She slammed her foot down. “She is leaving me out of my own Gott Verdammt VENGEANCE!” Baba Yaga screamed in response.
TOM said, She probably wanted to save you, keep you from danger.
“WHO THE HELL IS SHE TO TELL ME WHAT I CAN DO WITH MY LIFE?” Baba Yaga shrieked. She reached up, hands shaking as she grabbed the locks of her helmet and undogged, then yanked the helmet off her head and yelled in frustration as she threw it fifty yards away, “GOTT VERDAMMT AIs!”
So AIs shouldn’t make choices with your life and what you can do with it so that you are safe? TOM asked.
HELL NO! Baba Yaga shouted back in frustration, wishing she could choke an AI at the moment.
Then why, TOM asked, his voice calm, did you do it to your friends?
Baba Yaga stood in the middle of the Valley of the Damned and ever so slowly hung her head. A tear tracked down her cheek and her shoulders dropped as the words cut into her heart and released the dam of her pain.
Then she knelt slowly on the ground, shoulders shaking.
If you cry on a foreign world, can anyone hear you?
Kurtherian Ship K’galeth
Levelot laid Torik on the medical bay bed, coughing as she tried to get the smoke from the fire on the bridge out of her lungs.
She had placed Var’ence in the medical pod half an hour ago and it was working feverishly to keep her Leath body alive. Torik had been okay, she had guessed, and now he was hooked up. When Var’ence was healed, she would switch the two of them.
Making sure the system could notify her if anything went amiss, she worked her way back to the bridge.
It was a mess. A portion of the back wall behind the table was black with scorch and burn marks, and her nose wrinkled as she stepped over a piece of the wall which had collapsed. Once at the pilot’s station, she brushed off the chair and slowly slid her too-big body into it.
Unlike others of their kind, the Phraim-’Eh clan planned for operation of their spaceships with a variety of bodies.
She turned on the computers, and was pleased they seemed to be fine. She waited patiently as they tried to figure out where in the Universe they were.
Planet Vel’aisle, Valley of the Damned
The solitary figure with white hair and red eyes and ink-black skin slowly rose from her kneeling position, then turned to look around her at the death and destruction. The edges of the field in the distance were murky, indistinct, hard for her to focus on.
She reached up and wiped the tears from her face. “TOM, you are a real asshole,” she said aloud.
I love you too, Bethany Anne.
Slowly, ever so slowly, her skin started changing. Her hair roots became dark and then her hair strands slowly changed from white to black.
Her eyes dimmed, stopped their glowing, and returned to her natural color, her human teeth returning to their natural shape in her mouth.
Bethany Anne didn’t even allow herself to whimper in pain.
In minutes, perhaps many minutes, the Empress of the Empire stood in the Valley of the Damned and surveyed the grassy plain.
“Are they all dead?” she asked, her voice quiet on the wind.
Here? TOM asked.
She nodded. “Yes, and above. Did Shinigami get them?”
I can vouch that those here are dead, TOM replied.
>>We will need to confirm the video, but missiles did hit their craft,<< ADAM added.
“That’s something,” she murmured to herself.
Bethany Anne thought back to Earth, to a phrase she hadn’t heard in over a hundred and forty years since soon after they left Earth.
“Hello Darkness, my old friend,” she said aloud, then sighed and looked up to the sky above. “I really fucked up.”
“How?” a voice—her own—responded in her mind.
“I failed to bring those who love me with me,” she answered, and tried to remember where she had thrown her helmet. “Now even my vengeance may be incomplete.
“Is it important that your vengeance is incomplete?” the voice asked. “We aren’t finished yet. We have the option to continue. There are three of them, and three of us.”
“Two trinities battling it out?” Bethany Anne asked aloud, walking toward her helmet. At least, she hoped she was walking in the right direction. There were a few tentacles she couldn’t see past. “Where is the Shinigami?”
“There is but one trinity, one three-in-one. The other three are trying to be that which we already are.”
“We aren’t gods, Darkness,” Bethany Anne corrected.
“We are if you want to be one,” the voice replied. “You are, if you want to stay one.”
“That is not what I want. My friends are not beholden to me.” She looked around. “Where the fuck is my ship?” She walked toward the massive hole which ADAM had created and stopped at the edge. “My God, what have we wrought?”
“Death, destruction, justice, and vengeance, which we can continue to dispense forever if you but choose to do so.”
Bethany Anne shook her head. “You seem like you really wish to go around beating people up and righting all the wrongs.”
“Who said anything about merely beating them up?” the voice retorted. “I’m not here to be nice. I’m here to be the final solution. I’m not called the Avatar of Death for laughs.”
“You are called the Avatar of Death because you are a hideous and uncontrolled monster,” Bethany Anne replied, not really paying attention to her words as she looked inside the hole to see if her helmet had fallen into the pit, which was fifty yards wide at the top. “You love no one, and no one loves you,” she finished, now sure that her helmet wasn’t in the pit.
“Is this what you believe?” Darkness asked.
There was a pause as Bethany Anne looked around the valley. “Yes,” she finally answered. “This is what I believe.”
When Bethany Anne’s eyes opened for real, she was kneeling in the middle of the Valley of the Damned.
Confused, she looked at her hands, turning them from back to the front. She realized her skin was changing from inky-black to her natural color.
She could feel her teeth changing as well.
What the hell?
Hello, Bethany Anne, TOM said in her mind.
“Are they all dead?” she asked slowly.
Here? TOM asked.
“Yes, and above. Did Shinigami get them?” she said, thinking back to her dream.
I can confirm that those here are dead, TOM replied.
>>The missiles did hit their craft, but we cannot confirm or deny yet that it was destroyed.<<
“That’s something,” she murmured to herself, feeling at peace for the first time in what seemed like forever.
“Where is the Shinigami?” she said, realizing she had never been able to get an answer in her dream a moment ago.
>>The Shinigami will be here within ten minutes.<<
She stood up and stretched, looking around the field of war. “Anyone know where my helmet went?”
TOM answered, You threw it to the left of the hole ADAM created to kill the large creature.
She started walking toward the hole, wanting to see it for real this time, and once past a particularly large tentacle piece she easily spotted her helmet. At the edge of the hole she saw, some fifty feet lower, the blue blood of a creature soaking the dirt at the bottom of the pit. She couldn’t see the creature itself, but there was no movement down there.
She headed toward her helmet.
“I am not a god,” she murmured to herself. “My friends are my strength, not my slaves or my underlings.”
You want to talk about it? TOM asked, surprising Bethany Anne.
“Can I say ‘Not really’ and have you believe me?” she replied. Looking up to the sky, she noticed a black speck in the distance. “Thank God.”
Probably not, TOM admitted. However, there are some messages that are queued up for you.
How many? Two hundred? Five hundred, or is it more than a th
ousand? she asked, wondering just how many messages the Empress of the Empire was behind on. She was ready for whatever the number would be. She deserved all the pain and suffering for skipping out on everyone, making them shoulder her load.
Eight, TOM answered.
It took a second for Bethany Anne to remember what question TOM was answering. “Eight? That’s it?”
Those were the only ones important enough that those in the Empire felt they needed to forward.
“Who are they from?”
Stephen, John, Patricia, your dad, one from all the Bitches together, Tabitha, Peter and Barnabas, and Team BMW.
Well, and a queue that isn’t as important, TOM admitted.
“How many in that?” she asked.
You don’t have enough years left in your life to get through it, TOM told her. ADAM read and answered most of them, or rerouted them to the appropriate contacts. Maybe thirty are relevant for you to review yourself.
“So, you are telling me the Empire did just fine without me?” she asked, watching the Shinigami slow down. As she checked herself over, she was pleased to see the power pack still in place in her armor. She lifted her helmet and said, “Shinigami, one coming up.” She engaged the antigrav on her suit and kicked off, heading up into the air to meet the Shinigami four hundred feet up.
The ship slid by slowly. When she reached out a hand and grabbed the hatch opening it felt like her arm might get pulled out of the socket, but she pulled herself inside the ship and the hatch irised slowly closed behind her.
The ship pointed its nose up and soon the sleek black craft was cutting through the atmosphere, leaving Vel’aisle and the Valley of the Damned behind them.
24
QBBS Meredith Reynolds
The mood in the small amphitheater-style meeting room was hopeful. General Lance Reynolds had called everyone on the base who had a need to know and requested their presence.
If you weren’t on the list—even family—you weren’t allowed in.
Nathan, Ecaterina, John, Eric, and Kael-ven were all on video feed. The five of them were coming back to the Meredith Reynolds, but they were still a day away from the station.
Patricia rubbed Lance’s back as they talked with Frank, Darryl, and Scott. Barb was speaking with Cheryl-Lynn and Tina.
Lance felt a little push and turned to his wife, handing her his drink. “I’ll get started.”
He walked to the front of the room. “Thank you all for coming, and thank you video-link folks for making your way here with all speed.” He waited as everyone took their seats.
“Everyone here knows by now that I have a reply from Bethany Anne.” He put up a hand to stop Tina from asking a question. “It’s from Bethany Anne, not Baba Yaga.”
A sense of relief settled on the group. Further, a sense of hope infused them.
She was coming home.
“To those who sent messages and hope and annoying Empress Questions, she returns her love and appreciation. To those who sent the Empress Questions,” he looked to his left, “especially you, Cheryl-Lynn, she sends a big fat raspberry.” He winked as the audience chuckled.
“She said to tell you that if you were answered, ADAM replied on her behalf. The other thirty questions she will take care of when she gets back, and she has some questions for you before she supplies an answer.”
“Sonofabitch!” Admiral Thomas spit out. “No wonder my request got turned down.”
Lance just looked at the Admiral, who shrugged. “What? I needed answers, so I sent questions. We didn’t know what would cause her to snap back to reality. Plus, I told you about them, Lance.”
“Lance?” John called, and the General turned around to view the five faces on the video screen behind him.
“Yes?” he answered.
“How is she?” he asked. “Not what she says, but how does she look?”
“Strangely enough,” Lance replied. “she looks tired but calm. I think she had an opportunity to learn something about herself during this,” he ‘ummed’ a second before finishing, “effort?”
John nodded, but followed up with another question. “Did she get all of the Kurtherians?”
Lance shook his head. “Didn’t say, John. I imagine that is a clue that we should expect a ‘no.’” John simply nodded his understanding, so Lance turned back to speak to the larger group. “She is about three days away, and will arrive in one of our main docks. We are clearing one out so it can be a personal meeting.”
Lance noticed a hand up. “Yes, Bobcat?”
“Can we welcome her home?” he asked.
Lance nodded. “Bobcat, I think any who would like to should do so. I know I’ll be there.”
He pointed to the right. “Yes?”
“Immediate family, or extended?” Scott asked.
“Let’s have it be the immediate group.” Lance put his hand up in the air. “Lift your hand if you will be there.”
All hands went up.
“That’s what I expected,” Lance said as he dropped his hand, and those out in the audience followed his action. “If everyone adds their families it gets overwhelming. I don’t think she is on the edge any longer, but I don’t want to add too many and push our luck.”
“Are we going to overwhelm her, Lance?” Patricia asked. “I don’t want to scare her away.”
Lance used the back of his hand to rub his chin. “I’m making an executive decision here and saying no, but I’m going with my gut.” He pointed to the bottom row of the auditorium. “Ashur?”
Ashur chuffed, and a few of those around him who heard chuckled. “No,” Lance replied, “I’m positive that taking a bite out of her ass is not a good first greeting for her.”
Ashur whined.
“I know.” Lance nodded his agreement. “She deserves a bit of punishment for what she put us through, but I believe she is already giving herself more shit than we would. Just make sure you accept her, and don’t…” He looked up. “Hear me here, don’t treat her any different. She will be off her rhythm when she gets back. If your request needs to be reviewed, we will set up a channel for your communication. Don’t be surprised if the answer is signed ‘ADAM.’ If you want to know the reason, just reply to the answer and follow the conversation with ADAM. He is fully capable of just asking Bethany Anne if he needs to.”
He put up a finger. “However, if she wants to answer it she will. Don’t push it and try to get her to answer your request. If you do push yourself past ADAM or whoever is answering for her, I will put my size ten-and-a-halfs up your ass.”
Bobcat leaned over and whispered to William, “That’s where she got that phrase from.”
William nodded. “Word.”
Tina leaned forward to look around Marcus, giving the two men the eye. On the other side of Bobcat, Yelena patted his arm. “Shhh!”
For another fifteen minutes Lance answered questions, and then they broke up and went back to their jobs.
QBS Shinigami
Bethany Anne sat at the table in the galley, sipping a drink similar to hot chocolate while her mind accepted the reality of what ADAM and TOM were telling her. “So they got away.”
Both ADAM and TOM chose to speak through the audio.
“That can’t be confirmed,” ADAM answered. “Considering the last few still images from the video confirmed missile strikes the ship could have arrived and immediately blown up.”
“Or,” TOM added, “it was destroyed after arriving. Remember, I did one of those ‘Oh shit’ jumps.”
“Yes,” she replied, “and you found Earth.”
“Ahhh…” TOM thought about that for a moment. “Let’s remember that randomly finding a viable planet was a long shot. I was trying not to become a little splat on the universe’s windshield with that wormhole.”
She nodded, thinking back to the first time he had told her the story. “What is the chance they are still in this area of space?”
Before replying, TOM considered the evidence he and ADAM
had been studying.
“From the images, and calculating the direction they were pointed, we normally would have some clue as to their destination. However, since Shinigami caught them by surprise and there were no emissions, which suggested their jump engine was fully warmed up, I’d be willing to bet they are lost. Frankly, the missile hits alone would have thrown them off course. Either way, assuming they are alive, they are in a world of butthurt.”
“Lost how?” she asked.
“Lost to themselves, and to us,” he answered. “If they are alive and their engine is dead, they are dead. If they are alive and their engine is viable but has no jump abilities, then they are most likely dead. It will just take longer. If they are alive and have jump capabilities, they will be able to eventually get somewhere they can live.”
ADAM said, “What would be their next step, assuming they can find a safe place?”
This time TOM thought about that question for a few minutes, long enough for Bethany Anne to become concerned. “You still in there?”
“Yes,” TOM replied. “I am trying to determine what the Phraim-’Eh clan would do, and it is stumping me. This group has been reduced from eight to three. You followed them all over this area of space and killed them. We beat their nanocyte reprogramming.”
“That was your doing,” Bethany Anne pointed out.
“Me stopping the nanocytes, ADAM pucking the hell out of the monster, Shinigami beating the attack—”
Bethany Anne interjected, “And ascending to AI status. Good job, Shinigami.”
“I but live to serve and obey,” the AI answered, but started chuckling a moment later. Bethany Anne’s eyes narrowed in confusion when Shinigami’s voice changed and she added, “Sorry, I can’t sell that.”
Bethany Anne looked up to the ceiling in exasperation. “And a sense of humor…so happy.” She chewed her lower lip. “So, so happy.”
This is what you get for impressing yourself as Baba Yaga on an EI.
I’m sure I’ll be paying for that for centuries.
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 138