Capture Death (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 20) Read online

  She turned her head to prepare the second monitor to discuss issues with ADAM in a moment. “Plus you stuck your scrawny alien ass in me, so you forced me to be stuck with your influence.”

  “I was bored,” TOM said through the speakers. “And I’ve lasted for over a hundred and fifty years, so give me a fucking break.”

  Baba Yaga looked up, her red eyes dimming as a smile curved on her face. A moment later her eyes opened in shock. The lights reflected off them, and her laughter could be heard throughout the ship as she cackled and slapped the closest thing to her in glee.

  “Please stop pounding on the monitor arm. You could break it,” Shinigami requested. Baba Yaga stoppe whacking the monitor arm, but she continued laughing and instead thumped her own leg

  “Oh…my…STARS!” She sucked air in and reached up to wipe away a tear. “That was fucking PRICELESS!”

  TOM paused a second before answering, “Glad you enjoyed it. I’ll be here all night.”

  Her chuckles died down. “You’ve used that before and I will get to helping you, but not just yet.” Baba Yaga swiped her hand across the second monitor and started pushing virtual buttons.

  “I’m not in a rush,” TOM admitted. “I was trying to make the funny last a little longer.”

  “Oh! Well, let me get with ADAM first. Look through his seven hundred and seventy-two billion…”

  “Thousand,” ADAM corrected through the speakers.

  “Whatever. Once you pass a couple hundred it’s all the same to me,” she muttered. “I file them all under ‘too many.’” She looked up and started reading the latest report from Lerr’ek. Her eyes jerked back and forth and up and down so quickly an observer might have believed she had a muscle tic, or worse.

  A ping sounded to her left so she looked over, and her eyes narrowed. She slid her finger up the screen to read the information. Pursing her lips, she asked in a normal tone, “Shinigami, is the information related to N’Var accurate?”

  “It is as accurate as Nathan’s contacts believe it to be.”

  “What are the chances Nathan and his team have seen this information yet?”

  “None,” the EI answered. “I’ve pulled that data out of the stream.”

  “Okay, put us on a heading for N’Var. Safest possible speed.”

  The stars in the forward view started turning as the ship smoothly accelerated on a new heading. “We will gate in thirty-seven minutes,” Shinigami informed her.

  “Understood.” Baba Yaga nodded. “ADAM, are there any options that allow us to support Lerr’ek without going to Plan Number Two?”

  “There are four individuals who straddle the line on having done good for others while making their way up the political ladder on Devon. Lerr’ek is going to have to work with these people, but to date none of their negotiations have been in good faith. He has not taken any actions against those in power. He has, however, had to play a high level of defense to make sure none of the accidents killed him.”

  “‘Accidents’ is a euphemism for ‘kill him and make it seem an accident?’” She asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, tell Lerr’ek I appreciate all of his efforts. Let him know I’ll be on my way to Devon soon and to just start the whispers, but leave my name out of it. I don’t need Stephen thinking he can tag me there. Also, tell Lerr’ek that if Stephen asks I haven’t spoken with him.”

  “Understood, Baba Yaga.” The EI’s voice went quiet.

  >>Won’t Stephen be upset?<< ADAM asked.

  Stephen knows the HR rules for Lerr’ek, so he will understand. Lerr’ek will be okay as long as he doesn’t upset me. Telling Stephen that Baba Yaga is coming to Devon would absolutely upset me. Before you ask, I’m not against the social outcasts on Devon. Many of them are just trying to make ends meet. But the dregs of the worst are working their way up the political ladder. I can’t let that group get too far on my planet while I’m gone.

  So who are you against? TOM asked.

  Fucktards.

  “But first,” Baba Yaga hissed aloud. “Let’s see if these juicy rumors on N’Var are my prey.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Devon System, QBS Shinigami

  “Transit completed. We are a standard distance away from normal traffic lanes,” Shinigami stated as Baba Yaga checked the information streaming in through the data taps the ship had started grabbing as soon as they could reasonably connect.

  ADAM was doing his best to burrow through their security. “Not the worst security,” the AI said through the speakers. “Some of this will take me awhile.”

  “Three hours before we can be in Devon’s atmosphere at the highest rate of approach,” Shinigami announced.

  Baba Yaga had already explained that the highest safe approach speed was too slow. Shinigami didn’t ask anymore.

  “Very good,” the ink-black woman answered as she unclipped herself. “I’m going to the armory.” Two of the video monitors disappeared under the flight couch as she slid from the extended chair.

  Two minutes later she walked into the armory and looked around. “I think today we will go for the crimson armor with a black hood and cloak.” She stripped off her normal clothes and laid them to the side, and grabbed an under-armor suit that sealed magnetically up the front. Too bad her actual Under Armour® suit had disintegrated decades ago.

  After donning it, she took a few minutes to carefully place the armor on her body one piece at a time. She hissed a moment later. “This shit was easier with a helping hand or two,” she mumbled.

  “You can always reach out and ask for help,” TOM quipped. “I’m sure there are a lot of people who would love to help you get armored up.”

  “I don’t know if you are being facetious or really trying to help, TOM.” She grunted as she locked the last part of her armored top and pulled her neck opening left and right to get her armor to sit right on her shoulders.

  “I live to serve,” he replied.

  “Still no clue, you annoyingly obtuse and opaque alien symbiont,” she commented as she pulled on a holster set and grabbed her Jean Dukes Specials. Finally she grabbed her “Star Wars” hooded cloak and walked back to the bridge with it in hand.

  Two hours later the ship was silently slicing through the atmosphere, the clouds twisting in the trail of the black ship as it flew toward the City of Cleerk, which was a quarter of the way around the planet.

  It was just turning to evening and would be dark in Cleerk soon.

  Baba Yaga’s favorite time of the day.

  Planet N’Var, Non-allied Space, Industrial Shipping City of Cleerk, Spaceport Air-Traffic Control Room

  It was the middle of the second shift, almost dusk, and Baylot was staring out of the air traffic control tower windows into the distance. A movement caught his attention and he turned his head to see a craft at a distance sliding through the city’s airspace.

  Not abiding by the laws, where it was flying.

  He spoke over his shoulder as he kept an eye on the ship. “What craft is flying in Quadrant Five-Three-Seven?” A moment later Radar came back with, “No ship is in that quadrant.”

  Baylot’s face narrowed in annoyance. “Bistok shit,” he mumbled, and reached over to grab a heads-up display helmet. Dropping it over his head, he dialed up the magnification and searched for the ship. Sure enough, it was sliding between a set of buildings.

  He reached up to tweak the magnification a bit more and the HUD popped the black ship into stark relief. He could see it well enough to identify a sigil on the wing. “Got you,” he whispered.

  “Sir?” a voice called behind him. Baylot put up his hand to forestall any more inquiries as his eyes narrowed in on the sigil.

  Then he swallowed and pulled off the helmet.

  “Did you find anything?” Radar asked, curious.

  Baylot shook his head. “I didn’t find shit.”

  No one noticed his hand shaking when he put the helmet down. He turned back and nodded to Radar. “My mistak
e,” he told her as he stepped out of the office. He could almost feel the Witch’s eyes on him as he walked towards the washroom.

  Planet N’Var, Non-allied Space, Industrial Shipping City of Cleerk, Bar

  The captain of the local law enforcement squad scratched his head as he looked at the destroyed office.

  A young voice spoke. “He isn’t here, but the people in the bar say he didn’t come out.” A second Queegert, its three tentacles drooping to the ground, told the cop. “He said he would be here.”

  “Your uncle isn’t the best citizen in the city,” the law officer mentioned to the young Queegert.

  “Save me the lecture, Captain D221,” the little female answered, one tentacle flopping up then lying back on the ground. “I’m aware Uncle Jermom isn’t the most law-abiding Queegert, but to me he was a good guy. He said he would be here and wanted to talk to me, so he would have been here.”

  The officer looked around to see if anything else made sense to him. He knew seven Leath had come into the building to speak with Jermom, but what he didn’t have was any understanding of what had happened to the boss of this establishment.

  He hoped the few patrons outside who were being questioned had some clues. He had just turned to the side when the smaller Queegert next to him started to shiver.

  Captain D221 turned when the officer he had placed outside the room started walking in backwards. “Greth, what are you doing?” he asked, annoyed. “I told you to stay outside.”

  Greth had his hands up and started to turn sideways, and the captain saw the black-cloaked alien who had a weapon stuck in Greth’s face. A Shrillexian like Greth should have taken the drawn pistol as permission to kick this alien’s ass. “Who are you?”

  The alien ignored the captain for a moment and spoke to his Shrillexian officer. “Do I have your undivided attention?” the alien hissed in a scratchy voice, “or do I have to knock the shit out of you before you’ll listen?”

  Greth’s eyes focused on the barrel of the Jean Dukes Special between his eyes. He had always wanted to see one of the fabled weapons, but up close and in-between his eyes was not how he had wished his first in-person demonstration to occur. “I bow to your skill, Witch,” he told her. “Do you promise you are here to help and not kill?”

  “I told you that already,” she hissed, her eyes red under the cowl. “So long as my quarry are not here, or I’m not impeded if they are, I will leave peacefully.” She looked around the room.

  A blink of the eyes and the pistol was gone. Both of her hands were now hidden in the folds of her cloak, but the captain had already noticed the armored fist holding the pistol.

  Now it was his turn to stare at the black face framed in white hair hidden under the cowl of the robe. Her glowing red eyes looked him up and down. “Youuuu,” she smiled, sharp teeth showing, “are part android.”

  She walked up to him and reached for his face and D221 slapped upwards to knock her hand away, only to look down in surprise when her other hand caught it and held it tight. “Don’t be stupid,” she hissed. “I’m not here to hurt you. I just seek knowledge.”

  “What knowledge are you going to get—” he started to argue when the tips of her fingers touched his forehead.

  >>I didn’t know you could connect to androids.<<<br />
  I didn’t know I couldn’t, she replied. There is no try, there is only do.

  I cannot believe you just said that, TOM interjected as he helped her navigate the connection between the organic brain and the android connections. Nice piece of work here, he commented as they slipped into the brain. ADAM picked up the connection and started his own efforts.

  Captain D221 was part-android. His organic body had been partially destroyed some years back in a manufacturing plant explosion when he had been working the second shift undercover to figure out who might be stealing from the company.

  When he woke up several weeks later his body had been grafted with the implants, including an upgraded computational cortex that was right behind his forehead.

  I am here, an alien’s voice said in his mind.

  >>As am I.<< another voice added. >>We will only review that which is pertinent to this investigation, Captain.<<<br />
  Captain D221 was barely into his first bit of shock when his memories ran in front of his eyes as if he were watching a video.

  Seven Leath? the first voice queried his brain. Then everything he had looked at in this room and outside in the bar flashed through his mind.

  “Damnnnn,” she hissed and pulled her hand down. “Those fuckers were here and I missed them.”

  The captain put a hand to his forehead. “What have you done?”

  The hooded figure knelt to look the female Queegert in her three eyes. “I’m sorry to tell you your uncle is dead.”

  The captain started to place a hand on the Witch’s shoulder, but jerked it back when he heard, “Don’t!” Or had he imagined it? Either way, without touching the alien he asked, “Why do you say that?”

  The female Queegert asked at the same time, “They took him?”

  She nodded to the niece. “Those seven Kurtherians held the Leath people under their sway for decades. They stole bodies to keep themselves going. I don’t know why we don’t have another body on the ground here.”

  >>Bethany Anne, there is a positive confirmation. Jermom walked out of here with the seven Leath on the video security backup.<<<br />
  The police didn’t try to look at it?

  >>The local stuff was wiped. The backup is a tiny stream copy, easy to track if you are looking for it. The security on the other side was pitiful.<<<br />
  Baba Yaga thought a moment. They must have shrouded those minds in the bar.

  TOM interrupted. One of the Leath was probably housing two minds in one body, and now they have split back into eight.

  “New information.” She looked back at the Queegert. “Your uncle’s body is hosting a Kurtherian. I’m sorry, little one, but that isn’t your uncle anymore.”

  She stood up and looked over her shoulder at the cop, her eyes flashing a warning. “Stay out of my way if you don’t want more deaths on your hands, Captain.”

  With that she stepped around the shorter alien and nodded to the Shrillexian. “Another time,” she told him as she swept out the door.

  He looked at his captain. “Tell me we aren’t going to try and take her down.”

  The captain looked at his patrolman, surprised. “You don’t want to fight her?”

  The Shrillexian jerked a thumb towards the open door. “No, and I don’t wish to jump off a mountain and go splat on the ground either. There is no valor in proving yourself an idiot, or going to an ignoble death by stupidity.”

  Baba Yaga removed her hood as she stepped through the bar area. A couple of the patrons stared at her as she passed them.

  As she left the bar she heard a policeman’s audio announce they had a positive hit for Jermom.

  She took off, running hard to make sure she got there first.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  >>Turn left!<< ADAM fairly shouted in their connection.

  Baba Yaga, arms pumping, turned the corner of the street and bit down a curse. The buildings in Cleerk were constructed of some sort of porous stone, often grey with occasional streaks of green or black running through them.

  Ahead of her the street became a sort of bazaar of temporary shops and shoppers. Street lamps and lights on the buildings provided more than enough illumination to cast everything in a bright glare.

  Baba Yaga looked up and pushed off her right leg, jumping about fifteen feet and then crunching down on the street.

  “Gott Verdammt, ADAM!” she huffed. “Change the fucking weight on this stuff!”

  >>A little notice that you were about to jump would have been helpful!<< he shot back.

  Baba Yaga’s second thrust produced the result she had been looking for as her armored body flew above the heads of the shoppers and merchants. The buildings rose three and four stories.
/>   She kicked off the first building and showered those below with the small pebbles her armored boot dislodged as she jumped across the street high enough to just barely clear the roof line.

  “FUCK!” she screamed when she noticed the roof she was about to land on was made of some sort of glass.

  Baba Yaga disappeared into the Etheric before crashing through it.

  Turning to her right, she moved forward fifteen steps in the amorphous fog and then peeked out. Taking another step, she dropped to the roof of the building on the right of the one whose roof she had almost crashed through.

  She landed on her feet and took off running again. “Where is that bastard?” she yelled as she dodged a couple of pipes that protruded through the roof.

  Dammit, running through the Etheric with this new armor was a bitch!

  >>Two blocks to the right and one up,<< ADAM replied.

  “Pay attention to my weight!” she commanded and took two steps. She caught the edge of the rooftop with her right leg and pushed as hard as she could to catapult herself across the street toward a red building that was in the correct direction.

  Fortunately this building was a story lower, and she knew it had a solid roof. Her cloak fluttered behind her as she landed on her left leg and kept running across the building, then jumped up about twenty feet to the roof of the next building.

  A quick kick and she rebounded off a stone wall, then landed at the edge of another roof, arms windmilling to make sure she didn’t slip off and ‘do a Tabitha’ four stories down.

  Her head flicked back and forth. “Where is the little fucker?” she hissed in anger.

  You know, TOM took a moment as she looked around to find Jermom, it would be possible to save the uncle.

  “What?” she replied. “I thought you said if a Kurtherian took over the body like that they got rid of the host.”

  In the long term, yes, but it probably hasn’t been long enough. Jermom could still be in there, screaming as the Kurtherian keeps him down.

  “Well, how the fuck are we going to pull a Kurtherian out of him? Or can we kill the Kurtherian inside?”