“Got cocky,” she hissed. Moaning in pain, she moved her arms underneath her chest to push off the ground and sat up. She gingerly pushed the hood off her head and reached up to touch the back of her skull.
It was sticky, and still tender as hell. “How long was I out?”
>>About three paragraphs in our argument, so maybe a few seconds.<<
“Going to have to clean my cloak or trash it. This blood is going to smell.”
I wouldn’t trash it. We worked hard to have some protection woven into the material, TOM told her.
“What?” she asked as she studied her cloak’s sleeve.
Not there, just the hood. We figured you would wear armor, but never anything for your head so Billy the Binary Boob there was able to get something special added to the cloaks that were placed on the ship.
>>It seems like it helped stop those needles.<<
Which we wouldn’t have needed to worry about if Bethany Anne had been fucking paying ATTENTION!
“TOM, stop it. It wasn’t ADAM’s fault,” she hissed. “And in case you haven’t been paying attention, Bethany Anne isn’t here right now.”
No shit! he said before his presence disappeared.
She couldn’t feel him in her mind at all.
Baba Yaga waited a moment, but he didn’t come back. “Well, that’s one way to get rid of the insufferable little twit,” she hissed, frustrated.
>>I’m sure there are better ways than almost getting killed to encourage us to leave you alone.<<
“I don’t want to push away either of you,” she replied, lifting the hood back over her head, “but his comment wasn’t appreciated.” She stood and moved her head in a circle, willing the bones to crick. She leaned forward a bit to take a look, then straightened, moved over five steps, and looked again.
“Got you,” she snarled.
The two females were obediently waiting, eyes down a little, as the Shrillexian pointed at them, his yelling so vitriolic he was practically spitting.
“You are both useless when it comes to your jobs!” he yelled. “Giving back what you took from her bag was a worthless display of nice.”
A hand and arm appeared in the air behind him, and Keitphet saw the girls’ eyes focus on something over his shoulder. He twisted and reached for his pistol, but the hand grabbed his shoulder and pulled him backward.
The females blinked. Keitphet was just gone.
“You scaly little useless bastard,” Baba Yaga hissed in his face. “I can’t believe I let you shoot my ass you little worm.”
He tried to grab his gun and bring it around to shoot the Witch, but she grabbed his hand and crushed the bones. She bent the barrel on the needler at the same time. “How does that feel, you little shit?”
Ignoring his cries of pain, she flung the gun into the mist and shot a red ball of energy which met it ten feet away, melting it before it hit the ground.
Keitphet wasn’t paying attention. He was trying to get away, hoping he could figure out where he was and find a place to hide for a few days and let his hand heal.
Behind him an ink-black face was frowning, her sharp teeth glistening in the light. “That little fuck was the mastermind the whole time?” She shook her head in disgust. “What have I become? So egotistical that I let little scum like that almost drill me?”
She turned to spit to the side.
>>What are we going to do?<<
“I want to torture that little Shrillexian bistok prick so bad I can taste it,” she said. After taking a couple deep breaths she continued, “But I’ll settle for leaving him here to find his way home.”
She started walking into the mist in the direction he had run in. “Okay, maybe just a little bit of torture,” she said aloud. “I’m sure I’ll feel better knowing I got my pound of flesh.”
Don’t you want the Kurtherians more?
“Oh, there you are,” she hissed in exasperation. “What made you come out to play?”
Just wondering who you wanted more, that bistok prick or the Seven? TOM asked.
She stopped walking and her face was full of frustration as she looked in the direction he was jogging.
Her desire to find and flay him alive, his screams satiating her anger for shooting her, wailed in the forefront of her mind.
Her eyes flamed red in annoyance and she stopped.
“FUCK!” she screamed into the fog.
A moment later she disappeared.
Near Park Area TT-745
Lerr’ek walked through the park, giving himself an enjoyable few moments of peace amongst the trees.
Nock walked beside him. It had taken him a couple of weeks to find another bodyguard he could trust. Finding a Krenlock had been a miracle in itself.
Working for the Mistress of the Planet was almost a religious experience. As in, he had to have faith she would show up.
So far he was shipping a huge quantity of material to the Etheric Empire through a new cut-out, and that was starting to provide a nice balance in the company’s accounts.
Enough that he had sat down one night with three bottles of a drink that would put him on his ass and watched a mesmerizing multi-color video to help him ponder the future.
He drank a third of the first bottle before he got up, swept the three bottles up, and dumped them down the drain. Getting drunk wasn’t going to help his thinking at all.
And deciding to go against the Mistress would cause him to always be looking over his shoulder.
She would either come back to Devon or she would continue to operate as she had, sending instructions herself or through Stephen. His job for the next decade was to pay off his debt.
Then he could decide what to do. Until then, he was going to do everything he could to support the Mistress.
Including changing this damned world.
Nock’s four eyes always searched around them. He openly carried a large rifle, and was constantly vigilant. He had blocked two efforts on Lerr’ek’s life so far, and who knew how many he had stopped just by walking beside him?
I am here, a voice said in his mind.
“Shit!” He spun around and grabbed the rifle as Nock started to turn toward him. “NO!” he yelled, pushing the rifle down.
Nock stopped, but all four of his eyes were focused on someone now standing behind Lerr’ek.
“Who is that?” Nock asked, his guttural voice deep and slow. Some thought Krenlocks were slow, but the miracle was that they could speak at all.
Lerr’ek, hoping Nock wouldn’t push him out of the way and try to raise his rifle, took a quick look behind him. His shoulders relaxed.
It would have sucked to guess wrong and now have an enemy able to shoot him in the back. “That’s the Mistress.” Lerr’ek let go of the rifle. “Don’t shoot her. You will only piss her off.”
A flare of red shot through her eyes for a moment before receding. “I’m still dealing with the last asshole who tried. Who knows, I might need a shrink to deal with it.”
Lerr’ek turned toward his boss and bowed slightly. “Mistress.”
“Lerr’ek.” She nodded and turned her gaze toward the Krenlock. “Nock.”
Nock nodded, but she saw that his eyes were already looking around them. “What race is he?” she asked Lerr’ek.
“Do you wish to speak here?” he asked instead. When Baba Yaga shook her head he suggested, “Then perhaps in my office?”
“Sure,” she agreed, “but you will have to lead the way.”
Lerr’ek continued walking into a large pedestrian tunnel with shops lining either side of the forty-foot wide and thirty-foot tall passage. “He is a Krenlock,” Lerr’ek started as Nock walked behind them.
“Just watch the back,” she called over her shoulder, jerking a thumb behind her. “I’ll get the front.” She turned her face forward again.
Lerr’ek looked at her. “I smell blood.”
“Mine,” she admitted. “It was an object lesson that even an elephant can die due to a germ.”
“I’ve no idea what an elephant is,” Lerr’ek admitted, “but I’m assuming you mean something large?”
“Yes,” was all she said. “So…Krenlock?”
“They are a distant cousin to the Zhyn, genetically speaking. Smart at an instinctual level, and if they like you they are impossible to subvert. Once they decide they will take a contract they will do their best, period. I found Nock a couple weeks after our meeting.”
“Trouble?” she asked.
“Twice he has blocked attacks, no idea how often him just walking with me stopped others.”
“We show you have been attacked virtually a lot of times.”
“Twenty-seven,” he agreed.
“No, two hundred and seventy-six,” she corrected. “ADAM has been helping. He let through the ones which had zero chance of affecting your security setup.”
Lerr’ek reached up and stroked his chin. “My security is inadequate?”
“Very,” a voice said from his bone conduction speaker. “I will suggest a security strategy for your team to implement now that I understand the methods your competition has used to attack you. Plus, we have brought a computer connection to provide you off-planet computing resources which can’t be hacked from here.”
Lerr’ek spoke aloud. “What about being hacked where they reside?”
“Un-fucking-likely,” Baba Yaga replied having listened in on the conversation with ADAM. “That shit was hidden in rock inside one of the safest locations in the Empire and then forgotten.”
“Forgotten?” he asked.
Nock’s eyes continued to search each store they passed, the air vents above, and the people around them as the three walked through the tunnel.
“More later,” she replied. “Too busy out here.”
“Drink?” Lerr’ek asked as the two of them reclined in dark chairs around a small table in his personal office.
Nock had stayed outside and closed the door behind them.
“No, thank you,” she replied, and she nodded to the door. “He’s trustworthy?”
“One of the best you can buy, but they come with a caveat,” he admitted.
“Which is?”
“You have to explain why you need them, and worse, your purpose,” Lerr’ek admitted, “so I had to explain that this world was going to be run by another, and what your expectations were.”
“And he believed you?”
“Yes.” Lerr’ek poured himself a small drink of a local fruit juice. “It seems the concept was too farfetched for a Zhyn to make up, so it had to be true.” He raised his drink in her direction. “Ah-twa-zay,” he said before tossing it down.
“I have the information on the leaders who are shit.” She looked up at him. “Which is most of them, and also the ones who are good.”
“How many?” he asked.
“Two,” she admitted. “You will need to get them to come here this afternoon. They will need to know the plan for a new Devon. There will be openings in the political hierarchy, and we need decent people to fill them.”
“How many are going to be removed?” he asked.
“None of the worst can come back. Many of the really bad will be shipped off-planet to a location which has poor interplanetary transportation. If a few of the second batch piss me off, they will become members of the first crew.”
“None will be staying on-planet?” Lerr’ek asked.
Her eyes flared once. “Oh, the first group will be staying on planet. Their bodies will fertilize the ground to support a future generation of Devons who will know what a decent political support structure should look like,” she answered. “Mind you, those who are currently in Group One have already perpetrated actions worthy of the death penalty, so I’m not acting without reason. They have been classified as incorrigible.”
“Do you need support?” he asked. “I can strap my weapons on again.”
“No.” Her voice grew soft. “I’ve got support, I just need to listen to them more often,” she admitted. “Once we have this political issue solved, you will receive new designs for my base. I will be moving additional people here in the future so the base is going to be huge, with additional room for expansion.”
“Why?” Lerr’ek asked. “Are you expecting to go out and attack others?”
“No, I’m expecting others to want to attack here. And the best way to say ‘no’ is with guns the size of asteroids and a willingness to pull the trigger.” She pursed her lips. “I suppose it goes without saying that one without the other is useless.” She pushed her chair back and stood up. “I will be finished with this operation by tomorrow morning when the light breaks.” She tapped her finger on the table. “You have the names of the two people in your message queue. Send me a message if you are unable to get them to come here.”
She started for the door and Lerr’ek stood up. “Do you have an operation name?” he asked as she passed him.
She turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow.
“Military.” He shrugged. “We often named our operations.”
“Yes…” She thought a moment. “Let’s call it ‘Night of the Long Knives.’”
10
QBBS Meredith Reynolds
Lance nodded to the two guards outside the small meeting room. One opened the door for him, allowing Lance to sip his coffee as he stepped through.
Thank God they had brought all the seeds they needed for the required delights from Earth, or he might have wished for a much shorter life.
“Bartholomew.” Lance nodded to his compatriot. Barnabas and Stephen were already sitting at the table discussing something.
“You doing all right?” Admiral Thomas asked, handing Lance a breakfast pastry. “This one was made out of a fruit from Yoll.”
Lance took a bite. “Shit!” he mumbled as the pastry made a mess all over his shirt. “Dammit!” He looked down and handed his coffee cup to Admiral Thomas, who chuckled, then grabbed a napkin and started wiping the shirt. “Wow,” he mused as the fruit came off, “this fruit doesn’t stick to it.” He turned to toss the napkin away. “Thank the Lord. Patricia would have strung me up for messing up my new shirt.”
The Admiral handed the coffee back to Lance. “I think your wife just knows you.” The two walked over to the table. “That fruit is a serious stain-monster on normal clothing, so,” he nodded to the shirt, “she must have had that shirt made out of some sort of special cloth.”
Lance looked down to where the fruit had formerly resided on his shirt and grunted. “Good stuff.”
The two men took a seat. “Barnabas, Stephen.” Lance nodded and took another sip of his coffee. “How are things?”
“Ready to go out with Tabitha and Peter in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours,” Stephen replied.
“Any ideas where?” Lance asked.
“Sure. We will swing by a couple of Nathan’s suggestions, one of Tabitha’s, and then the planet Devon.”
“Devon?” Admiral Thomas pursed his lips. “Where is that, and why would you look there?”
“It’s out of our boundaries, and I know of a contact she might speak to over there. I’ve tried calling him, but his answers are just a touch vague—which seems fishy to me.”
Lance put his coffee down and picked up his tablet, turning to the notes for this meeting before asking, “Why not go sooner?”
“I’m not sure if there really is a problem or if I’m butting up against an HR issue.”
“HR?” Barnabas asked.
“Something Baba Yaga told him a while back. Essentially her whole HR book is condensed into one rule.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask, but what is it?” Lance asked.
“Don’t piss her off,” Stephen replied. “I can’t tell you more than that, but it is a fine example of simplicity.”
“How about those gray areas when you don’t know if what you are doing is going to piss her off?” Admiral Thomas asked.
“Then they call me,” Stephen admitted, to the c
huckles of those at the table.
Admiral Thomas leaned forward. “So even though you call the main contact, your questions related to her whereabouts—if she is sharing that at all—are going to be deflected because she knows you might call?”
“Yes,” Stephen answered.
Admiral Thomas’s eyes sparkled. “Fucking brilliant. One rule to worry about, and she offloaded the annoying questions to you.”
Stephen shrugged. “I think maybe she should have offloaded more to me in the last hundred years.”
“I thought she had,” Barnabas said, looking around the table. “I don’t know what else we should have taken from her shoulders, but I really did think we had the load.”
“I’m not sure,” Lance replied, “that we knew what to look for. It’s obvious in hindsight, but most situations like this are.”
“The Yaree,” Admiral Thomas offered. “Her getting into the middle of the battle was a big-ass sign that she wasn’t doing what she wanted to be doing.”
“Baba Yaga,” Stephen put out for the group. “That was just a modification of Karillia so she could continue to get out and mix it up.”
“Her people dying all the time, and she had to stay out of the action.” Lance sighed. “It hits every leader at some point. He nodded to Admiral Thomas. “Some of us, at least, have the training to know what to watch for in ourselves. When I feel too much stress I reach out to Bartholomew here to vent some, or Patricia.”
“Same,” Admiral Thomas admitted, “except not Patricia.” He smiled. “I have another confidant.”
Barnabas raised an eyebrow and Admiral Thomas pointed a finger at him. “Stay out of my secrets, old man.”
Barnabas smiled as the door opened behind Lance. “I have so far, but now I have an itch. I won’t read your mind, but you have provided me with a puzzle.”
“What’s a puzzle?” Frank asked, as the door shut behind him. “I love a good puzzle.”
“Admiral Thomas has a significant other he isn’t sharing,” Lance told Frank as the man walked behind him to take a chair between him and Stephen.
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 125