It's Hell to Choose Read online

  “Huh?” Mark said, “You had inside intel!” He pointed at Giannini, “Admit it.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Giannini acknowledged, smiling to the both of them. “All you have to do is quit your jobs to find out where the rabbit hole goes.” Then, she winked at them both as she stood to go pay.

  TQB Land, Australian Outback

  Bethany Anne’s red eyes transfixed everyone watching her now. She was surrounded by her Guards, fronted by three humans with rifles, three Pricolici, and three vampires together representing two thousand years of living. Yet, all they could see was Bethany Anne’s granite countenance holding them in place.

  Her contralto voice started, “We have been attacked by a cabal of commercial companies who have operations that stretch over the globe. They are using legal and illegal, political and backroom machinations to steal the technology we are using to defend this planet and all people who live here. These influential people are scared of the loss of any power and new technology which threatens the revenue of their very companies.”

  “Further” she continued, “there are those in the political bodies around this globe who would use their laws to usurp or destroy what is morally and ethically right. They have attacked us, bombed us, killed our people, and murdered innocents.

  Due to their power, gained over decades and centuries, they feel untouchable, unreachable, unbeatable.

  Because of my, shall we say, ‘biased opinions', I have agreed to a temporary judiciary which reviews proof of guilt before a writ of execution is placed on those guilty of attacking us. While I will endeavor to use this court, I will not be bound by its control. I trust my people to speak to me, as they have done recently advocating the setup of this short term system so that I do not mistakenly punish innocent victims.

  That, I agree, is not an outcome I am willing to accept if we can stop it with a judicious use of advance wisdom. It may be that there will not be enough time for the court review, and the decision to move forward is mine to make. I’ll seek to make a wise decision, rather than a rash one, but there are times when a timely response is required.

  I have given this thought. I have spent time consulting those I trust, those I respect, and those whose judgments I value.

  Attend me, my Guards, My Guardians, My Elite and My People… We have had war declared on us. Well… Fuck them!

  They have made a catastrophic mistake and are an eternal enemy of the Queen of the UnknownWorld. My response to these atrocities visited upon my people is this Royal Decree.” She turned to stare at Dan Bosse but spoke loudly enough for all to hear.

  “RELEASE THE DOGS OF WAR!”

  The End.

  Please, keep in touch as Bethany Anne and her team(s) come back in The Dogs of War – The Kurtherian Gambit 10

  EPILOGUE

  The QBS Princess Alexandria - Traveling between the Stars (far future)

  Franath D’Tzaa, the D’tereth vid-reporter touched the recording symbol again after reviewing her notes.

  “Hello, my name is Franath D’Tzaa. I’m on board the QBS Princess Alexandra, a Nacht Fleet Battleship, and presently the flagship Queen Bethany Anne is using to return with her team from Nodrizen’s World.

  This is a continuation of the interview we aired yesterday. This time, I asked her about her relationships including the rumored very painful first relationship.”

  “Queen Bethany Anne, You have been largely a recluse from the public eye, yet you are one of the most powerful aliens among the stars. There is so much written about you, that it is impossible to know what is fact and what is fiction. What do you think about this?”

  The smile on the woman lit up the room, “I find it hilarious! I’ll often read some of the stories to see what I’m up to this decade.”

  “What do you mean by ‘this decade’?” I followed up.

  “Oh, that’s easy. As my popularity surges and fades, the books about me can be over the top positive, and the next decade over the top negative.”

  “What happens when you are in a positive decade?” I asked.

  “Mmm,” She considered for a moment, “The love stories about me have happy endings.”

  “And, I presume, that when it is a down decade, that is not the case?”

  “Yes, when it is a down decade, I'm usually cast aside for another woman who isn’t as ugly and poor and not nearly as big a bitch.”

  “I hardly think many would call you a ‘bitch’!” I exclaimed.

  “You might be surprised at some of my early names.” She smiled but went no further addressing the comment.

  “So, you have been in love before?” I asked, not sure whether she would answer my question.

  “Yes, my first love was taken way too early in our relationship, he taught me a lot about myself. I had some anger issues after that relationship ended to handle, and it took a few years to deal with those. But, I have been in at least one non-platonic loving relationship since that happened..”

  “Any names you will drop?”

  “A lady doesn’t kiss and tell,” She told me, politely.

  “There has been a long-standing rumor that you and the Emporer Jian’tich of the Hirbororivich Kingdom were very close.”

  Bethany Anne’s face closed down into a look of concentration. “You know, I’ve heard that one too, and I just want to know how would that physically work? Hirbororivich’s are effectively highly evolved plant’s from where I come from and their modality is…strange. Physically, they have to be at least half again as tall as I am. So, how would that work?”

  “There have been stranger pairings in the Universe,” I replied.

  “Ones that we can confirm? Besides, I had those rumors tracked down and found out Emporer Jian’tich’s PR team was planting the rumors to help him woo a wife.”

  “Did you do anything to him?” I asked, curious.

  “I had my team tell him if he didn’t find a wife in twelve solar turns he wouldn’t be pleased with the one I picked out for him.” She replied, dryly.

  “Oh, How did that work out?” I queried.

  “You know, the rumors immediately stopped. He was engaged within two solars, so I never had to deal with it again. I choose to think he found love at first sight.” She told me.

  "I tried to go back to her first love, but I could tell after the time, it was still a very sensitive subject. That had to have been a serious love to affect a woman this long after the relationship. This is Franath D’Tzaa, and I will provide another clip from my interview with one of the most intriguing aliens in our galaxy tomorrow."

  finis

  Michael’s Notes (It’s Hell To Choose - The Kurtherian Gambit 09): Written May 26th, 2016

  Thank you, I cannot express my appreciation enough that not only did you pick up the NINTH book, but you read it all the way to the end, and NOW, you're reading this as well.

  I’m writing this five weeks after the last release.

  So much happens in such a short time. One of my friends which I met working on these books, Stephen Russell, went into ICU soon after the release of the last book. For those who do not know, he is the Production Editor, who has helped since book five (Never Forsaken) and has helped build the processes used to get these books out in a pretty decent format so quickly.

  He had heart valve surgery to fix damage to a valve due to the sickness, and I understand from his sister-in-law yesterday that he is recuperating and will be looking into the next steps this week. I pray for his continued healing and when you read this, Stephen, I MISSED YOU!

  This was a hard book to write. Somewhat because my outline was screwed up twice before I settled down to the beats which became IT’S HELL TO CHOOSE. I had help from Kat Lind who worked as the first pass editor before providing the chapters to a smaller group of Beta Readers than normal (my fault, running behind).

  However, the book is placed ‘back out’ for editing for those in the group to review over the next week, and I’ll update the book again as soon as that
is done.

  But, the main reason it was hard was knowing that Michael was going to die, and vacillating on whether that should happen, or not. Mind you, if it didn’t, I was going to screw with my plans for the next book which would be ok…but weird.

  Then, the hard part was writing, reading and then editing the funeral scene when I would freaking cry while trying to edit it. Do you have any idea how embarrassing that is for an American guy to say?

  I tell my wife this, who I love dearly, but she finds it hilarious… so not helping my male ego here ;-). Her comment was ‘Remember when Snoopy would be on the top of his doghouse, typing on the typewriter and bawling his head off?’ Then, she would break out laughing as she would do her hands as if typewriting and making Snoopy’s crying sounds with her head thrown back.

  Hmmph. I grouch.

  On to another subject and that is OH MY GOD THANK YOU! I admitted in the last Author’s Notes about the anxiety that comes before we hit ‘publish’ on Amazon. How in a little while after publishing I’ll peak above the desk and read the reviews to see if this book sucked horribly. Well, H#ly Cr@p did some of you have some supportive reviews and thank you! I hadn’t considered that you would make sure reviews was up on Amazon quickly (so, you didn’t make me bite my nails long which is a help, I keep them shorter) and now, WE WILL BUILD the second highest ‘starred’ book of the group with 82 reviews in just 5 weeks.

  Death Becomes Her has 129 reviews after almost six months.

  So, THANK YOU all for feeding my little author soul as I worked on this book. It was helpful to see the review count climb during those frustrating first couple of weeks, let me tell you.

  I would also like to say THANK YOU To SIL-USA for helping me design the specifications for the ICP (Independent Computing Platforms). When I specified the original computers for the first effort to create ADAM way back in …what book was that? I did about fifteen minutes of research and was later ‘nailed’ in a review for my choices (“Intel? Really?”) LOL.

  So, one of my friends (I’ve met because of Bethany Anne) is the head of a company which does design work for really large Enterprises for Server Rooms, and I thought, ‘Why not just ask them what ADAM should specify? And they did! Now, I feel like I can be proud of the design for the ICP’s! Cool!

  Yesterday (Wed), I asked those on the facebook group if there were any questions they would like answered as I didn’t have anything ‘subversive’ I was going to do this time in the Author Notes and thankfully, they did!

  Here we go (note, they can be a rather…ummm…’fun’ group)

  QUESTIONS FROM FACEBOOK:

  Edward Higgins: Oh, I suppose there's the generic "an authors life is hard" or "how to deal with rabid fans" , "the pros and cons of letting snippets be dragged out into the world", "the fun of creating a snippet that the author later decides to rewrite into something else just to see how the fans react", "how to establish a list of redshirts for future use", "how to reassure the NSA that your browser habits are because of being an author, not a terrorist"...

  Michael - In no certain order - The life of THIS author is not hard due to his family and the success of his book series. That’s why I help so many other authors as I can, I feel a strong desire to help due to my huge blessings.

  Want to be a ‘redshirt’ character? Here is the link to join that group - I go back to it from time to time as I need characters ;-)

  Here is a link to the form (Google Form) https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1jJyzeydVVTaEOLVJlqhcZOSINTJu86HIpheKCucSIlM/viewform?edit_requested=true

  The NSA thing worries me less now because I can point back to 9 books and go “AUTHOR!” I sincerely hope some of the NSA guys / gals are fans. We both hate terrorists.

  Snippets are the first parts of the book released every day or two for a couple of weeks before the release of the new book on Facebook or the Website. This causes a LOT of discussions and some real hair pulling when they get into the grove of the story … and it stops.

  Well, I used to drop a whole chapter, and that didn’t work very well. Scott (T S) Paul suggested, perhaps, smaller amounts (as small as a paragraph) and I decided a minimum of 500 words or more would work. Since I keep giving these little ‘bites’ out, many of the FB fans both love them, and BITCH unmercifully about them. It’s a lot of fun! Oh, not the massive bitching, but how everyone has a great time with them. Between the Facebook Group and the Amazon Forum group, we have a good time chatting.

  Which reminds me. This story has to be told (From the Forums). Horrid put this up shortly after WE WILL BUILD came online (He put up a Forum Thread about ‘Book 9?’ on the day 08 came out…)

  Horrid says:

  Bah!

  It was 100% front handed compliment. I finished We Will Build in about 4 hours while pretending to work. It was great times. I laughed, I cried, I snorted coffee out my nose... God, that burned.

  Michael Anderle says:

  ..."I snorted coffee out my nose...God, that burned." Roflmao!

  Loved the whole quote, but that made me laugh... $&@!

  arik h says:

  "It was great times. I laughed, I cried, I snorted coffee out my nose... God, that burned." Best customer review ever.

  Horrid says:

  Michael & Arik:

  I aim to please.

  Except with the coffee thing. I didn't aim at all. I just soaked my keyboard.

  Michael Anderle says:

  I didn't sign it last time, but have to mention again that "God, that burned." And now the follow-up, "I just soaked my keyboard." Still makes me laugh!

  Horrid says:

  When I'm not being rude, crude, and socially unacceptable, I aim for humor.

  But the coffee thing totally wasn't funny at the time. I had to request a new keyboard from my boss. Who gave me SARCASM! It was very traumatic. The next day I got to work, and he had left a sippy cup on my desk to prevent further coffee related technology failures. (I might have said I spilled the coffee rather than shot it out my nose like an anime hero with a nose bleed.)

  Michael Anderle says:

  Now I NEED to know which scene caused the 'great keyboard massacre of 2016'?

  This just keeps getting better and better!

  Michael "Yes, keyboards WERE harmed during the reading of this book" Anderle

  Horrid says:

  It involved a victory dance.

  I read that scene once, laughed out loud, then took a sip of hot coffee and made the mistake of rereading it. At that point, it was all over but for the singed nose hair and the caps lock light flickering.

  Michael Anderle says:

  Horrid, if you do ever destroy your new keyboard, can we do something like little keyboard symbols on the wall or something? Like the Kills on the side of airplanes in WWII?

  That would be funny as hell... ;-)

  Horrid says:

  Actually, they named me Samuel, but due to being my parents' first kid and getting into more trouble than they felt was reasonable, I got some variation "oh my God, you're horrible" so often that in kindergarten, when the teacher asked me my name I said, "I'm Horrid!"

  Michael: I think I might be able to hook you up with photographic evidence of keyboard kills if it keeps happening. Hmm... I'll need to ask my wife to design a stencil...

  Ok, other quotes are on the Forums, but that is the gist of the story :-)

  Heath Felps: I always enjoy your thoughts on the characters, scenes, and how the book progressed from your point of view.