Life Goes On (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 21) Read online

  Four red marks changed from circles to Xs.

  Seven pairs of armored boots landed softly.

  “All right, everyone, we have a simple plan. If they have a gun, they die. If it looks like they are ignoring commands, they die.”

  “If they are breathing?” Scott asked.

  “If they look at you funny, they die,” Gabrielle replied. “If they look like they are non-combatants, zip-tie them.”

  “Would have been easier,” Bethany Anne admitted, “if we still had the ability to turn off their embedded chips.”

  “I didn’t think they had those anymore,” Kiel commented as the seven quick-timed it to the roof entrance.

  “They stopped two generations back,” said Bethany Anne as she walked up to the door, and knocked very softly. She scanned the other six full-armor helmets that stared back at her. “What? I knocked. I’m being polite!” She grabbed the handle and pulled; the lock barely slowed her down.

  She stared at the door she had yanked completely out of the door frame. “Oops.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Planet Ixtali, Glory of Ghosts Compound, Third-floor Basement

  Guhdiss bowed his head to the Master and turned to walk back toward his seat in the rear. There were ten rows with ten seats each on either side of the main walkway, and only three seats weren’t filled.

  He kept his hands inside his robe, as he had been instructed to do in the first meeting. Now they were having their sixth and final meeting.

  It was time to accept the chip or bow out of the Glory.

  There were always one hundred adherents brought into the Glory, and his group was the second to make it through the mysteries. The goal of the group was to grow to ten thousand strong, working in all parts of Ixtali society to bring back the glory of generations past, when all societies’ leaders bowed to the power of their people.

  And they trusted no one, especially the Etheric Empire, to protect them as a race.

  Neutrality was their right, and neutrality was their way. It had been this way in the past, and it would be this way in the future.

  Only the true believers would be willing, Guhdiss was told, to accept the Chip of Ascension. It was the only way the Glory could make sure their people were safe now, and into the future.

  The first row stood and the Master, his face hidden in the darkness of his hooded robe, intoned the Invocation of Acceptance. To his right was the Master of Truth, and to his left was the Master of Secrecy.

  The first row turned to their right and walked up to the Master of Truth, the first person taking the small chip in their own hand. Once all ten had their chips they raised them and recited a creed, accepting the truth of the future and their obedience to both the cause and their brothers and sisters in the Glory.

  Then, one by one, each handed their chip to the Master of Secrecy, who inserted the chip into the base of an injection gun. The adherent faced the audience, and the Master of Secrecy placed the injection tool at the base of the first neck.

  “Do you accept the truth of the power of the Ixtali people?” the Master asked.

  “I do,” the first adherent replied, his mandibles frenetically moving in anticipation.

  “Do you accept the power of the truth in your personal life, for those whom you will help while they sleep, unaware of the sacrifice you make for their offspring and their offspring’s offspring?”

  “I do,” the first adherent answered again.

  “Then accept this into your body as a physical sign of your adherence to the Glory. The Chip of Ascension forever bonds you with those in front of you, together agreeing that the future of the Ixtali people is the perfection of your own walk into the next stage of life.”

  The last of the first row was intoning his acceptance when the explosions started above them.

  All three Masters eyed the double doors at the back of the room. The Master of Secrecy pulled two pistols from inside his robes and the Master of Truth unsheathed a sword.

  The Master simply kept his hands in the folds on his cloak. “Be still. We are safe in the temple. These doors are locked for a reason. There are adherents to the Master of Secrecy above us who will protect the sanctity of our convocation and the location of this temple with their lives.”

  More explosions occurred, this time closer. Dust flew, and parts of the ceiling dropped to the floor.

  Then Guhdiss heard people screaming in pain.

  —

  “Well, fuck all!” Tabitha spat as the latest Ixtali grabbed his spilling guts after her sword sliced through his abdomen, shredding his robes. “Would someone tie up that old man?” she snapped. Barnabas opened the door to the next room, and walked through.

  Nothing seemed to touch him.

  For every Ixtali she killed, Barnabas killed three. He used whatever was around him to take out those he attacked.

  There had been two guards posted outside the front doors of the compound when they arrived.

  Barnabas had bowed to them. Tabitha could see the confusion in their eyes, which lasted until Barnabas’ eyes flared red.

  Before they realized their mistake, both were dead. One had his skull caved in, the other had the ceremonial long knife from her belt shoved upwards through her neck into the base of her skull.

  Then Barnabas simply walked through the doors.

  It had been like scenes from an old movie where martial arts masters went through the fortress of their enemies ever since. Barnabas had figured out enough to tell everyone that it was a lost cause, and to just kill whoever they found.

  So they had.

  She had downed at least eight herself. The Tontos had taken out a few she had wounded but not killed in her attempt to keep up with Barnabas.

  Hirotoshi had smiled the whole time, like he was having a religious experience.

  “Who the fuck is that guy?” Tabitha asked as they walked into a room with two more dead Ixtalis. One had been shot with a Jean Dukes—the exploded head was the clue. The other had had a piece of a wooden chair forcefully shoved through his rib cage and was coughing his last as her group walked in.

  Ryu delivered the kill, then nodded at Hirotoshi. “I’m taking credit for that one.”

  Hirotoshi shook his head and kept walking. A moment later Barnabas came back to them. “One moment. I needed a bigger door-knocker.”

  “Locked?” Tabitha asked.

  An explosion rocked the room beyond them and a gust whipped through the door Barnabas had just emerged from.

  “Not anymore,” he replied, walking back through the door.

  Tabitha pointed her sword at Ryu. “Who took my boss and left this maniac? Was it you?” Ryu smiled, but shook his head. She pointed to Hirotoshi. “You?”

  Hirotoshi shook his head. He said to Tabitha as he proceeded through the door, “I think you need to spend some time learning about the Monk’s past. If you had paid more attention to his energies, you would have realized the veil has been torn.”

  Tabitha followed the two of them into the next room. “What the fuck does a veil have to do with that guy?” she asked, her voice getting lost as another explosion went off in front of her.

  —

  Bethany Anne nodded, and Gabrielle called to John to step inside and take the front. Eric followed, then Bethany Anne and Gabrielle. Darryl, Scott, and Kiel were tail-end Charlies.

  John kicked open the door to the seventh floor and walked into a shitstorm.

  Glory of Ghosts Compound, Third-floor Basement

  Guhdiss and those near him tried to remain as calm as the Masters at the front of the room seemed to be, and everyone watched the double doors.

  Behind the ornate decorations on this side were plain concrete covers to match the basement walls.

  The explosions stopped, the screaming stopped, and after a few minutes, Guhdiss’ heartbeats slowed down.

  Then a slow, methodic pounding started, echoing through the temple.

  BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.

  The reverberations h
ad barely died down when they started again.

  BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.

  Guhdiss glanced at the Masters. The Master of Secrecy had aimed both his pistols at the doors.

  Guhdiss started trying to push his way to the side wall. He wasn’t sure what kind of ammunition was in those pistols, but if it threw shrapnel of any sort anyone near the door would be hit.

  BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!

  This time Guhdiss could see the double doors shake with each hit. He placed his hands over his ears to deaden the sound.

  That was when the doors exploded. At least twenty of the Glory’s believers were killed when the wood and rock blasted into the temple.

  The Master of Secrecy fired his pistols, but half a second later his body was blown back against the wall behind them. His chest exploded and painted the wall with blood before his body slammed into it and slid down it.

  The Master of Truth was next, head shattering in gore and body flopping backward. The Master himself remained silent, his arms still inside his robes.

  A red-eyed human walked in with a pistol in each hand and looked at the carnage before focusing on the Master. “I believe,” he announced, “the existing political structure is happy with the future of the Ixtali people. They do not need you to think and decide for them.”

  “How would you know, human?” the Master ground out. “Your kind stole the glory of our past, and herded us like bistok into this future, ripping away our power for your own use!”

  “No,” the human answered, walking in farther as others of his kind backed him up. “It was your people who would either be friends with the Empire or destroyed by us. Your forbearers chose to join the Empire and have flourished, protected, ever since. Now you wish to reengage old practices, where you can snuff out a life on a whim.” He shook his head. “I doubt you even have a chip in your skull, old one.”

  “I am righteous!” the Master screamed back. “I am TRUTH INCARNATE!”

  “I doubt that,” Barnabas answered. “ADAM?”

  “Yes?” a voice answered from speakers on the human’s armor. “Have you broken the code for the suicide chips?”

  “What was there to break?” ADAM answered. “They never bothered to change it.”

  Barnabas glared at the Master, whose mandibles were grinding together. “Then on my authority, execute.”

  Nine of Guhdiss’ brothers and sisters in the front row dropped, their eyes glazing over as they fell dead to the floor.

  Barnabas spit in the direction of the Master. “And yet,” he hissed, “you stand.”

  Those still alive and capable of thought turned to look at the Master in shock.

  Guhdiss was the first to speak the truth.

  “He has no chip!” he yelled.

  Headquarters, Seventh Level, the Strom

  Six people jumped to the side as flechettes streamed through the open door. John crossed the threshold as Eric dodged to the right behind him.

  Gabrielle went next, following Eric to the left, then Bethany Anne entered, tailed by Darryl, Scott and Kiel.

  There were five Ixtali bodies in front of them in different death poses. Blood splattered the walls as the seven passed through the halls.

  “Clear!” John called. Eric passed him as the seven went through the corridors. Bethany Anne and Gabrielle could tell if there were bodies in the rooms, but the Bitches wanted the Mark One Eyeball to view every room they passed.

  You never knew what might lie in wait for your team, and the team knew that not all troublemakers were organic.

  “Not clear!” Darryl called just before his armored body was blown across the hallway to crash through the opposing wall into the room Scott was checking. “Inorganic!” he choked out.

  Bethany Anne had already passed the door, so it was Gabrielle’s turn to twist her pistol to eleven and run into the room with Kiel behind her. She went left as he went right.

  In the middle of the room was a four-armed robotic sentry that had to have just been activated, since it hadn’t even been disconnected from the recharger. Gabrielle tried to shoot out the connections where the arms intersected the body while Kiel worked on the body.

  Kiel ignored the head after he destroyed the two video cameras that had been facing him and started spraying rounds up and down the body as he moved forward. Gabrielle had found protection, so Kiel put out his leg and kicked off a half-wall, trying to not get into her line of fire as she shredded the killing appendages.

  “Isn’t this fun?” Kiel spat, and pushed off another wall. “TAKE COVER!” he yelled as he crashed into Gabrielle.

  She wondered what Kiel was doing, and then the security bot exploded behind him and shrapnel lanced his back.

  He clutched her armored body and hunched over her protectively, then twisted to hit the wall with his shoulder. The two of them erupted through it, flames licking them both.

  “WOOOOO!” he whooped as they rolled over before slamming into the wall opposite.

  “Status?” Bethany Anne asked.

  Kiel coughed out, “One security bot KIA.”

  “One Yollin that better get off me!” Gabrielle pushed Kiel off her, throwing his armored body high enough for him to land on his feet, prepared to defend them.

  “That was fun!” Kiel said.

  In front of him, Bethany Anne’s eyes flared red.

  ADAM, shut down this site, she commanded.

  The building went dark.

  —

  “That is not possible!” the older Ixtali hissed. There were four others in the secure meeting room watching the video feed. He turned to the female on his left. “Feeglie, when will our people get up here?” he demanded.

  Then the power went out, and a lone blue light came on.

  Feeglie’s voice was a grating hiss as she answered, “When they can rush up four flights of stairs.”

  “We will be fine in here,” he answered. “Just stay put.”

  She turned on him. “We can’t go anywhere, you idiot!” If she had known exactly where he was she would have punched him. “The doors are electrically locked, and the motors that open them also need power!”

  “No,” a third voice interjected, “we can move them manually.”

  “Not with the Empress and her people outside!” Feeglie shook her head. She had tried to bypass the long road and had signed on for a new future and a new government.

  What she had signed on for was her death.

  —

  Bethany Anne pushed fear as she searched for life on the floor, stepping down the hallway as her team came up behind her.

  She turned left at the next juncture, her HUD allowing her to see easily. The fire control system had kicked in to shut down the fire the security bot had started.

  She took another twenty steps and turned left toward a wall, ignoring the massive doors to her right. She holstered her pistol and stabbed her Etheric sword into the wall, willing the power to flow through her and into the stone.

  Which started to sizzle, then crack, and finally to melt.

  —

  Feeglie sniffed, then turned to her right to see a point of red light pierce the wall and continue another six inches beyond.

  “She’s here.” She sighed. “This game is over.”

  Feeglie never felt the plasmium bolt that entered the back of her head, causing her face to explode and coat the wall in front of her.

  “There is always hope while you still breathe,” Karel spat as Feeglie’s body dropped to the floor. “She was a doubter.” Karel stepped behind the table, holstered his pistol, and tried to lift the edge. “Someone help me turn this over!”

  Three others rushed over and heaved, and the heavy table crashed onto its side as the four took positions behind it. “Whoever comes through, fire!” he demanded.

  Four hands aimed their pistols, waiting for the wall to crack open.

  —

  Bethany Anne waved Gabrielle over. “Class is in session.”

  “What, now?” Gabrielle asked, shoc
ked.

  “I want you to feel the Etheric—the draw and the flow. Continue energizing this sword.”

  Inside her helmet, Gabrielle’s mouth dropped open. “Bethany Anne, we are on an op. Not the best time to be practicing.”

  “Consider it a pop quiz, with a really bad fail result,” Bethany Anne told her. “Now grab this with me.

  Gabrielle stepped up next to Bethany Anne, who had moved her hand up the hilt to allow Gabrielle a place to grab. “You feel the energy?” Bethany Anne asked.

  “Yes,” Gabrielle answered. “Shit!” Her hand tingled.

  “Now open yourself to the draw. Feel the energy’s movement, and duplicate it. You got this,” Bethany Anne encouraged her.

  Gabrielle narrowed her eyes in concentration as she reached into the flow. She thought about the truth of the Etheric as she understood it—a dimension that had a form of reality which the nanocytes within her engaged to create energy, or other properties which operated on her body to make changes. She willed the nanocytes to move energy without using it.

  “Ohhhh fuuuuuck!” she whispered when Bethany Anne released the hilt. The surge of power threatened to overwhelm Gabrielle.

  She was pleased to see that the sword didn’t falter, but she believed her hair would start glowing.

  “Grenades?” Bethany Anne held out a hand to John.

  “Seriously?” John looked down at her. “You’re going to co-opt my weapons now?”

  “Fine!” She smiled and pushed him, and he disappeared. She took a step and followed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Warn a guy next time! John sent when Bethany Anne appeared in the Etheric. He was about ten feet away.

  Don’t be so stingy and I’ll think about it, she replied as she walked over to him, then leaned forward to look into the room for a split second.

  She grabbed John’s arm and pulled him five feet to the left. We don’t want you to appear seven stories in the air.

  That would be a surprise drop, John agreed. So what’s the plan?