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  “Approved.” Eric turned and jogged off, stopping a couple of blocks away.

  “Incoming,” Alexander warned him.

  Eric couldn’t see the little one-pound balls, but the destruction was evident from the concussive explosions and debris that exited the windows on the second, third, and what was left of the fourth floor. Then another blew out the doors on the first floor. Two more explosions, more felt than seen, followed.

  It started to rain rocks and glass. Eric just allowed it to bounce off his armor. “Survivors?” he asked.

  “We lost most of our sensor droids, Eric,” Alexander replied. “This will take a moment.”

  Eric started trotting back toward the building. He didn’t want any of these bastards to get away. He arrived at the front, and his boots crunched on the door as he stepped on it to get inside the building. Pulling his Jean Dukes pistol, he set it to seven and shot at a wall.

  Nothing. “Sonofabitch.” He turned it up to eleven. “I hate eleven,” he muttered as he went a little way into the building. “Always leaves a stinging feeling.”

  “That is psychosomatic, Eric,” Alexander replied. “If you will turn ninety-two degrees to your right and aim seventeen degrees down.”

  “Just put it up on the HUD, Alexander. You know I hate the math.”

  An orange dot appeared to his right and a little down. Eric adjusted his aim until his yellow circle merged and they formed a red dot.

  He fired.

  “Tango serviced,” Alexander told him.

  “Like shooting fish in a barrel,” he said as he looked around. “Well, if by ‘barrel’ I mean a stone building where I am shooting through floors and walls and shit.”

  “Tango displayed,” Alexander said as another orange dot showed on his HUD. This time Eric spread his feet, practically aiming straight down before his targeting circle turned red.

  —

  Darryl had his hands on his hips.

  “No way!” He shook his head. “Alexander, how did you take out a whole building?” He looked around. “I mean, seriously! This was badass shooting.”

  “Thank you,” Alexander replied over his comm. “However, I can’t take the credit. Whoever built this building placed it over a gas line. When the munitions hit the structure, it blew.”

  “Well, sucks to be them.” Darryl turned again, his eyes narrowing, and he upped his HUD magnification. “Oooh, playtime’s still on!” He jogged to a small area between two buildings as the two attack vehicles came roaring down the road right past him and screeched to a halt in front of the smoldering carcass that had been their headquarters. Three Skaines got out of one of the vehicles, two out of the other.

  They didn’t notice the armored human who stepped silently out of the darkness behind them. Inside the helmet, Darryl tagged each tango who had exited from the vehicles and checked inside.

  No one else.

  “Fee. Fi. Fo. Fum!” Darryl shot one Skaine with each word. “Dammit,” he said, pissed as he shot the fifth and holstered his pistol. “Fucker, you caused me to be short one word.”

  He walked over and peeked inside the vehicles one more time. Leaving the door open, he stepped back, palmed his Jean Dukes once again, and shot up the electronics through the door. Parts flew everywhere inside the vehicles and some parts bounced out, rendering the weapons on the tops of the vehicles useless.

  He looked around, and checked his sensors as well. “Ok, bring back my ride, Alexander. Daddy is ready to confirm the city is safe.”

  Those strikes from Alexander seriously put a dent in the Skaines’ plans. The Bitches were just here for mop-up.

  —

  Scott landed at his assigned location and jumped out of the ship, dropping the final few feet using the antigrav in his suit. Flames crackled everywhere, and the heat was pretty intense. There was a motorized noise behind him, and he turned in time to see the tank come through the flames.

  “Ooohhhh, fuck me!” As he spoke, Scott had kicked backward and was twisting in the air and diving for the ground when the tank fired. The first shot went just over his head. As he hit the deck and rolled, a second shot was fired. It landed just short of him, ricocheting off the ground and bouncing into him, and like a stroke from a golf club the round sent him flying to crash against a building across the street.

  “OOOF!” He rebounded off it.

  Setting his antigrav all the way up, he bolted upward as another shot from the tank’s cannon hit the wall behind him. A few fragments hit him and he was propelled toward the tank because of his low antigrav setting, although he remained too high for the main gun to rotate up and shoot him.

  Scott shook his head. “That sucked,” was his only comment as he focused on the tank below him. “My turn, you planet-stealing camel-nibbling swine.”

  He turned off the antigrav, and the Skaine who had come through the hatch to try to shoot him out of the sky screamed when Scott’s armored boots crashed into him. “Oh, for fu… That’s just…” Scott made a face as he jerked his right foot out of the Skaine’s rib cage.

  He reached down and grabbed the dead guy’s belt, tossing him off the tank.

  Pulling a pistol, he stuck his arm in and fired in a circle. After giving the ricochets a moment to settle he bent into the tank, getting jammed for a second with his wide shoulders. “Fucking enemies need larger tanks,” he grumped. He looked around, but no one seemed to be trying to get up.

  One body was in pieces. His muffled voice said from inside the tank, “That had to hurt.”

  Grunting some more, he pulled himself out of the hatch and jumped off the side of the tank.

  He grabbed the treads and started heaving. Using the power of his armor and sheer strength he lifted it far enough to get under it, then shoved up hard to roll it over.

  He looked around, patting his hands together to get the blood flowing back through them. “Alexander, please have the reconnaissance droids see if there is anyone left I need to deal with here.”

  “Understood,” the EI replied.

  —

  John dropped through the clouds to the city the Bitches had named Alpha but which was called “Citiseereth” by the locals.

  Eruptions and explosions still engulfed the city after the sudden attack by Alexander, and he couldn’t imagine his targets had figured out too much yet. The need to get out of a burning building should be enough to keep their attention.

  Unfortunately, when he was just ninety seconds from his target he noticed a small group of vehicles pulling out from that location. “Alexander, I need eyes on those.”

  Ten seconds later John sighed. A couple of fast-attack vehicles and what looked like some sort of armored troop transport were on the move. John locked his helmet down. “Drop me in front of them.”

  His command had barely been spoken when the bottom dropped out. He whooped in delight as his attack craft roared down out of the night.

  “Alpha Support Two and Three,” John tapped his video twice, designating the front and back vehicles, “take out these craft here,” he touched one area, “and here,” he finished, touching the screen a second time.

  —

  “We need leverage!” Herzgoff growled into his communication device. “You can sit back there in your base and fix the problems, but without something to negotiate with, we ain’t got bistok shit!”

  Herzgoff grunted an affirmative to the reply and clicked off the radio. “That Torcellan is going to be our fucking downfall. Why the council chose him to lead us, I don’t have a clue.” He looked at the map. “Take us four streets north, then turn west. There is a place they have made for children to play. We will grab as many as we can and shove them in our truck, then we will drop back to a defensible position.” He tapped the tablet. “We’ll probably have to kill one first to let them know we mean business.”

  The first vehicle in his convoy was just turning left at the fourth street when it exploded and a flying ship swooped overhead before passing them. Another flew behind it
, and Herzgoff heard another explosion behind his vehicle. His driver dodged to the right and stayed on the same street, bypassing the destroyed attack vehicle that was in his way.

  Then the driver slammed on the brakes, and Herzgoff hit the seat in front of him.

  “Why are we stopping?” Herzgoff yelled. He was in back of the troop area, and leaned forward to look out the front windshield from between the seats. He saw only one figure in the street, arms crossed. “Are you stupid?” He gestured at it. “Run him over!”

  For once his driver looked at Herzgoff as if he were insane. The driver pointed out the windshield and yelled, “Do you know what that is?”

  Herzgoff looked through the window again. “Yes! A speed bump, if you are going fast enough.”

  “Commander Herzgoff,” his driver stated, his voice now as calm as he could make it, “that is an Empress’ Bitch.”

  “What?” Herzgoff leaned as far forward as he could. “No it’s not. Your window is dirty!” Looking up, Herzgoff stabbed the button to open the roof in his portion of the vehicle. “You will never live this down, after I report your stupidity.” He grunted as he stood up to get a better view of the person in front of them.

  The man in front of the vehicle, who was limned by the headlights, moved into action, and there was a sickening wet muffled thud. The driver turned around in time to see Herzgoff’s body slide back down into the troop carrier.

  Parts of his neck were still there, but he didn’t see any of the commander’s head as the blood from his neck sprayed the rear compartment.

  —

  Allahnzo was ten minutes from Bah-aranteck when he saw flashes across the sky. “Stop!” he called out.

  Something wasn’t right.

  “Get me the base commander.” A moment later his comm was connected, but all he heard was static. “Get Citiseereth instead,” he called.

  This time the connection was busy. “Take us in closer, but move us to the normal air route. Try to pretend we are a shuttle from Seetanaeth.”

  As they approached the city, he could see the fire in the darkness. He didn’t need to get closer to figure out his base was gone.

  “Just who the fuck are you, Christina?” he whispered. “And who are your friends?”

  They went to each city, but the results were the same. In each city, his frustration and concern mounted. Finally, he shook his head and threw down his communications device in disgust.

  “Where to?” the pilot said over the comm.

  “Take us to the airfield outside of…” He stopped talking when his eyes saw the silver ship slide gracefully into view next to their own.

  It was much larger. The metallic ship glittered in the night, an occasional star reflecting from it. A video signal arrived and his video connection turned on. He looked at the screen, surprised to see a white face with black eyes and black hair.

  It was a mask.

  “Hello.” the voice was a bit metallic-sounding. “I appreciate your trying to contact your military support bases. It has made you a lot easier to locate,” the mask told them.

  “What do you want?” he panted, fear rising in him as the person in the mask cocked its head.

  “Want?” it asked. “Why would I want anything?”

  “This is business,” Allahnzo replied. “We can figure this out. I’ll apologize to Christina, and we will …”

  The mask interrupted. “No, you won’t,” it told him as the ship slid a little farther away. “You see, the darkness is here to hide the secrets we don’t want others to discover.”

  His face turned white as he looked down, noticing that his ship was now drifting above inky blackness.

  A moment later, the ship on his right vanished.

  Achronyx flew up into the clouds as the other ship sank into the darkness below.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Prometheus Major

  Nathan tapped his tablet’s stylus on the table as he looked around the meeting room. Ecaterina and Christina were the only other humans present. They were sitting to his left with Bad Company’s medical officer and female bipedal cat-alien Bastek. On his right were the Yollin R’yhek and the two Shrillexians, Shi-tan and Kraaz.

  Over the years they’d had other Shrillexians on their team, but it had never worked out. Unlike Shi-tan and Kraaz, the others from their planet could not work in one place too long before the need to get out and prove themselves made them move on.

  Bastek had formulated a serum that helped Shrillexians overcome their need for violence without substantially degrading their superior fighting reflexes. What it didn’t do was help the Shrillexians overcome the expectations of their people. Their society was proving to be as responsible for their males’ desire to prove themselves as any biological imperative.

  Shi-Tan had always fought the effort himself. Kraaz owed his life to the Empress, and had sublimated his ego to the honor of fighting for her.

  Even if it meant working for Bad Company.

  Bottom line, that had left Nathan with only two full time Shrillexian operatives.

  “I’ve asked you here to discuss our company.” He looked around the table. “When we started we were tiny, but we had big aspirations to take over multiple business lines to allow us unfettered access to planets. We also wanted contacts in the areas of societies where the real information flowed. On my planet we called this ‘humint.’” He smiled. “Or ‘human intelligence.’ Out here, it would be ‘organic intelligence.’”

  He looked at Christina. “We still think of you as a young woman, though you aren’t, except compared to us. However, your previous squeeze was way more than he seemed.”

  “I hope he got his nuts kicked in by Aunt Tabitha.” Christina sniffed. “I would have been happy to have done it myself.”

  “He’s no longer worried about his nuts, or any other body part,” Nathan told her.

  She looked at her dad, shock on her face.

  “Apparently, he was not only playing you, he was treating the whole planet as a playground to run operations with some Skaines.”

  “I thought the Skaines had gotten religion,” Bastek said. “We haven’t heard anything from them for a long time.”

  “More like they got their asses kicked by the Rangers repeatedly, and when they tried to deal with it the Empire stepped in and decimated their fleets,” Ecaterina reminded her. “They chose to go straight over facing that particular opponent again.”

  “Some individual Skaine ships and groups broke with the Skaine council,” Nathan continued. “Now we seem to have another group involved.”

  “The council?” R’yhek asked.

  Nathan shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve no idea, but it is our job to figure that out.” He set the stylus he was holding down, then leaned forward and put his elbows on the table. “Which is the point I want to make.”

  Nathan ignored the fidgeting of the Shrillexians in their seats as he pursed his lips. “We are not the law. That is the Ranger’s duty.” He shrugged. “And they did it very well on H’lageh. Apparently, your late and unlamented boyfriend was running the planet. Since those in power deliberately avoided interaction with other worlds, no one realized just how little communication was occurring.”

  “What happened?” Christina asked.

  “The Bitches were called in,” Nathan replied, causing Christina to put a hand over her mouth. “With Armstrong and a group of fighters, they took out four separate installations on the planet while Ranger Tabitha, Ryu, and Hirotoshi kept what was left of their royal house safe. It seems that they played each group off the other. The royals tried to protect their people, and the people tried to protect their royals. Neither group was very prepared for those that manipulated them. I understand from Tabitha that the new queen of H’lageh is changing the planet’s inclination toward isolation. She believes they will move toward protecting themselves and creating new alliances.”

  “How many other planets are like that?” Bastek asked.

  “Too many for us
to know, and I have no idea how we would check to see if something was wrong.” Nathan leaned back in his chair. “We need to hit our contacts and find more whispers out there.”

  “Nathan, we couldn’t have taken that organization out.” Ecaterina looked at her mate. “We don’t have enough firepower to have accomplished that.”

  Shi-tan added, “It took major weaponry from the Empire to get it done, Ecaterina. No shame that we could not have done it.”

  “No,” Nathan nodded. “No shame, but it would have been nice to have had an option.”

  “Like what … our own space fleet?” Kraaz asked.

  “No.” Nathan chuckled. “I don’t think we have the income to finance our own fleet.” He pursed his lips.

  “I recognize that look on your face, dear.” Ecaterina leaned toward him.

  “What are you thinking, Dad?” Christina asked.

  Ecaterina shook her head. “Not thinking. Dreaming.”

  Nathan grinned. “One day, in the future or maybe only in my hallucinations, I’d like to have a force that could have pulled off this kind of operation.”

  “I don’t think Bethany Anne would go for that,” R’yhek told him. “Too expensive.”

  “Completely agree,” Christina told him. “We don’t have a need for a force like that. Are you kidding?”

  “You just want to play with the toys,” Ecaterina kidded him. “Be able to call your own force.”

  “How would we pay them?” Bastek asked. “And how would we make sure they had the necessary medical services?”

  Nathan looked at her and noticed her tail twitching behind her chair. “I’ve no idea. It’s just a wish. Call it a dream, for now.”

  “It had better be a dream,” R’yhek grinned. “I’m too old to be jumping around shooting people again.”

  “Bah!” Bastek waved a hand at him. “You’ve got another twenty or thirty years to go. Don’t be so melodramatic.”

  “Twenty or thirty years?” Christina looked at the Yollin. “I thought you were dying soon!”

  Ecaterina turned to look at her daughter. “Whatever gave you that idea?”