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  Franath looked down at her notes. “There is a rumor that in closed-door meetings there is talk about creating a stronger alliance of those who fear the Empire. Specifically, now that they do not need to focus on the Leath, the Empire worries others.”

  “Well,” the ambassador hesitated a moment, “let’s just say that the Noel-ni would prefer to look for political solutions, of which there are many, instead of a martial solution.” He pointed up. “As we speak, the massive firepower of the Etheric Empire is floating above our heads. Should they want to, they could claim the Leath as an unwilling partner in their Empire, could they not?”

  “Depends on if you believe the declaration of Empress Bethany Anne,” Franath countered. “If you do, then one doesn’t need to worry. If you believe she is underhanded, then one would have more cause.”

  “Correct,” the ambassador agreed, and purposely looked off-camera and back. “And we will know in just three hours what her plans are.”

  “Thank you, Ambassador.” Franath nodded to him, then turned to the camera. “This is Franath D’Tzaa, reporting from the home planet of the Leath, where in just a few hours, the war between the Leath and the Etheric Empire is scheduled to officially end in peace between the two peoples.”

  “Annddd ... off,” Franath heard someone call. She turned back to the ambassador. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Certainly.” He beckoned her closer, and she leaned in. “You do know that even in peace there is much anxiety and many wishing it to change, yes?”

  Franath nodded her head sadly. “I do, Ambassador. I’m a big girl, and I’m well aware that for some, peace is their worst nightmare.”

  The ambassador stood up and shook her hand, once she was standing herself. It was a habit other races had learned from the humans, meaning that they had nothing in their hands to stab you with.

  In a way, it said something about a species when they greeted each other with a proclamation that said they didn’t have a weapon at hand.

  “I believe your life is only going to get more interesting, Reporter Franath.” He smiled, this time showing all his teeth. “Should you wish to chat again, please feel free to call my office.”

  “Thank you,” she replied, watching the Noel-ni ambassador shake a few more hands on his way out and wondering what he had meant by his last comment. She shuddered as a cold wave passed over her, and turned to her crew. “Let’s pack up.”

  Planet Leath, Primary City, First Stadium

  Bethany Anne looked out across the stadium, thinking back to so many years before when, instead of a convocation of peace, she had battled a Kurtherian to the death in an arena like this to free a different people.

  She had wanted to have a quiet ceremony and signing of the documents, but the Leath would have none of it. They had been playing and replaying Jerrleck’s last video, where he explained what he had found out, and what had happened to him.

  Word had gotten out that the Etheric Empress knew what had really happened in his death, and they all wanted to know.

  There had been a request for her to make a formal speech to the Leath people and finally she had relented, but they had to understand she would be armored.

  Not as a conqueror, but for protection should anyone wish her harm.

  She pushed down the anger she continued to feel at the Kurtherians’ leaving, her vengeance unquenched. She still had haunting dreams of the skeletons littering the hallways and subterranean floors beneath the very building where she would sign the peace accords.

  She shoved it all into a box that shook violently in her subconscious, having to stay locked up right now so she could smile for the people in her Empire and here in the Leath System as well.

  She stepped up to the podium and looked around. The massive stadium was not unlike a human stadium, since form often followed function. The architecture was a bit more like you might find in Roma, to be sure, but it was basically the same.

  Pack the people in, while giving them a view of what was below.

  The stadium had massive screens, and Bethany Anne could see her own face plastered on a video screen that was easily ten stories high.

  She chuckled to herself.

  What are you chuckling about? TOM asked.

  I’m just thinking I’m happy I don’t have acne problems.

  Kurtherian enhancements. You will always look amazing.

  Well, that’s something then.

  Until you don’t.

  Wait, what? she asked.

  I’ll explain it some other time. For now, you look perfect.

  TOM, you’re an ass sometimes.

  Love you, too.

  Right back at you, PITA.

  Bethany Anne opened her mouth. “To those who travel the stars with us, I say ‘hello and greetings.’ To those Leath with me here, I say ‘Peace and Comfort to you.’” The shouts of encouragement provided a moment for her to smile, feeling good at the outcome after the decades of war.

  “I am here to tell you that the Leath are a great people.” She looked at the crowd before her, then at those in the stands as her voice rang out, strong and confident. “Not a defeated people, but a liberated one. Liberated by a rebellion led by a Leath and supported by like-minded warriors on a path to understand the future for all peoples, not bent on the destruction of others. There is harmony in peace, but peace often requires stout arms, strong backs, and a willingness to die for the abstract beliefs one professes.”

  She looked down for a moment as if in prayer before looking back at the cameras. “This Leath I speak of will always be honored in our history, and we hope in yours. His name was Jerrleck, and at one point he was Prime One in Intelligence. He was perhaps the Leath in the best position to recognize the lies being fed to your people.”

  “Once upon a time, as he shared with us, he and others worked together to form a rebellion, but luck was not on their side. Why?” She looked up again. “Because the Kurtherians could read minds, and they recognized the signals that Jerrleck had become disaffected with their rule. They valued his services, but not his questions.”

  She looked down again, but continued her story. “He was brainwashed into giving up his love, the leader of the first rebellion. Unknown to him, the Seventh of the Seven took her body as its own to allow it to continue the facade of representing the Leath people.”

  The stadium, given the number of bodies it held, was completely quiet.

  Looking up, she concluded, “We found Jerrleck in a large cavern. He was dead, but he had struggled after his torture to reach his love’s dead body, discarded when Terellet took another sacrifice. He died holding her hand, perhaps granted the opportunity to love in the afterlife when it had been denied him by the Phraim-‘Eh in this life.”

  “What he gave us with his sacrifice is the opportunity to join together today and agree to peace between our peoples.”

  In the top row, a few voices faintly started chanting in their language, “Peace, peace, peace …”

  Those around them picked it up, and within thirty seconds the words echoed throughout the stadium and spilled into the city, and the people declared it to be true.

  There would be peace.

  Bethany Anne nodded to those in the stadium and walked off the podium

  Bethany Anne smiled at all the right times, her radiant face picture-perfect as John and the others maintained a vigilant guard, trying to stay discreet. She wore her armor, and her helmet was clipped to her hip should she need it.

  A bullet to the head could, and would, kill her.

  For the cameras, however, she placed her helmet at her side and smiled as those in the Upper House for the Leath signed the Peace Accords.

  For the Etheric Empire, only one signature was needed.

  For the Leath, there were fifty-one.

  By the end, she figured that maybe fifteen of those were actually movers and shakers in Leath society, but the other signatories would perhaps feel obligated to adhere to the spirit and not just the words of the
agreement.

  Either way, she figured that was for others to deal with. She had a task to complete.

  And complete it she would.

  By the time the agreement was signed, and multiple copies had been made and received by both parties, she was tired and all of those around her could tell. She called John over. “Do you think you can block for me a moment?”

  John looked around. “From whom?” he asked.

  “Let me slip out one of the hidden doors and take a few breaths alone…just for a few minutes.” She looked around. “I don’t think suddenly disappearing is the way I should exit from here.”

  John chuckled. “Probably not.” He looked to his left. “There is one of those in the room next to us.” He nodded. “Do you see Scott over there?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Meet you there in five.”

  “Bastard,” she huffed. “You’re making me pay to play hooky awhile.”

  “Well, you are the Empress,” he replied, and casually walked away. Bethany Anne walked to a couple of reporters and gave them a few words, and kept strolling.

  When she made it over to John, he looked down at her. “That was ten minutes.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe next time you will let me out right away.”

  “Uh-huh,” he replied, and Scott casually walked over, blocking her from view as she slipped behind a curtain, quickly finding the small square indentation and letting herself into the hallway.

  Bethany Anne walked down the darkened passageway, unerringly working her way past the skeletons, who reminded her of her purpose.

  She went through the caverns, past the bodies that hadn’t yet been picked up by those working to clean up and entomb the sacrifices from the past.

  She continued walking toward the private landing area in the valley the Seven had used to escape, and where she had been required to turn back for the sake of the living.

  She unhooked and dropped her helmet, tossing it to the side as her armor’s boots crunched over the soft rock.

  It rolled around and stopped next to the rock wall in the passageway.

  >> Do you want me to lighten the armor’s load?<< ADAM asked.

  No, I want my path to be found by Bethany Anne’s friends, she replied.

  Aren’t they your friends too? TOM asked.

  Perhaps, Bethany Anne agreed, but they might be a bit miffed.

  Tom watched as Bethany Anne’s synapses started firing quickly. What are you doing?

  Her body was undergoing massive changes. Normally not a problem, except he wasn’t the one doing it.

  Crunch, crunch, crunch.

  She took off her right glove, and tossed it to the side.

  Crunch, crunch, crunch.

  Moments later, her left glove went to the other side.

  Crunch, crunch, crunch.

  Her hair reflected white in the pitiful light of the hallway as she made one final turn to head out of the passageway.

  Crunch, crunch, crunch.

  Death’s Avatar came into the light as a black mirrored ship floated gently down to hover just above the grass. The rear cargo ramp was almost down when a white-haired, ink-black woman wearing blood-red armor jumped up to land softly and enter the ship. The door started closing as the ship rose into the sky, turning to the right and then simply disappearing.

  TOM, she finally answered his question, there is no fucking way I’m letting the assholes who did that get away. The Etheric Empire doesn’t need me right now, but Jerrleck and the others represented by those skeletons need to know they will be avenged.

  The ship broke atmosphere, then it gated. The last communication between the two floating in their minds as they disappeared.

  And I’m just the motherfucker to do it.

  TOM noticed that her mental voice was guttural now too, and wondered what the Kurtherians had unleashed.

  Whatever it was, he almost felt pity for them. Then he thought about the skeletons and the body of the previous Prime Intelligence officer, and hardened his heart.

  Wherever Baba Yaga went, he was with her one hundred percent.

  No matter how far they ran, no matter how many years or planets or systems it took to track them down…

  Those Kurtherians were going to die.

  FINIS

  CAPTURE DEATH

  The Kurtherian Gambit #20

  12.24.2017

  LIFE GOES ON

  The Kurtherian Gambit #21

  02.14.2018

  EPILOGUE

  John lowered his head into his hand, trying to understand just what the fuck had gone wrong as he, Eric, Scott and Darryl walked the floor of the valley. They had found the trail Bethany Anne left easily enough. Her helmet and gloves were distinct giveaways.

  Her boot prints in the rock had been a nice touch.

  He looked at his HUD and confirmed he would accept the incoming the call.

  “Yeah, Lance,” John answered as he looked around the valley.

  “Anything?” Lance asked. “We got it covered on this end. You guys just need to stay out of sight and hop a ride back up here.”

  “By ‘got it covered,’ you mean…”

  “We lied our asses off,” Lance answered. “Told them she wanted to let the Leath have the floor without her taking the wind out of their sails, and all that.”

  “So who is standing in for her at the party?”

  “I got voted in. Seems my rugged good looks make the Leath feel comfortable around me.”

  John chuckled. “Yeah.” Darryl was bending over to look at something on the ground. “Well, it might have to do with the fact you didn’t tell anyone you would spend the rest of your life hunting the Kurtherians down and killing them.”

  “I didn’t wear armor to the event, either,” Lance agreed. “So I’m the easily-pushed-aside military leader.”

  “What the fuck do they think you have been doing, rubber-stamping everything for Admiral Thomas and Bethany Anne?” John asked as Scott walked over to Darryl, showing him something in his hand.

  “Maybe?” Lance replied. “Look, that doesn’t bother me. Let them think whatever they want; it will help us in the future. I’m too old to worry about shit like that. In a minute I’ve got to get into a fresh monkey suit and get back to the meeting. What do you know so far?”

  “I think I’m about to find out,” John replied as Darryl and Scott walked over to him. “Wait one, Lance.”

  “Ok.”

  John paused the call and put out his hand, and Darryl handed over a tiny strand; a filament really. John’s lips pressed together as he pulled it closer to verify it really was what he thought it was.

  “Well, that tears it.” He looked at Darryl and Scott, who both nodded. “All right.” He put the call back to active.

  “Lance?”

  “Yes.”

  John blew out a breath of air. “We might have a serious problem.”

  “We already have a serious problem,” Lance told him. “We have to find the Empress of the Empire, who is now AWOL.”

  John lifted the white hair and looked at it once more before shaking his head. “No… We don’t have to capture the Empress, Lance,” John told him as he looked at the sky. “We have to capture Death.”

  John could hear Lance sigh on the other end of the phone. “Well…fuck.”

  “Yup,” John agreed. “She’s got the Shinigami and a head start, and we have fuck-all.”

  “Not exactly.” Lance thought about it a moment. “We know what she looks like, we have access to Nathan’s contacts, and we know what she wants to accomplish. We just need to use our assets to find those seven Kurtherian fucktards before she does. If we do, we can probably get a message through ADAM or TOM and talk some sense into her.”

  “Are either of them answering you at the moment?” John inquired.

  “No, did you expect them to?”

  “Not really,” John admitted. “It would be nice, but she knows we all would take the proverbial bullet for her, so
that doesn’t surprise me.”

  “All right, you guys ready for pickup?” Lance asked. “We need to get tonight’s stuff out of the way before we get back to discussing how the hell we find a pissed-off Baba Yaga who doesn’t want to be found and talk some Gott Verdammt sense into her.”

  “Well, we could always follow the clues Baba Yaga will leave behind. And yes, we are ready for pickup,” John answered his earlier question.

  “What clues?” Lance asked as John heard a mumble on on Lance’s end of the phone. “ETA ten minutes.”

  “The clues will be all the dead bodies, Lance.” John chuckled. “All the dead bodies.”

  The two men stayed on the phone for a moment, both lost in their own thoughts.

  “We are going to need to put out some type of warning,” Lance replied. “I’m not sure she’s thinking right, John.”

  John shook his head. “She’s thinking right, Lance. It’s just not the right we want her to think. She ditched us, left us clues, disappeared from a very protected world, and took off with the most advanced ship the Empire has ever built. In fact, she was adamant that we needed to build new sensors to test if the Shinigami could be seen by us.” John whirled his finger in a circle to get everyone to come over. “She’s been planning this for a while. Or, she has been thinking that it could happen since we started designing that ship.”

  “Well, damn. If she wasn’t my daughter and the Empress, I’d be duly impressed.” Lance sighed. “I’d better start looking for the other ways she took care of business before leaving so I know what else will bite me in the ass.”

  John chuckled. “I’d look for a monkey suit that looks like it fits really well for the Leath reception.” He didn’t get a reply for a moment from Lance. John’s eyes narrowed. “Nooo…she didn’t?”

  “Yes,” Lance replied a small amount of humor in his voice. “Yes, she did.” There was a comment on the other side of the line. “That was my five-minute warning. Let me go put on the monkey suit Bethany Anne gave me three days ago as an early birthday gift and go down to placate the natives.”