactly what the two of them did on their night out together back in South America. Maybe that would give him a clue.
Then Father Grimes could hook her up with the right guy.
18
QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Military HQ, Inner Conference Room
General Lance Reynolds, Admiral Thomas, Guardian and Guardian Marines Leaders Peter and Todd, Captain Kael-ven and Kiel were around the table when Bethany Anne strode into the room. Eric and Ashur accompanied her, and Matrix, his little legs pumping furiously to keep up, followed them.
Eric stood behind her as she sat down. He was in full Bitch uniform and now wearing armor. Surprisingly, Bethany Anne was dressed in a new suit of armor as well. “Gentleman,” she nodded and then glanced towards her guests, “and esteemed Yollins,” she added.
Kiel tapped Kael-ven. “I was royalty, now I’m esteemed, which one is better?”
Laughter rippled around the table. Most everyone there had heard about Kiel thinking ‘drama queen’ was a compliment.
Peter helped him out. “Take esteemed over drama queen, in fact almost any word over drama queen.”
Kiel nodded thanks in Peter’s direction. He had been wondering why all of the humans he had told the story to had found it so funny. Bethany Anne and her damned sense of humor.
“I delivered an ultimatum to the President of the US,” she started off. “Are all of our people back safe, or are we dropping kinetics?”
“Safe.” ADAM’s voice came over the speakers. “As soon as you left, he ordered that no one attack TQB personnel.”
“Huh,” Bethany Anne grunted. “I hoped that would be the case, but I had serious reservations that pea balled pencil-dicked poster child for parental screening could find two brain cells to rub together.”
“He also,” ADAM continued, “severed any agreements in place with foreign countries related to TQB.”
Peter grabbed his tablet and started hitting a couple of buttons, then swiping. “Well, that’s pretty much a turn over and show your throat response.” His face dropped. “That’s totally not fair,” he complained, and Todd leaned over to see what was on Peter’s tablet. Both men looked over at a very smug General Lance Reynolds.
Then, everyone at the table looked over at him as he said, “If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.”
Bethany Anne eyed her father. “Let me guess, you said the President would finally capitulate before we left?”
“Maybe,” he answered his daughter.
“No maybe,” Peter answered, looking at his tablet, “ADAM,” he called out, “How many hours ago did the President order the cessation of hostilities?”
“A little under sixteen,” ADAM replied.
“He made it with three hours to go,” Peter told the table.
Lance shrugged. “Not like I wouldn’t have done the same thing with or without the bet, my hands are clean.”
Bethany Anne asked the table, “Okay, now that we’ve harassed the General, who voted against me beating the President?” Three faces around the table got the slack-jawed look of people who hadn’t considered their bet from that perspective.
“It isn’t so much against you,” Admiral Thomas said, “as it was assuming the President would continue to be an unteachable, arrogant, insufferable asshole.”
Peter and Todd both pointed at the Admiral with the leader of the Guardian Marines commenting, “What he said.”
“Right,” Bethany Anne said. “Now we know who won that test of wills.” She continued, “Let’s hear Kael-ven summarize what he projects will happen based on typical Yollin strategies. And then, Admiral Thomas will brief us on our countermeasures. Finally, I want boarding plans from Peter and Todd, and then our backup plans and the backup plans to those backup plans.”
Bethany Anne reached forward and unscrewed the plastic top off her precious bottle of Coke. “God, I’m going to miss this,” she murmured as she took her first sip. “It’s going to be a long one, guys, so we have food coming in a little while. Let’s speed it up and raise a hand if someone is going too fast.”
She smirked. “Time is of the essence, gentleman, and I’m ready to kick some more ass.”
General Reynolds kept his face neutral when he noticed Peter, Kiel, and Kael-ven making pained faces.
Lance was getting to really know his daughter, the multi-faceted woman she had become. Her softer side had been around and growing when Michael had been here. Now? Well, now that she had a taste of letting her inner bitch out, she was going to keep going for more until three years of clamping down on that urge to visit violence with violence was satiated.
Until she met the Yollin King, he doubted Bethany Anne would be able to stuff her Queen Bitch back in the bottle.
He listened to Kael-ven’s concise explanation of the expected Yollin Navy’s tactics and what they needed to do to counteract them.
It was time to cross the line.
Jian woke up slowly and recognized the top of the medical Pod opening up, a slender arm pushing it. “How are you feeling, Jian?” Dr. April Keelson asked the young Chinese man.
Jian blinked a couple of times. “Are you speaking Mandarin?” he asked, confusion in his voice. “I don’t remember you speaking Mandarin earlier.”
“No,” Dr. Keelson answered, helping Jian move his legs out of the medical Pod. “Sorry, this Pod is our version of the original. We’re working to build more Pod-docs. These aren’t nearly as nice.”
Jian moved his leg around to help the doctor. She continued, “You’ve had TQB technology placed inside your head that translates my words.” Jian stood up,
feeling remarkably good.
“What about Shun and Zhu?” Jian asked. “And what all was done to me?”
“Your partners got out of their medical Pods very early this morning. Their bodies have been tweaked, and they have been injected with a Guardian Marine nanite pack. They’re a little more tired than you will feel since, for you, we had to figure out what was going on with your nanites. Once we figured it out, it was corrected.”
“What was corrected?” Jian asked, accepting the clothes and starting to get dressed. He had lost any sense of modesty years ago in the military. He just didn’t care anymore.
“Most of the problems with your nanites were psychosomatic.”
“You are telling me it’s all in my mind?” Jian asked, pondering the implications.
“No, not all of it,” she explained, handing him his boots. “Your existing nanites are now reprogrammed and enhanced. What you received from your parents had instructions that are counterproductive to working in the Queen’s forces. They wouldn’t have let you think for yourself. By keeping yourself calm throughout your life, you never triggered any of these effects.”
Jian kept quiet as the doctor checked his other vitals. While she had never seen any of the Pod-docs, the original, or the new ones, mess up, she was going to double check everything.
After a while, he broke the silence, “So, do you know how I start a change?”
Tabitha made it back to the Meredith Reynolds thanks to the Queen, as she hadn’t wanted to spend the time racing across the solar system in the G’laxix Sphaea. Now, she had changed out of her clothes, finally got clean, and was ready to drown a few fucking sorrows in a beer.
Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Set Three: Books 15-21, Never Submit, Never Surrender, Forever Defend, Might Makes Right, Ahead Full, Capture Death, Life Goes On (Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Sets Book 3) Page 15