Now he was back, and he had asked to meet in All Guns Blazing because, try as he might, he couldn’t find Coke anywhere else in the Systems.
The drink was damned good. This time he was going to store three of those barrels if he could, or find out how he could keep it for a while if it went bad too quickly. The last batch he purchased had lasted him a mere two weeks, and he had suffered a terrible head pain for half a day after he ran out.
Apparently one of the very minor ingredients in the drink was slightly addictive.
He didn’t care. It was too good not to get more.
A little while later, his speaker came on. “Ship Powerdrive, this is Control for the Meredith Reynolds. I have you slotting into Commercial Hanger five-five at location one-seven-seven. Is this correct?”
Shi-tan leaned forward to push his talk button. “That is what I understand, Control. Ring Two suggested you would have additional information,” he finished, and released the button.
There was a slight pause. “Yes, the hanger has been rented for seventy-two local hours. Should Powerdrive stay beyond that time, you will be responsible for the additional charges.”
“Powerdrive understands. Seventy-two local hours, and charges beyond are my problem.”
“Correct. Welcome back to the Meredith Reynolds.” The audio clicked off, leaving a slightly annoyed Shrillex.
They knew he had been here before. Personally, Shi-tan was a big fan of governments that didn’t know every time you showed up. Not that he had done anything bad last time.
But eventually, they would have enough information on him that he might find it annoying.
“Gabrielle, wait.” Bethany Anne put a hand on her arm as they wished the last of the Estarians a blessed evening.
“God, Bethany Anne,” Gabrielle murmured. “I’ve had less pain after a workout with you than having these twins in here.” She pulled out two chairs. One she sat in, the other she would use to elevate her feet. “Are you about to tell me why, at a mere five months, I look like Mount Olympus, here?” she grumped as she lifted both feet into the chair.
There was a knock on the door. “John, open the door if that is Eric.”
“It is,” he replied as he opened the door. Eric was surprised to see John step out and close the door behind him after Eric stepped in.
“Family meeting?” Eric asked, as he came up behind Gabrielle and massaged her shoulders.
“Mmmm,” she moaned. “You may stop doing that sometime next decade.”
“Sure, baby,” Eric agreed.
“I know that you know that I know you are lying, Eric.” Gabrielle whispered, her eyes closed. “But don’t remind me that I know anytime soon, ok?”
“Who's lying?” Eric asked.
Gabrielle just reached up and patted the hand that hadn’t stopped massaging.
I really, really don’t want to do this. Bethany Anne sighed.
>>We don’t know it won’t come out ok, and this is the only logical solution we have come up with.<<
I would never hurt either of them, Bethany Anne. However, if we want the best shot at fixing this, we are going to have to go through the surgery. The Pod-doc is having issues with the different nanocytes’ programming.
I know, TOM. We have already been through this too many times. I just… Fuck. I hate my life sometimes.
Bethany Anne tapped the table to get their attention. “Listen you two, we need to have a discussion between you, TOM, ADAM and myself.”
Gabrielle turned, her mouth dropping. “The babies?”
Bethany Anne nodded. “Yes. Although we aren’t at the crisis stage yet, there are some problems and we need to make some decisions.”
Eric lifted Gabrielle’s feet, sat down in the chair, and put them into his lap. He pulled off her shoes and started massaging her feet. “We talked about it some,” Eric said. “You guys have had her in the Pod-doc once a week from the beginning, but twice in the last two weeks. What is going on?”
TOM’s voice came out of the speaker system. “The Pod-doc is having trouble manipulating the programming for the twins’ nanocytes while they are inside Gabrielle.”
Bethany Anne noticed that Gabrielle was surreptitiously wiping away a tear, and wanted to scream. She could throw fireballs and destroy hundreds, but she couldn’t wave a hand and make sure life was fair for two of her closest friends.
Gabrielle’s voice was soft. “You told me that the birth would be tricky and possibly challenging, TOM.” She looked at Bethany Anne. “BA, I can feel your emotions from here. We knew this might be a problem when we talked about changing the programming to allow me to get pregnant.”
Eric nodded his agreement.
Bethany Anne looked at them both, and her voice cracked as she spoke. “The team of ADAM and TOM believe the best chance for them to be healthy would be to put them into the Pod-doc now. That way…” Bethany Anne wiped away a tear of her own. “That way, the analysis can continue twenty-four/seven.” She noticed Gabrielle circling and rubbing her stomach repeatedly.
“What is the earliest a baby has been safe, being born prematurely?” she asked.
“Twenty-one weeks, back on Earth,” ADAM answered from the speakers. “Technically, the Pod-doc can handle it earlier, but the longer the gestation the better. These babies are advanced for their age. They can be born safely now and placed in the Pod-doc.
Eric’s eyes were vacant, Bethany Anne noticed. She thought he was staring at the future.
“Look, we didn’t try to hide information from you, but this last week has been crazy, and we have been waiting for ADAM to finish the simulations before we told you anything.”
Eric stirred. “What are the simulations saying?” he asked. He moved his chair closer to Gabrielle, who grabbed his outstretched hand and squeezed it.
“That is the good news,” TOM answered. “Most of the simulations show an eighty-seven percent chance of success.”
“Yeah,” Gabrielle sniffed, “but thirteen percent is too damned high when you’re the mom.” She looked down, hair falling across her face, her shoulders silently shaking, as Eric gently laid her feet down and enveloped her in his arms.
Bethany Anne’s heart was dying.
ADAM spoke up. “We will be constantly watching and adjusting as we go, Gabrielle. I promise you, my personal promise, that I will dedicate my resources to watching over your children until they are delivered into your arms in good health.”
Gabrielle reached under her hair to wipe away the tears. “Thank you, ADAM.” She sniffed. “That means a lot to me.”
Bethany Anne put her hand on Gabrielle’s shoulder. “We have your back, Gabrielle. These two will join us safely.”
Gabrielle just nodded her understanding silently.
14
QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Military Meeting Room
When Lance walked into the medium-sized meeting room, he nodded to Dan, then Admiral Thomas, John, Frank, Gabrielle, and Patricia in turn, then pulled out the chair at the head of the table and sat down.
“Good morning, everyone. I hope you brought your thinking caps this morning.”
The quiet laughter did nothing to assuage his concern. He looked around the table. “Ok, someone say it.”
“Well, we’ve talked,” Dan spoke up, “in twos and threes, and we just don’t see a way to keep her out.”
“John? Gabrielle?” Lance directed his stare at the Empress’ guard and guard captain, who were sitting next to him.
Gabrielle beat John to the answer. “No fucking way. Not an ice cube’s chance in hell.”
“Well,” Lance sighed as he eyed her, “no need to sugarcoat it for me.”
“If you want me to sugarcoat it,” Gabrielle started, but Lance put up a hand.
He grimaced. “No, I’ve got the same feeling.” He looked around again. “Ok, now that we are all agreed Bethany Anne is going to be in the fight on the Karillians’ home planet against a Kurtherian-modified race, what are we going to do about it?”
“Well, let’s first determine why she will be there,” Patricia spoke up.
“She needs to fight,” John answered. “There is only so much Empress-ing that we can hope to get her to do. Her Bitches, including me, are there for her if she needs something done up close and personal. Or she has Dan’s team go in, or the Navy, or whatever. She has been slowly pressure-cooking and she is going to blow her top sooner or later. When you have the Kurtherians in the fight, you are not going to be able to keep her out of it.”
“She’s the damned Empress,” Lance groused.
“She’s your daughter,” Patricia shot back. “Maybe you shouldn’t have told her so many ‘leadership is from the front stories.’”
“Duly noted,” Lance agreed. “Next daughter, I’ll work on that.”
“Oh?” Gabrielle perked up, looking between Patricia and Lance. “Do you have something to announce?”
The room started chuckling at Lance’s expression when Patricia didn’t answer right away. After a few seconds, she winked. “Not at the moment, but trying is still fun.”
“Gott Verdammt! Give me a heart attack, woman,” Lance mumbled.
“Wouldn’t do you any harm. You would just heal from it,” Dan told him.
“It would still hurt like a sonofabitch,” Lance replied.
“Well, I want to be there when you tell Bethany Anne she has a sister on the way,” Gabrielle informed Patricia.
“I’ll let you know first, honey,” Patricia confirmed.
“Ok,” Admiral Thomas interrupted. “We know she is going to insist on being there, so why don’t we sequester her in a low-risk area? We have the Bitches protect her. That way she’s there more or less safely, and if a few combatants come along, she gets a little action.”
The table quieted down. Dan looked at Lance, who turned to Patricia.
She just shrugged her shoulders, so Lance glanced at Frank, who was taking notes but spared a second to flip his hand back and forth in a universal maybe gesture. Finally, he raised an eyebrow at John and Gabrielle.
The two of them looked at each other. “What do you think?” she asked him.
John scratched his jaw for a moment, then spoke to the whole table. “That’s about the best we are going to get, I think. She will see through it in a moment, so keep hammering the message that she isn’t supposed to be there in the first place. It might mollify her.”
“Ok.” Lance looked at his wristwatch, an anachronism from Earth. “We have ten minutes until our meeting with the Karillians. Let’s not all hit the door at the same time.”
The meeting adjourned, and Lance waited for Patricia to step around Frank before he pulled her over to the side for a personal conversation.
Frank closed his notebook and winked at Dan.
Dan shook his head and hoped Frank wasn’t feeling the winds of the future again. Maybe the Yollin breakfast this morning just gave him gas.
At least, that is what Dan hoped was happening to Frank.
QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Large Meeting Room
Empress’ Guardian Peter walked into the semicircular room, where rows of chairs ascended like an old university auditorium up to the top row. At the bottom was a table that could seat eight if they needed to face the people in the seats, or eighteen if they sat around the table.
There were already people from all over Meredith Reynolds in the seats. Bethany Anne was a big believer in allowing second- and third-tier support personnel to listen in on major discussions. They might not get a chance to contribute at the meeting, but history had shown they would speak with their bosses later.
The Karillian delegation was led in a minute later by Eric. Bethany Anne was already speaking with a small group of her military whom she didn’t normally interact with.
The Karillians’ eyestalks were darting all around, trying to take in everything at once.
Tomthum leaned over to Caspise. “This is more than I expected.”
Caspise nodded. “Not quite a Festival of Assembly, but she is committing a lot of resources to this discussion.”
“Notice how she is laughing with them.” Tomthum pointed with his eyestalk. “Her people do not fear her.”
“Not in the regular sense, that is true.” Caspise glanced around as Eric provided seats for the two delegates. The Karillian guards Keth and Bonn stood behind the delegate and sub-delegate. Eric took their ship’s captain over to the first row of seats facing the table at the bottom of the auditorium.
Bethany Anne looked around the auditorium, then raised her voice a little. “Park them, ladies and gentlemen.” She nodded to the people she was speaking with. They turned and went toward their own seats.
Bethany Anne walked to the side of the table closest to the seats, opposite Lance, Dan, Admiral Thomas, and the two Karillians. There was a seat for her, one for Frank, and an empty one.
“Peter?” she called.
Peter looked up from his conversation with Todd and blushed.
“You’re up here this time,” Bethany Anne told the Were. “Todd, we’re short one chair for you, sorry.”
“No worries, ma’am.” the captain of the Guardian Marines smiled. “I’m good with Peter shouldering the load.”
She watched as Peter squeezed Todd’s shoulder, causing his friend to wince. “No worries.” Peter smiled at Bethany Anne as Todd surreptitiously rubbed his shoulder.
Bethany Anne turned to the assembly after Peter passed her. “Ok, folks, we have some good news, and some bad news. The bad news is, we have less than six months to prepare.”
Bethany Anne’s smile turned harsh. “The good news is, we know where some Kurtherian lackies are going to be.”
She allowed the resulting hubbub to continue for a minute after that declaration, then put her hand up for quiet.
Conversation stopped. “Now, I realize that we won’t be going against the Kurtherians right away. This is an enhanced and select group. From my understanding, the Karillians were first attacked some five hundred years ago. They were able to beat off that group, and since there was no follow-up attack, they allowed themselves to relax after thirty or forty years. Unfortunately, seventy years later, a second attack occurred, and killed a quarter of their population. Between the second and third attacks, the Karillians figured out enough to get into space. Since that time they have kept their world’s location a secret, fearing that all aliens were evil, but there have been three more attacks. That’s six attacks so far.”
“The seventh attack will be launched in about six months.” She faced the front wall of the Auditorium. “Meredith, show us the map.” Those at the table could look at the smaller screens hanging from the ceiling to see what was being displayed up front, or turn in their seats.
The screens at the front had merged to become one, showing the Etheric Empire and the three systems that had previously been part of the Yollin Empire. A blue dot appeared directly at the bottom of the Straiphus System. “That is Karillia. It’s actually easier to get there from a secondary system rather than Straiphus, for gravitational reasons that include a lot of math.”
Bethany Anne turned toward the audience and gave them a thousand-watt smile. “I don’t do math.”
They chuckled along with her. Their Empress might not do math, but she kicked ass like Einstein did math and that was enough for them.
She turned back to the map. “We know amateurs talk tactics and professionals talk logistics, so that is why many of you are here.” This statement caused more than a few of the people responsible for logistics to sit up a little straighter.
Lance covered his smile with a hand. His daughter rarely missed a chance to compliment even those in the operations side of her organization. Perhaps she was a bit of a pain in the ass about fighting on the front, but he wouldn’t change one damned thing about her.
There was only one thing that had kept her alive so many decades ago, and that was her deep-seated belief in fighting hard for what she believed in. It had caused Michael to choose her when sh
e was dying, and it was the quality which brought the guards to surround her and fight for her with their lives.
It was why everyone loved her to this day. Well, not everyone, but many. Those who didn’t appreciate that violence was an appropriate answer to some questions, would never love Bethany Anne.
And that was just fine with her.
“We will need to figure out the quantity of fighters required based on past experience, the enemy’s probable enhancements based on the delta between each invasion, and what they need to get in and back out again. I’ve spoken with the Karillians and we think this is their final push.”
She looked at those in the seats. “They are here to exterminate the population of the Karillian’s world. We don’t know if they intend to occupy it, or just leave it empty. Our consultant on the issue believes they might use the planet as a forward base.”
Caspise leaned over to Tomthum, who met him in the middle. He whispered, “They have a consultant?”
Tomthum’s eyestalks made the gesture which conveyed he had no idea what she was talking about.
“The Etheric Empire has sent Articles of Agreement to the Karillian leadership, informing them that they are now members of the Etheric Empire.” This caused a murmur in the group. Bethany Anne put up a hand. “This wasn’t necessary for our help, but rather recognition by those in the delegates’ party that it was the least they could do to repay us for the blood and effort we would be expending.”
Bethany Anne’s face grew somber, her eyes looking across as her voice became firm.
“Let everyone know the Etheric Empire will forever defend our own, forever defend our friends, and forever defend the helpless!”
Her eyes flashed red, the energy causing her hair to lift and float as the men and women in the auditorium stood up and started cheering.
“AD AETERNITATEM!” Her voice rang clear both in ears…
And minds.
QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Personal Ship Powerdrive
Kiel’s eyes opened at the slight nudge. He focused on the large green hand poking him. “I’m awake,” he spat.
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 59