Never Submit (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 15) Read online

  People that drove around, picking up food from those willing to give, and deliver it to those who needed. It was full of teachers who taught for the love of seeing a child understand, and cops that understood law was better than anarchy.

  Even, she had to admit, politicians who understood representation for their constituents was a sacred honor. She only had ADAM’s research to confirm an honest politician existed. She thought the two words were mutually exclusive, never to be put together in the same sentence.

  A small corner of her lip lifted. It wasn’t all heaviness going forward. She would be back, God willing, and when she returned Michael better be waiting for her, or …

  She choked back a sob.

  Or she would spend the rest of her many long days searching for his ass, with a woman’s righteous anger even hell itself would hesitate before offending.

  She would miss the seasons newest shoes, but hopefully, they would have a new fashion designer, or two, maybe three in her little empire.

  Unlike a few others in her group, she had the only living family member in her life with her. She wasn’t making that sacrifice, although she hurt for those that were. Humanities first true space base station, cut out of an asteroid, bore her mom’s name.

  The Meredith Reynold’s, you would have thought those on Earth would have pick up on that clue, but nope.

  It was her responsibility to protect the Earth. It was her Honor to be chosen, to be merged with TOM, to be given this opportunity to not die, but to move forward with determination to accomplish what others had not.

  It was her duty to shoulder the responsibilities that came with the role.

  She looked down at the floor, the small puddle made from her tears at her feet and smiled. Perhaps her dad was wrong. Perhaps she didn’t need to take care of the Yollin King before the softer side could have a moment.

  She just needed the safety of her Own to give her a bit of privacy to cry. To allow herself a moment to expel the feelings she had been hiding from, the people she was leaving behind, the memories which might not be ever experienced again.

  She turned, took a couple of steps and reached for a couple of napkins on a table to wipe her face. She went back and cleaned up the floor before standing up and looking towards the Earth.

  I’ll save your ass one more time, she thought, whether you appreciate me, and my people, and our sacrifices or not. We love you, and those living there, more than you can ever know.

  She turned and started walking towards the stairs to go down, throwing the paper into a trash can on her way out.

  Because that’s who we are, she thought as each of her steps going down the stairs reverberated back into the huge viewing room.

  Where for just a moment, the Universe watched the Queen Bitch weep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  QBBS Meredith Reynolds

  “You know, I’m not really happy about this,” Bethany Anne spoke from inside her closet.

  “Kicking alien ass?” Gabrielle asked, sitting down on Bethany Anne’s bed, running her hand over the bed linen.

  “What?” Bethany Anne stuck her head out of the closet looking at her friend, “Kicking alien ass? No, that doesn’t bother me.” Her head disappeared again.

  “Then what are you talking about?”

  Bethany Anne’s voice came back from the closet, “This changing my title.” Gabrielle heard a bump and a small swear word, then a frustrated, “Again!”

  “You’ll get over it.” Gabrielle looked around the bedroom, “It’s good to be the Queen.”

  Bethany Anne stuck her head out one more time, “You been watching Mel Brooks with Eric?”

  Gabrielle turned to look at Bethany Anne and smiled, “You know, some of that stuff is funnier when you lived it.”

  “Yeah,” Bethany Anne replied thinking about the history Gabrielle must have been a part of, “perhaps some.”

  A few moments later, Bethany Anne came out of the closet, her armor sparkling, her black hair tied back and holding her Katana.

  “What, no pistols?” Gabrielle asked, standing up from the bed.

  “Do you really think I’ll need them?” Bethany Anne winked.

  Gabrielle’s smile ended as she thought about the near future, “Only if some sons-a-bitches get past my dead body.”

  With that, Gabrielle turned and took the front with Scott and Darryl swinging in behind her, John and Eric taking up the rear after Bethany Anne passed by those two.

  Humanity was about to take the war to the Kurtherians.

  QBBS Meredith Reynolds - Ship’s Deck

  Black Eagles slowly rose off the deck, some manned by people, some manned by E.I.s. Each human pilot had an E.I. wingman with them, having practiced for months, pairs against other pairs, as the E.I.s had learned the flying of their partners.

  It was time.

  Humans might be leading this fight, but the children and grandchildren of ADAM would be right there with them.

  Bethany Anne wasted no opportunity, nor did her father. People had heard his gruff, ‘if you ain’t cheatin, you ain’t trying’ for a long time. While humans had always been good at warfare, so were other species. Some of the difference? Some of those species didn’t war against their own people. Therefore, their ability to continue to get better was limited by how many species they could fight in any given generation.

  Humans, on the other hand, were born to fight. They were the perfect species for a Kurtherian enhancement. The only problem? Normal humans fought enslavement by any of their own race, it wouldn’t have been different if it were aliens. It just wasn’t in a human’s DNA to accept subjugation.

  Now, leadership on the other hand?

  Yes, humans were born to follow leaders: the bigger, the better, the baddest and the best.

  Humans loved kicking ass and taking names.

  Now, they were about to be unleashed on a species which had already subjugated three others; had been scouting Earth to determine whether to subjugate humans and desired to continue their efforts to enslave others.

  That shit, Bethany Anne had declared, was about to stop.

  QBS Coach’s Revenge

  Captain Maximilian Wagner looked around his ship, the newly christened Coach’s Revenge and nodded to his number one. Unlike others, Max knew the power of his E.I., and he reduced his team crewing the ship to just seven, plus himself.

  A total of eight humans, fourteen repair bots, six universal bots, another twelve Marine bots, and whoever he was transporting at the time, like the Guardians and Guardian Marines below.

  The E.I.’s name was shortened to just Revenge. His ship was similar to the G’laxix Sphaea, except modified for humans and tweaked for war, not scouting.

  “Revenge, make sure our people are ready, confirm doors closed, make sure our guests are ready to go, and put us in position,” Max spoke to the E.I. as he sat down in the Captain’s chair. He reached over and grabbed a small box that had been delivered to him before his team left the all Captain’s meeting with Admiral Thomas. He put the red box with a blue bow in his lap and opened the gift, thinking the blue suede bow a nice touch.

  With the bow untied, he pulled off the top and looked. Inside was an 8x10 framed photo of the Ad Aeternitatem from Earth. He lifted the frame out and turned it over, a smile on his face. Bethany Anne had signed the back and listed the date that he first received that fateful phone call, the one that got him into this whole mess.

  There was a scrap of leather inside the box. He didn’t need a note, although one was included, to know this leather came from the Captain’s chair of the Ad Aeternitatem. There was a safety pin included. He chuckled and used the safety pin to affix the piece of leather to the outside of his Captain’s chair arm, where he would never accidently hit the leather, even if a missile made it through their shields.

  “To Eternity, my Queen,” Max Wagner said, softly. He looked up at the screen, “Bring us online, Revenge.”

  The alarm sounded throughout the ship letting ev
eryone inside the ship know.

  The Coach’s Revenge was going to bring the pain to the Yollins.

  QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Yollin Quarters

  Captain Kael-ven, the one-time Yollin Annex Scout Ship Captain, walked down the hallway in the Yollin area and waited. Soon, the doors opened, and the Yollin mercenary company attached to Queen Bethany Anne came out. The first figure was Kiel in mechanized armor.

  Not his normal armor, no, not this time. Kiel was in the new suits created by Jean Duke’s group for Kiel’s team. They were silent as Kiel came walking down the hall, except for the clip of the boots hitting the ground.

  “You look good,” Kael-ven greeted Kiel.

  “Thank you, Captain.” Kiel grinned, “Are you ready for this?”

  Kael-ven shrugged, “Who is ever ready for Revolution and Anarchy?” he asked his friend. “If someone should claim they are ready, they are either deceivers of themselves or idiots. However,” he put a hand up and pointed to himself, “I will play my role. Yollins have been under this slave system on our own world for too long. It is time we stand up and decide for ourselves, as humans do, what our future will be.”

  Kiel chittered his laughter, “You understand that your leadership will be a very short one if your decisions don’t happen to match the ones Bethany Anne would want, right?”

  “Fortunately, I expect my decisions will be acceptable to Bethany Anne.” Kael-ven put a hand on his friend's armored shoulder, “It is time.”

  Kiel nodded to his old Captain and then Kael-ven stepped aside, allowing the rest of the mercenaries to salute him as they followed their leader into battle.

  For the first time in any of the Yollin history, Yollins from the Chloret and Mont castes were following an Alien back to Yoll to overthrow their own King.

  This would not be a bloodless revolution.

  QBS Coach’s Revenge

  Shun looked over at Jian, and laughed, “You need to stop pulling up the pants.”

  Jian grabbed the side of his pants and pulled up, “I know they are loose in case I change without stripping, but they feel like I’m about to be naked in five seconds.” he complained.

  “I say you do what the Americans say and go commando!” Zhu laughed at his friend. Both Shun and Zhu were in the Queen’s Guardian Marine uniforms. They had their gear, they had their upgrades, and they had the desire to keep attacking.

  “I’m not sure I can focus properly on the fight if my tree limb is hanging out over the water like that,” Jian answered.

  As the three of them were talking, Tim came walking by in tight fitting jeans and a t-shirt that showed off his chest.

  Shun put out a hand, “Tim?”

  The man nodded and shook his hand, “Shun.”

  “Can you tell me if you plan on changing your clothes or not?”

  Tim nodded and looked over at Jian, then rolled his eyes, “Jian.” At his name, he looked up, “Someone is playing a practical joke on you. It’s done to every new Wechselbalg the first time they go out.” Tim stepped to the side so that he wasn’t staring through Zhu, lifted up his hands to his mouth and yelled, “Hey! Numbnuts. No, the OTHER numbnuts. Get Jian the right fucking clothes before I make you wear this shit!”

  Tim watched the team members move for a moment and then nodded his head. Turning back to the guys, he told them, “Sorry, they really shouldn’t have done that before such a big operation, but ... traditions. Well, that’s why we call them tradition. The new clothes will fit tight, but they rip easily. You will get another two sets. I suggest,” he nodded to Shun and Zhu, “each one of you takes a set. That way, if Jian changes to a cat, destroys his clothes, and changes back to human, you can get him in clothes, so he isn’t fighting where the frankfurter is out of the bun. Remember, if you absolutely have to, you can shoot Jian, he will heal from your weapons, he might not heal from the enemies.”

  Tim nodded to all three of them as he stepped around Shun and continued down the hallway.

  Within a couple minutes Jian was in his new set of clothes, that were significantly better fitting, as his friends packed the spares away.

  Jian put his hand out in front of him. Zhu put his hand on top of Jian’s, and Shun placed his on top of both.

  Jian nodded his head, “For Bai.”

  “For Bai,” Zhu and Shun agreed.

  QBBS Meredith Reynolds Military Operations Room

  The military operations room was huge. It was fully three stories tall, with desks along the second and third stories, a wall of projection screens and a place in the middle with over 5,625 cubic feet of space for a three-dimensional hologram representation of the battle.

  As needed.

  Lance walked along the floor, chewing on his unlit cigar. He had three shipping containers of the cigars stashed away that he hadn’t told anyone about. Not his friends, not his wife, not his daughter.

  Especially not his daughter.

  He expected that Patricia already knew. He didn’t hide anything from her, he just didn’t tell her and should it come out, Patricia would be able to say that she hadn’t been told. It was the best defense he could provide her. He suspected how much shit was going to be tossed in Bethany Anne’s direction for her ginormous shoe collections, and didn’t want anyone to start pointing at him.

  Let’s face it, you could store a LOT of cigars in the same amount of space as just one box of shoes.

  “Queen arriving …” a female’s voice was barking out when it was interrupted.

  “You finish that statement,” Bethany Anne told the guard nearest the door trying to announce her arrival, “and I’ll toss your ass into space.”

  Lance turned to see that Bethany Anne had a hand on the lady’s shoulder, whose eyes were open wide - standing next to her desk. Her head was nodding in sync with Bethany Anne’s as the Queen completed her comments, “I don’t want to hear that every time I go someplace for the next century. We are going to leave it for the main room and any large meetings I attend. If that happens every time I walk in here?” Bethany Anne allowed the silence to open for a couple of seconds. “It could get ugly.”

  Bethany Anne gave the shoulder a gentle squeeze and continued past the lady. Lance noticed Scott smile and wink at the one Bethany Anne just spoke to.

  No hard feelings, he seemed to say, and the woman blushed and sat down.

  “Always making an entrance, Bethany Anne.” He told his daughter as she sat in the middle seat, the one that could best view everything in the room.

  “You know me, General.”

  He noticed that she was taking in all of the screens and that her eyes seemed to be reviewing screens in front of people around the room. “Always looking to be announced, right?”

  “Ah, no.” he shook his head and stepped over to his chair, sitting at her left hand, his chair slightly turned. “Usually you like to slink into places and let your shoes do the talking.”

  Bethany Anne looked down at her armored feet, “Maybe that’s why I’m always on edge?”

  “What, no shoe therapy lately?” Lance asked. He noticed many of those in the operations room were listening in on the two of them chat.

  “Yeah, It’s a shame no designers came along for the ride. Although,” Bethany Anne looked up, “ADAM is working with a promising young woman. Maybe I can see if Jean would let her inside the R&D room for a few days after this field exercise.” She waved negligently up at the screens as she settled back in her chair and spoke louder.

  “We are about to cross,” she called out, catching everyone’s attention as some turned their heads to see her more easily, “the Annex Gate the Yollin King placed in our solar system years ago. We aren’t going back through that gate announcing our intent to change their world. Rather, we are going back through that gate with the desire to move through their space and head out to find our Kurtherian enemies.”

  Admiral Thomas, who had been entering the room, asked her as he sat down, “You think that the King will allow us safe passage through h
is space?”

  Bethany Anne looked around before turning to the Admiral, “Not an ice cube's chance in hell.” She smiled, “But seeing how he wanted to subjugate Earth first? I’m not too upset with delivering a set of Yollin Revolutionaries.” She turned back to looking around the room. “We can’t have Frenemies at our backs, working to figure out how to take us down. So, we are going to meet this King, kick his backstabbing ass and then beat him in battle. From the conversations with Captain Kael-ven, I will have to meet him in one on one combat and defeat him, which means kill him, to win the allegiance of the Yollin people.”