WE HAVE CONTACT (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 12) (18 page)

Not to put too delicate a point on this,
TOM replied
, But my people, especially the Seven, aren’t known for accepting any sort of criticism nor physical violence to themselves.

TOM, do you actually believe I give a shit?

TOM stayed silent.

Bethany Anne met her team at the workout room, “When is Akio getting back?” She asked John who was busy putting on shin guards.

“Probably another day, maybe two. They should be finished in Australia by then.”

“Good. Ok, ladies and gents,” She nodded to the four and Gabrielle, “New news. It seems that our beloved Stephanie Lee might, or might not, be associated with a clan of Wechselbalg than can change into cats.”

“Cool,” Darryl said and all four turned to him. “What? I mean, turning into a wolf or bear is sweet, but a cat? Those things are just beautiful.”

“Those things,” Bethany Anne told him, “Are going to have three to four-inch claws and want a piece of your precious skin.”

“Well, that cuts it,” Darryl said matter-of-fact, “those cats gotta die. So sorry, but Ms. Jackson’s number one son has a zero tolerance level for evisceration.”

“No grenades,” Scott piped in.

“I don’t know,” John said as he limbered up, “sometimes they can be really useful.”

“No,” Scott put his hand up, “New York was fun and all, but we got the code word that let us get away in time.”

“Code word?” Gabrielle asked from her own position stretching on the floor, “Have I missed this part of the story?”

“It was when John was looking down from the roof, and those guys inside made a comment about using RPG’s to kill Bethany Anne.” Darryl had started before he was interrupted as Scott continued the story.

“Yeah, he says ‘hey guys, watch this shit!’ That’s code word for
get the hell out of there
as quickly as possible.” Darryl and Scott bumped fist to the general chuckling around the group.

Eric said, “Well, we need to come up with something similar if possible. Maybe something not nearly as deadly to us?”

“Why not smaller pucks?” John said, “Jean has been talking about trying to make them smaller and more easily controlled.”

“That would be fantastic,” Gabrielle agreed, “Like when I was inside the Chinese base?”

“Something like that, yes,” John agreed.

“Ok, you guys talk about it,” Bethany Anne said as she walked to the other side of the room. “I want us to spar hard here. So, I’m playing defense.”

“Who’s with you?” Gabrielle called out.

“No one,” Bethany Anne called over her shoulder.

“Oh shit,” Scott muttered, “this is going to hurt.”

“Anyone think to bring some ibuprofen?” Darryl asked.

—-

“Fucking shit those claws HURT!” Gabrielle hissed. She was holding her stomach where the shirt was torn away along with part of her stomach muscle, blood flowing down her arm soaking her pants.

“Tell me about it,” Eric bitched, holding a towel to his arm.
 

“She’s playing us, people,” John said as he leaned over, arms on his knees gasping for air. “She has broken us up, surprised us with a few new moves…”

“Don’t forget the claws,” Scott, leaning against the wall, interrupted, “for God’s sake, don’t forget the claws.”

“Why aren’t you scratched, John?” Darryl asked. He had ripped his shirt off and applied it to his own chest wounds.

“Lots and lots of previous beatings,” John admitted before standing up. All of them kept their eyes on Bethany Anne, who was on the other side of the room, breathing hard as well, eyeing them all, her eyes slightly red.

“What do you think Gabrielle?” John asked.

“I think,” Gabrielle answered, pulling her arm away now that her stomach had healed enough, “That I’ve gotten … lazy in my training.” Eric tossed her a towel which she used to clean the blood as best she could off of her arm. “And somehow, I’m going to get that …” Gabrielle noticed Bethany Anne’s raised eyebrow, “… woman … back.”

“That works for me,” Darryl said, “I vote you two go in there and wear her down, then the three of us will come in and clean up!”

The five chuckled a moment before Eric said, “You know, I’m willing to go in high if you are willing to take her low, Gabrielle.”
 

Gabrielle turned to look at Eric, but he was still looking at Bethany Anne. She whispered, “You have a plan, cowboy?” Eric slowly nodded his head up and down.

Gabrielle smiled, her eyes getting hard looking down the room at Bethany Anne, “Hell yeah, I’ve got your back!” Behind the two of them, the three guys looked to each other and shared a smile. If nothing else, Eric was going to make a point.

It might be a painful point, they thought, but it would be a point!

“Wait till I’m a third of the way across before you chase me. Then time it right, ok?”

“Time what right?” Gabrielle hissed, but Eric was already running hard across the room, screaming.

“Gott Verdammt maverick!” Gabrielle took off after him. She hadn’t gone three steps when Eric jumped. Not a small jump, but one that had his head almost hitting the ceiling twenty feet up as he flew across the room. Gabrielle wanted to yell that Bethany Anne was just going to wait for him to land before she kicked the shit out of the softball he was…Oh!

Gabrielle smiled, he wasn’t setting himself up for a hit, he was setting HER up to hit first. Eric had used his knowledge of the boss to offer Gabrielle the perfect opportunity to make a very painful point. It was the most delicious and manipulatable weakness Bethany Anne had.

And, it was working. Bethany Anne flicked her eyes to Gabrielle before looking back up to Eric, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth as she eyed her guard’s trajectory.

Hook, line and sinker! Gabrielle bolted ahead, using a large amount of her etheric reserves to slam into Bethany Anne and the two of them hit the wall with an ear crushing bang! The protection mats on the wall did little to smother the loud impact the two bodies made when they connected.

“Fucking shit!” Bethany Anne yelled, swiping at Gabrielle with a clawed hand. Her hand tore a hole in the wall protection where Gabrielle had just been. Almost too late, Bethany Anne remembered Eric and she had moved far enough to only suffer part of his kick, rebounding off of the wall before she fell to the floor and rolled, coming up ready for them and …

Smiling?

“About fucking time you people think to use what you know against me!” Bethany Anne’s eyes lost their slightly red tint and her claws retracting into her fingers.

Gabrielle noticed Eric wasn’t letting up his guard, so she moved slightly to his right, so Bethany Anne couldn’t catch them both together.

“Alright, practice halted.” Bethany Anne said and Eric relaxed. Gabrielle looked to the wall where the chunk of the mat was missing and shivered. That would have seriously hurt like hell if it had connected.

“Anyone need blood?” Bethany Anne asked.

Eric had walked over to the ice chest and opened it, “Gab!” Gabrielle turned to see a blood bag flying through the air her way. Gabrielle caught the bag and grew her fangs to use them to drain some of the contents without finishing the whole bag.

 
“It’s an unpretentious B-negative.” He smiled at her and then looked to the guys and Bethany. They all shook their heads.

They caught Bethany Anne’s eyes looking around the room and so her team looked to see what she was looking at.
 

The room was a mess, closer to almost destroyed.

“Well,” John said wiping sweat off of his forehead, “I think we need to get the group responsible for fixing the ship up here to help figure out a different setup. This equipment, save the metal walls, seems to have taken a beating.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Darryl asked, his voice an octave higher than normal, “I’m pretty sure it was me who took the beating.” He pointed over to the side, “That bench is all fucked up because it was in my way when I was landing. It was in the wrong place at the right time. Equipment taking a beating my ass.”

Scott and Eric chuckled as Darryl turned back to the team, “So, anybody think to bring some ibuprofen?”

—

The team spoke for another ten minutes on what they should work on to do better when fighting a hella-fast opponent with claws. John said he would get with Jean on some arm protection ideas. Gabrielle mentioned making sure they had the equipment to protect them in appropriate spots.

As they started to leave, Eric called out, “Gabrielle?” She turned to him, “Do you mind staying a moment? I have a question for you.”

Bethany Anne didn’t look at the two as she stepped in between them and continued to the room’s exit, “Hey!” She said over her shoulder, “nice attack, no need to relive it on my account. You two twerps did well back there. Don’t let it go to your heads.” John, Darryl, and Scott exited the room and closed the door behind them.

Outside in the hallway, Bethany Anne whispered, “Let’s go!” Her eyes turned red, and she bolted down the corridor, her three Bitches in hot pursuit. It took them only ten seconds to make it to her suite.

“ArchAngel!” She called out as they bolted through her rooms, “Turn on video of the workout room on the main video screen!”

The four of them came screaming into her room, Bethany Anne jumping into the air to twist around over Ashur who ducked as his master jumped over him to land on her side of the bed, nearly bouncing off of it.

The guys all turned to watch Gabrielle tell Eric, “I think that could be fun, I accept.” She then left the room, leaving Eric alone who jumped up into the air, punching high and yelling, “YES!”

When Eric landed, he tried to straighten his clothes and walked out.

“ArchAngel, shut off the video,” Bethany Anne said before continuing. “Dammit, we missed it!”

“The least he could do was trip over himself and give us time to spy on him,” Darryl said.

“Well, ok guys - time to leave, I’m disgusting and you’re bloody,” she told them.

“No thanks to you, boss,” Scott said as the three of them started leaving her room. She walked them out of her suite, telling them goodbye before shutting her door and walking back to her room and sitting on the bed. “ArchAngel, play the video back fifteen seconds before what you just showed me.”

She looked around her room before watching the main screen on her wall as her group started splitting up as Eric asked Gabrielle to stay behind.

“Damn, I wish I had some popcorn.”

QBS ArchAngel

“What did Coach and Ardesh come up with on the Space Station?” Lance asked over the monitor. Dan, Bethany Anne, Frank, Barb, Marcus, Bobcat, Jeffrey, and others sat around a long table in one of the main meeting rooms for the operations group. There were twenty chairs around the table, with the same amount running along two sides. There were areas for food and beverages and even had two restrooms specific to this room.

People were expected to be here a while.

“Ardesh wanted to know if we could figure out a way to see if there was a difference between the light we should receive from a star, and what we are actively receiving,” Marcus answered. “The idea is if our uninvited guest is using some sort of cloaking we aren’t aware of, it warps the light around it and the light is not perfect or some gravity anomaly or something.”

Lance looked out of the monitor for a moment, chewing on an unlit cigar.

“So, if they have an appropriate cloaking capability, then this is bust?” he finally asked.

“No, I think the algorithms they are working on will help us regardless. However, the calculations just came back and this ship is probably a little bigger than the Defender. If you thought finding a pin in a haystack was a challenge, then you don’t want me to tell you the challenge finding a two to three-hundred-foot ship in the vastness of space would be to us.”

“Unless they are close?” Bethany Anne asked.

“Well, certainly. The closer the ship, the larger amount of space it will effectively block. The chance of us finding something optically at even a few thousand miles if it has a passable cloaking ability is constrained.”

“Why can’t we use something like SONAR?” Lance asked.