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  “Now people,” Peter spoke, cracking his knuckles, “get yourself prepared and Thomas,” he yelled.

  “Sir?”

  “Take care of the lights,” Peter finished his command and smiled, thinking about the fun to come.

  CHAPTER TEN

  All Guns Blazing, Outer Docks - QBBS Merideth Reynolds

  The bar was deceptively big.

  Bobcat, William, and Marcus had started out with a plan, open the first bar in outer space. Then, they decided they wanted the best bar in outer space.

  Finally, they decided they wanted a place where adults could mingle with adults, but the children of their friends could come in, as well.

  That required some interesting ways to change up the architecture. The issue was more of form follows function. The guys thought long and hard about what was needed in a bar and who would probably come and visit.

  First, you had solo drinkers looking for a place to enjoy a drink around people, but not necessarily be part of a crowd.

  Then you had different sized groups of drinkers. Also, there were those that wanted to dance or blow off steam. Maybe play darts, hook up, or other games that came up.

  That all took room.

  Then, you needed a place that children could join in which meant a separate area. Not for the children, William argued, but for the adults who wanted to drink without worrying if a child was going to see them, and then they would be guilty of creating the next generation of alcoholics. Bobcat thought that odd but Marcus agreed with them.

  “Look,” William told Bobcat, “You would start drinking in the morning if you could get away with it.”

  “What do you mean?” Bobcat answered, “I use vodka and cinnamon to gargle with every morning.”

  “I’m sorry,” Marcus interrupted, “You use what?”

  Bobcat turned to his friend, surprised his two buddies didn’t know this trick, “Vodka, the recipe is one cup vodka and nine tablespoons of cinnamon. Put them both in an airtight container after mixing them together and store it for two weeks to let the flavor’s combine. Then, gargle.” He looked at his two friends, “What? It fixes halitosis.”

  Marcus’s eyes opened wide, and he turned to William, “I’m shocked.”

  William shrugged, “I’m not. The fact that Bobcat knows how to mix his liquor so he can drink in the morning is perhaps a little surprising, but it doesn’t rise to the shocked level.”

  “No,” Marcus shook his head and pointed to Bobcat, whose head was pivoting back and forth between the two guys, “Not that he drinks in the morning, but that he knows the term halitosis.”

  William’s face split into a huge grin and reached over to fist-bump the scientist who winked to Bobcat.

  Bobcat looked at William and put up his left middle finger, “You’re friend number one,” and put his other hand up with the middle finger extended to Marcus and looked at him, “And so are you.” Bobcat pulled his left hand around and put both hands, middle fingers extended up towards Marcus, “Actually, YOU get to be friend number eleven.”

  “Yes!” Marcus crowed, hands raised in the air, “I get turned up to eleven!” He turned to William, lowering his arms, “That’s the joke, right? Turn something up past ten?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” William agreed to chuckles all around. “But, it makes my point, Bobcat. You are fine with alcohol twenty-four hours a day. Not everyone thinks that is acceptable.”

  “Especially around children,” Marcus added.

  “I blame your inability to have a hangover,” William commented, “It makes you less sensitive to the evils of drinking.”

  “Just because I don’t suffer myself, doesn’t mean I don’t suffer in quiet sympathy with you poor schmucks,” Bobcat replied, “You should know your limits. My limits happen to be superior to most men.”

  “You mean every man,” Marcus said. “I’ve seen Wechselbalg who have trouble keeping up with you.”

  “Why do you think I gargle each morning?” Bobcat grinned, “Training is the most important part of any good regimen.”

  William’s face went blank, a perplexing look on his face before turning to Marcus, “Could that be right?”

  Marcus turned, “What? Are you asking the rocket scientist if gargling alcohol would help one’s ability to not have hangovers?”

  “Uh, yeah.” William agreed.

  Marcus shrugged, “I’ve no idea. I’d have to set up research to figure this out.”

  Bobcat raised his hand, “I’ll volunteer!”

  Both men turned to Bobcat and barked,” No!”

  —

  Now, All Guns Blazing had the kitchen designed to be in the middle, splitting the more family friendly bar and grill from the more adult bar and recreation area. Both sides of the kitchen had a bar with stools, but one side had tables and booths for eating, and the other had high tables, a dance floor, darker booths for private conversations and an area for darts and other games.

  There were a dozen private rooms on two levels that could be rented for either business meetings or parties.

  Or both.

  The docks area, a large area on the Merideth Reynolds, was growing. Storage, warehousing, housing, and businesses were built to handle all of the externally focused roles and activities. There were two high-speed magnetic trams which delivered people back and forth between the Docks, and In-world.

  One of the main features of All Guns Blazing was the large viewing deck with a window twenty feet high and sixty feet long that allowed everyone to see out into space. The deck, reached by stairs from either side, was the premier draw for the bar and it took Team BMW weeks to finally provide a design that passed the engineering and defense teams approval processes.

  It was a quieter area, usually. The view of space caused most to stand, or sit, and drink in the splendor of the Universe.

  Except for tonight.

  Tonight, All Guns Blazing was hosting a get together of some old hands celebrating the Anniversary of the Battle in the Everglades.

  It was only one of the many times each year the teams got together to try and pass along the stories from the beginning.

  The beginning that started five unique people down the path to saving the Earth.

  South of Zhengzhou, Henan Province - China

  Stephen stood in the shadows, on the roof of the two-story building, enjoying the crisp air. Beside him, Peter kept his hands in his pockets. Both men watched as two PLA transport trucks turned onto the street heading in their direction.

  One of the trucks missed a gear change, the grinding noise easily heard by the two, before the driver was able to slam the gear home and continued on their way to the parking lot, below.

  Todd and his Guardian Marines were downstairs, behind the Wechselbalg who were hiding in the shadows of the machines.

  “You know,” Peter said, “I’m getting pretty tired of just humiliating these people.”

  Stephen looked over to the young man, “Desiring more blood, young Wechselbalg?”

  Peter’s eyes flicked over to Stephen, “Not what I meant, at least not that way.” Peter replied, “I mean I’m tired of keeping the gloves on Stephen. Each time we do this, we keep the carnage to a minimum. It isn’t slowing down the efforts.”

  “This,” Stephen said, pointing towards the two trucks about to pull into the lot below, “isn’t about them. It’s about us.”

  “Oh?” Peter asked, curious, “How so? I get that we are trying to make sure others aren’t hurt by attacks against us, but how is this about us rather than them? If we attacked and made it hurt more, perhaps they wouldn’t try so damned often.”

  “Think about the future, Peter. Think about twenty, or thirty years from now. You will have how much alien blood on your hands? It is going to mess with your mind. I don’t think we need to go out there with years of human blood on our hands, as well.”

  The trucks disgorged troops. The two men could hear the shouts of commands and then the door, which they had locked, was f
orced open, and boots were flowing into the room below.

  “ADAM, drop the null-communications shield,” Stephen said.

  “What if they do something that hurts Bethany Anne, what then?” Peter asked as he got undressed, then the two of them walked to the edge of the building.

  “Well, then there will be no gloves,” Stephen admitted as he stepped off the edge and dropped behind the troops below.

  The roar of the Pricolici transfixed the men as two monsters fell from the sky right into their midst.

  —

  Private First Class Chung was the third man entering the door, into a dark warehouse. He turned to the left and aimed his QBZ-95. The man couldn’t see anything, but his gut was telling him to run. He swept the area again.

  Two of the men had lowered their weapons. Chung hissed at them. He’d been out in the forest for a small tour, and he still trusted his gut.

  “What are you hissing for?” the first asked and rolled his eyes. “There isn’t anyone to fight. This isn’t the wilds, and you need to stop blaming your time there fighting the cats when you jump at shadows!”

  He had barely got out his comment when a primal roar from outside startled everyone. Men twisted around, aiming back at the door as fear rolled in from that direction, forcing them to fight the urge to run further into the warehouse.

  Chung never stopped looking into the building. He saw the wolf, its eyes flashing yellow, streak out from behind the nearby CNC lathe and leap. The animal’s jaws were coming straight for his throat, and he pressed his trigger in reactive fright. Two bullets slammed home into the wolf, throwing its trajectory off enough that it collided with him, but limiting its bite to his arm, not his neck.

  His gunfire was enough to warn those who had turned around to look back over their shoulders. But few bullets were fired as people, dressed in black slammed into their group, guns ripped out of their hands and growls joining the roars coming from outside.

  Chung screamed as the wolf’s jaw snapped his arm bones, his fingers releasing the gun to drop beside him as he landed on the floor. He tried to ignore the pain and reach for his knife.

  A booted foot stepped on his left wrist, pinning it to the floor. Chung looked up into an American’s face who said something in English. While he didn’t understand the language, the gun muzzle in Chung’s face needed no translation.

  He slowly pulled his hand away from his knife.

  “That’s a good choice, mate,” Todd told him, “I’m sure Tommy over there will heal. However, if you stab him with that silver knife you got there, I’m pretty sure Stephen won’t give a shit if Tommy just rips your throat out for real, next time.”

  “You got that right,” a male voice, have human, half growl caused Chung to look to the side.

  Where there had been a wounded wolf a second ago, a naked human male was getting up. Chung’s eyes opened in fright when the man tossed two slugs on Chung’s chest, “I think these belong to you.”

  —

  Stephen bent his knees and landed gracefully on the ground. He was working on his Etheric abilities since TOM and Bethany Anne started playing with Etheric forces and anti-gravity. He couldn’t yet figure out how Michael went to myst, but he was able to lighten his weight.

  John thought his trick was fantastic and made him watch the opening sequence in Underworld where Selene dropped from a significant height right onto the stone, stood up and then walked away.

  Looking sexy the whole time.

  His arrival was noticed as a few men started to turn around when hundreds of pounds of snarling Pricolici landed and started tossing around bodies like a kid tosses presents after opening them on Christmas morning, reaching for the next.

  Stephen smiled and pushed his Fear. There was a soldier on his left that was pulling up his QBZ and Stephen was there in a blink, yanking the rifle from his hands before elbowing him in his helmet. The man went sideways hard enough to take out one other who was trying hard to overcome the double dose of Stephen’s fear plus having a seven-foot-tall Werewolf howling and cursing in a guttural language so close to him.

  Peter, bitching when one man finally pulled his pistol and shot him, tossed the soldier currently in his grasp. Stephen watched as Peter grabbed the gun, bent it enough to be useless then put his large misshapen hand under the shocked soldier’s armpit and tossed him. The soldier flew over five heads, fifteen feet to stop when he bounced off of the cement wall of the warehouse and landed, unmoving, in the few pitiful shrubs the warehouse had around it for decoration.

  There wasn’t much light out in the parking lot. Two soldiers just pulled triggers, and four other soldiers went down under friendly fire.

  Stephen, enhancing his speed reached into his jacket and pulled out a pistol with modified tranquilizer shots and rapidly starting shooting those who seemed the most likely to cause them problems.

  Then, he shot the rest as Peter howled in frustration. “Oh quiet and see who we have left in the trucks, Peter,” Stephen told him.

  “Theresss gooeesss my fuunnnzzzz,” the large Pricolici bitched as he jogged over to the trucks to find the driver’s doors open, but no sign of the drivers.

  “Cleeannnzzz,’ Peter called out.

  “ADAM, bring them down,” Stephen called out, and in seconds, large eight-inch anti-grave plates came down and floated by the trucks. “No Peter!” Stephen called out to the Pricolici who was eyeing the soldiers that were running away. Stephen commanded, “Change back or we will have another talk.”

  Peter shook his head in the negative and moments later, he stood in front of the vampire. “Do you,” he started to ask before he turned his face and spit out something besides the truck before turning back to Stephen. “Do you always have to threaten to beat the shit out of me again?”

  “Yes,” Stephen told him as he grabbed one of the floating plates and got on his knees to find the right metal bar under the bed of the transport truck and locked it in place, giving ADAM an update.

  Peter started down the other side of the vehicle, putting the plates on the other end of the truck as Todd and his people began the process with the other truck.

  Stephen grabbed the next plate, “You need to control the Pricolici, not allow it to control you. If you don’t, there will come a day when a very tough decision will have to be made, my friend. I’m not going to make it easy for you now, and have to do something I’ll forever regret in the future.”

  “Yeah, well,” Peter answered, locking his third plate in place, “the last time you kicked my Pricolici’s ass, it got the message pretty well. I can feel the hackles on the back of my neck stand up and then my monster brain remembers you breaking my legs and my left arm. And slapping the shit out of me.”

  Stephen locked his fifth plate in place, “That kind of power needs containment, or its benefit is lost. It’s what killed the berserkers. Individually, they were indestructible. But, get a good team that practiced, and you could take one down easily.”

  Peter bent down to look under the PLA troop truck, “You knew berserkers?”

  “Huh?” Stephen asked and then, recognizing Peter’s voice was coming from under the truck, bent to stare at the young man. “Did I know berserkers?”

  “Yeah,” Peter asked, “I’ve always admired them. They often helped break up shield walls before they could get set. A useful thing in fights, I was reading.”