Never Submit (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 15) Read online

  “Yeah, that sounds about right,” she admitted. She thought about it. She wasn’t truly needed on any operation with the boss, and she would like one last time to check out New York, check out the pizza, and maybe check out a closer view of Ted…

  “Ok, I need to request a Pod from the Sphaea to New York City, Barnabas needs to know, plus would you have someone from Jean’s group bring me my armor, packed?” she asked as she started stripping out of her clothes again.

  It seemed tonight, she was going dressed in black.

  QBBS Meredith Reynolds

  “Dio and Matrix, get your little furry butts back here!” Yelena hissed, plenty loud enough for the two puppies to stop running ahead and sit down, waiting for everyone to catch up.

  Yelena thought she was going to be run ragged chasing five puppies all over the ship. While Matrix was already connected to TOM, he had decided to come along with his siblings for the major events. Bellatrix and Ashur were with Yelena, but they hung back in an effort not to interfere with the young dogs and their decisions.

  First, they had decided to hit up the major cafeteria on the zero level. On ships, everyone learned, one needed a way to figure out where you were, and hopefully, could figure out where you needed to go.

  The Meredith Reynolds was no different.

  The main deck was the equator and carried a designation of “Deck 1.” Each level below added to that number so that the next one down was Deck 2. Any levels overhead carried a designation of a two digit number. So, if you wanted to go up to the second level higher, you went to the 02 Deck.

  After that? It got convoluted if you didn’t know your way around.

  “OH MY GOD, PUPPIES!” yelled a middle-aged woman when Yelena entered the cafeteria.

  Both Bellatrix and Ashur stayed outside of the room. Watching as the puppy’s tails wagged when they entered the large room to the ooh’s and aah’s of those inside.

  It took ten minutes for the puppies to agree there was no one in the cafeteria for them. Then, another ten minutes trying to figure out how to safely get out without offending anyone who had wanted to play with the young dogs.

  “Who are the parents?” An older gray hair man asked as he ruffled Devi’s hair.

  “Bellatrix and Ashur,” Yelena responded.

  “Oh, we are playing with Ashur’s little pups?” he responded, laughing as Devi tried to nip his hand.

  Ashur just had to prance out in the hall, his head held high. “See, told you I’m famous!” He chuffed.

  “You are a large white German Shepherd, who stands next to the Queen all the time, how could you NOT be famous?” Bellatrix responded.

  Ashur stopped and looked back at her, “I do more than stand,” he argued. “Have I told you how I raced into a vicious battle when I met Bethany Anne?”

  “Only, I think, about twenty-seven times.”

  “Well, I happen to enjoy the recognition.”

  “I couldn’t tell…” she stopped mid speech, turning her head when she heard Yelena mention her name.

  “Yes,” Yelena was discussing the great terrorist response with Team BMW and Gabrielle. “Bellatrix is the one in the video mooning the terrorists outside the base.” There were a lot of catcalls, with her name now called out by others.

  Bellatrix pranced over to the door, “Hey! They know who I am!” she called back to her mate, her tail wagging.

  “Sure,” Ashur came up beside her, “Show a little tail, become famous.”

  She nipped at his ear, “Oh shut up, you’re just jealous cause this bitch has got back.”

  Ashur turned to look at her, his face contorted, “What does that even mean?”

  “Oh my God,” Bellatrix started into the cafeteria, ignoring Ashur’s question. “My fans are calling!”

  “She,” Ashur grumbled as he followed her into the cafeteria, “is going to be insufferable.”

  —

  Five minutes later, seven dogs and Yelena stepped out of the cafeteria and took the long way around to go out to the plants and ecologies area.

  The puppies wanted to go play under the light of the Arti-sun.

  While the dogs were out having fun in the corn field, Yelena pulled out her tablet and studied the different yeasts and how they affected brewing beer.

  Turning her head, she heard the click-click-click of a Yollin’s stepping closer. She tabbed the page she was reading and lifted her head in time to see Kael-ven come into view on a little path between some stalks of corn. He stared at Yelena who looked back at him.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her, his arm gesticulating in a fashion that she assumed referred to the general area, “I didn’t realize anyone else would be out here. I followed the interesting noises to see what was going on.”

  “Oh, it’s just the puppies,” she looked around at the plants, “with Ashur and Bellatrix in there somewhere. Probably hiding from the puppies, if I had to guess.” Yelena turned back to the Yollin, “You’re Kael-ven, right?”

  The half-centaur-looking alien nodded as he walked towards her. His nailed feet and heavy weight easily drove his toes into the two to three inches of sand covering the rock in this area. “Meredith informs me you are Yelena?”

  “Meredith?” she moved her head, to try and get a better look at his ears, “The E.I.?”

  “Yes,” he cocked his head sideways, “what are you looking for?”

  “Ah,” she pointed to his neck, “I was trying to see if you had one of the wireless connections to speak with the ship.”

  Kael-ven nodded, “Yes, I’ve recently been updated to have something safely put next to my ear. May I approach you to show you?”

  She shrugged, “Sure?” Kael-ven stepped closer to her. He was easily two and a half feet taller than Yelena.

  Kael-ven turned his head sideways and pointed to a spot next to his ear. “Here is where it sits, right under my skin.”

  “Did it hurt?” she asked as she noticed the cut where he pointed and some sutures.

  He chuckled, “No. By the time this was done, the medical group had enough information on our physiology to produce numbing drugs. I didn’t feel a thing.”

  “So, the numbing drugs work?” She asked, curious how they had figured out an alien’s physiology.

  It took a moment for Kael-ven to respond, “Well, to be honest, I was there for so many other reasons, a small cut in my neck wasn’t even a distraction.”

  “What were you there for?”

  Kael-ven’s mandibles opened wide, then closed as he mimicked a human shrug, “It’s more embarrassing than important. I was there for a broken arm, cracked skull, three dents in my armor plating, several additional cuts deep enough to need sutures and overall I was in a fair amount of pain, so what was a little more?”

  “What happened to you?”

  “The Queen was teaching me advanced self defense through the application of pain, 101.” He admitted.

  “Bethany Anne?” She countered, not sure how the queen was involved quite yet, “What? Did she have someone beat you up?”

  “Beat me up?” Kael-ven responded.

  ‘Yeah, uh,” she pointed up and down his body, “you know, did she have someone break your arm and crack your skull?”

  He drew back, confusion lacing his voice, “Why would she do that?”

  Yelena paused trying to figure out the story, “Kael-ven, I’m completely lost. You said she was trying to teach you a lesson using pain, right?”

  “Not trying, succeeding,” the alien admitted, “when she decides she wants to explain how pain is an excellent teacher, she does it very well.”

  “Wait, SHE did that to you?” Yelena’s eyes opened wider.

  “You didn’t know the queen is a fighter?”

  “Well, sure.” Yelena thought back to the episode on Earth, saving her brother, “But you aren’t human.”

  “Hmmm,” Kael-ven picked at a piece of dry skin, pulling it off as he walked towards the row of corn stalks and tossed it on the ground next
to a plant before he walked back over to Yelena.

  “I don’t think Bethany Anne is concerned if I am human, or not. She just treats me as another one of her people she needs to school.”

  “Wow, that’s … kinda bad-ass!” Yelena smiled, “I knew she could take out humans, but an alien?”

  Their conversation was interrupted when two puppies came racing out between the stalks of corn. A completely white female was chasing a black male with white feet. The playing dogs scampered between Kael-ven’s feet and slammed into the corn row on the other side, their rustling and yipping making it sound like they couldn’t be more than twenty feet away. The top of the stalks, however, were too tall for Yelena to confirm. Moments later, there was a loud ‘YIP!’ The two adults noticed Matrix running out of the corn stalks back the other way, quickly disappearing on the other side.

  The second puppy, however, came out with her head held high, tail wagging proudly.

  Her little bark was funny to the two adults, and Kael-ven spoke to her, “You should be proud, even in play, vanquishing an enemy is something that you strive to accomplish.”

  The little puppy stopped and looked way up to see the Yollin staring down at her. She yipped again.

  “Kael-ven, and you are?” he replied.

  She yipped twice.

  “Nice to meet you, Snow.” Kael-ven stood still as the little female puppy came closer to him, smelling his foot and his leg before standing on her back legs, her front paws almost reaching his knees.

  Kael-ven looked over to Yelena who answered his unspoken question, “She wants you to pick her up.”

  Kael-ven looked down at the puppy again. He lowered himself down, rather like a horse, Yelena thought, making sure he didn’t squish the little puppy.

  Snow backed up as she watched this giant coming down from the sky. Soon, tail wagging quickly, she came back over to Kael-ven and tried, unsuccessfully, to jump on his back. “Is this normal?” He asked Yelena, “and does she want me to pick her up still?”

  “Well,” Yelena stopped. “Sorry, Kael-ven you are the first alien most of the puppies have met, well, physically. For a human, it means they want to play with you. So, yeah, she would be okay with being picked up.”

  Kael-ven, his bony hands that could easily rip through her skin and crush her, gently picked up the wiggling puppy, cupping his large hands so that he might allow her legs to try and stand.

  Which she did for about five seconds before plopping down, looking at him before she yipped again.

  “Do I have a mate?” Kael-ven asked the dog before looking to Yelena, “is she asking me if I have a, uh…” he stopped, trying to figure out if he was getting the translation wrong.

  “She is asking if you have a special bonded pet, not a wife or someone to procreate with,” Yelena told him.

  The Captain’s mandibles started chittering, “I suppose I can’t claim that Kiel is my special bonded pet. Although, as Bobcat would say, ‘that is funny as hell’ and Kiel would not be pleased.”

  He shook his head, “That just makes it funnier!”

  “What do you mean, you choose me?” Kael-ven asked, “What did I just get chosen for?” Again, he turned to Yelena, “Is this one of Bethany Anne’s special projects? Because your Queen has a warped sense of humor.”

  Yelena started chuckling, then started laughing, she was shaking her head, trying to explain but unable to get the words out. After the minute, it took for her to catch her breath, she looked back at the two of them, both staring at her, annoyance on their faces. “No!” she finally got out, “Bethany Anne was the first one to have this happen to her.”

  Kael-ven looked down at Snow, “And you want to make me your bonded partner?” Snow confirmed his question. “Why?”

  Snow turned in his hands and faced away from Kael-ven and started growling, and barking her little nose off before turning back around to Kael-ven and wagging her tail, little tongue hanging out.

  “Because,” Yelena answered the surprised Yollin, “you have the warrior spirit,”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Dulce, New Mexico - USA

  The destruction around the middle concrete foundation went out for hundreds of meters. There were over a hundred and fifty men, and three huge excavation machines working the area.

  Annette Wojcieszak stood in her dark three-piece suit, her pair of black flats tapping the ground. She had her badge prominently displayed on her chest, right over her left breast.

  She wasn’t pleased at the moment as one of her expensive as hell, brand-new-out-of-the-R&D-labs excavators had tossed one of its two tracks and was out of commission.

  She tried to keep the frustration from her face. She didn’t believe that screaming made anyone trust you anymore, nor did it get you support when you needed it. What it got you was a bunch of fear, hate, and animosity.

  But sometimes, the stress from idiots up the chain just really pushed your buttons, and all you could do was stand and fume.

  Like, right now.

  She heard a car come crunching up the dirt road all of the equipment had created as they made their way out here. She turned to see what was coming her way and raised an eyebrow. A young Indian woman slid out of the SUV to the ground. Aina Spiles always made her smile.

  The little spunky researcher was one of the few people that Annette respected. She was frighteningly intelligent but completely lacked any political smarts. She would tell you exactly what you needed to know, no matter which idiot it hurt.

  Even if she was the idiot. You had to be careful with Aina because for her information was either true, opinion, or false. She threw around the labels like little hand grenades in meetings with no concept of the potential trouble.

  Annette never missed a meeting Aina called, the stories alone she walked out with were priceless.

  “Hello, Agent,” Aina’s high, wispy voice greeted her as she stepped over a large muddy groove one of the excavators created an hour and a half ago.

  Annette watched the little researcher, “Hello Aina, what brings you out here?”

  Aina stopped next to Annette, who at five foot five inches still towered over the little woman.

  “Why Frank Kurns, of course.” the little woman admitted.

  Annette just looked down at the woman who was intently watching all of the activity going around the area. “Aina?”

  “Yes Agent?” she replied, not looking up at Annette.

  “Frank Kurns? Tell me that is the name of a new agent, not the Frank Kurns’ books you like to read?” Annette asked, concern for the little woman growing in the back of her mind.

  “Well,” Aina looked up at the much taller woman. “What if I say he is not only the author of my favorite series, but he is also an agent.” Her little face scrunched up, “Or … at least he was an agent.”

  “How can he be an agent, or used to be an agent, and is now writing science-fiction?” Annette asked. “Wouldn’t his oath of secrecy stop him from writing anything anywhere close enough to the truth so that we wouldn’t know and all of these people working here searching for a secret base,” Annette pointed to the activity around her, “wouldn’t happen?”

  “Only if he still worked for our government, Agent Wojcieszak.”

  “Aina,” Annette spoke a little harsher, but lower so her voice wouldn’t travel, “Do you know how much money and time these people represent?”

  “Of course,” Aina agreed while pointing at one of the excavators, “just one of those R&D excavators are going to cost 3.245 million dollars for thirty-six hours.”

  Annette blanched, that was over ten million dollars sunk in the project for just the three special excavators. Well, she wondered how the costing was going to go for the broken one.

  “Aina!” she hissed, “your ass is going to be on the line for this!” She squeezed the woman on the shoulder to get her attention. The little researcher turned, looking up to Annette in confusion. Annette continued, “Heads will roll if this isn’t the truth, and whe
n they figure out that you decided this was a good idea because of a science-fiction book, your head will be one of them, no matter how often you have been right!”

  Aina smiled and patted Annette’s hand and smiled up at the agent, “Thank you for caring, Annette. But,” she turned towards the field and pointed at the second excavator, “I think Frank Kurns just provided the hint I wanted.”