Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Set Three: Books 15-21, Never Submit, Never Surrender, Forever Defend, Might Makes Right, Ahead Full, Capture Death, Life Goes On (Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Sets Book 3) Read online

  The Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Set Three

  Books 15 - 21

  Michael Anderle

  The Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Set Three (this book) is a work of fiction.

  All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Copyright © 2019 Michael T. Anderle

  Cover by Andrew Dobell, www.creativeedgestudios.co.uk

  Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

  LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  LMBPN Publishing

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  First US edition, January, 2019

  The Kurtherian Gambit (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are copyright © 2015-2019 by Michael T. Anderle.

  Contents

  Never Submit

  Never Surrender

  Forever Defend

  Might Makes Right

  Ahead Full

  Capture Death

  Life Goes ON

  Never Submit

  The Kurtherian Gambit Book 15

  1

  QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Operations and Observation Area

  “Shit.”

  “Gesundheit,” Maria Orsitsch replied.

  Bethany Anne turned to look at the German leader. “I’m sorry?”

  “What?” Maria stopped looking at the mesmerizing display of colors from the Yollin Annex Gate and turned to see Bethany Anne looking back at her, puzzled. Maria thought back to what she had just said and asked, “Didn’t you sneeze?”

  Bethany Anne smiled, eyebrows raised. “Noooo, I said shit.”

  Maria made a small ‘o’ with her mouth. “Sorry, my mistake. But while I have you talking,” she pointed at the gate on the screens, “why aren’t we moving forward?”

  Bethany Anne thought about that question for a second and shrugged, a glint of mischievousness in her eyes.

  “Shit,” Bethany Anne replied, completely straight faced.

  Now it was Maria’s turn to stare at the young Queen, trying to figure out how, or if, she was joking. In the few weeks since those from New Schwabenland had arrived on the Meredith Reynolds, Maria had been in Bethany Anne’s company quite a bit. Enough to both enjoy and be the target of her, at times, wicked sense of humor.

  It was time to play twenty questions. “Is that in English?” Maria tossed out.

  Bethany Anne answered. “Yes, English.”

  Maria put a finger to her lips before asking, “Pedantic or vulgar?”

  This time, it was Bethany Anne who had to pause. “Um, let’s go with a vulgar way to say a proper word.”

  “Okay, so waste,” Maria agreed. “So, the reason we aren’t moving forward is either an engineering issue or a convenience problem?”

  Bethany Anne nodded this time but didn’t clarify which of the two answers might be right.

  “Hmmm,” Maria thought a moment. “Most of the people on this asteroid are Americans, yes?” Bethany Anne smiled. “So, most of you have not used a bidet in your lifetimes?”

  It was just a bit over half of those on the asteroid were American, but Bethany Anne wasn’t trying to split hairs, here. She shook her head.

  “I presume the engineer or team that helped design the restrooms was European?”

  “South African, I think,” Bethany Anne said then paused a moment and got that split-second faraway look in her eyes. “I’ve been corrected, they were German.”

  Maria Orsitsch asked, “How many rolls are you short?”

  Bethany Anne smiled. “It all depends on the number of months or years we decide are sufficient to change over. While we could certainly force the issue, I’ve been told there are a few things that might be wise to bend a little. Right now, I’m being informed I should bend another eleven days due to the production schedules on Earth. Apparently, that’s based on how many rolls are presently shipping out across the world.”

  “Just how much toilet paper are we discussing?” Maria asked, finally confirming the product that was causing the Etheric Empire from passing through the Annex Gate.

  “Assuming a quarter million people, an average of eighteen months, using fifty-seven sheets per person and double-ply rolls of five hundred sheets we’ll need approximately seven point seven billion sheets or fifteen point four million rolls. If Earth’s manufacturing capacity is thirty-four million rolls per day, I’m told we should acquire this paper over a period of time, not to just order that many for a single day delivery.”

  Maria blinked a few times. “How much money is that?”

  “At least ten million priced in bulk, closer to fifteen million for something pulled off Amazon,” Bethany Anne answered.

  There was another pause. “Yes, your new way of selling off the internet is interesting.” Maria considered that. “How does Amazon deliver here?” she asked.

  “They don’t,” Bethany Anne replied. “ADAM enters a particular address for a building, one not in use. We doctor up the location a couple of hours before delivery to look like a valid business, and we accept delivery by shipping container, or containers. We replace the incoming container and boost the one delivered up to orbit at night. We have a pretty large skeleton ship that we use now to connect all of the containers together. Once we have enough, it becomes a pretty damned rigid craft. It has its own EI to navigate and deal with the gravitic engines, and gets moving in our direction.” Bethany Anne put up a finger to stop Maria. “Don’t ask me how it works, beyond that, my little head,” Bethany Anne made motions with her hands, fingers opening wide, “explodes!”

  Maria closed her mouth. She was, in fact, about to ask more technical questions. Each time she turned around, there was something new and exciting happening here in this woman’s Empire.

  Now, if Maria could just turn Barnabas’ head in the right direction, life couldn’t possibly get any better.

  QBBS Meredith Reynolds, All Guns Blazing, Special Room

  The door opened, and the crowd of people already present in the room looked over to see Bobcat step in, closing the door behind him before he nodded a confirmation to Lance.

  The room was large, well over thirty feet by twenty feet and had two entry/exit doors. One door entered a back corridor that went to the All Guns Blazing kitchens, the other was for guests.

  What it didn’t have was any room number or designation signs on the outside of the door. This room was as close to being secret as they could make it.

  Right now, it had a veritable who’s who of Etheric Empire notables sitting around a table.

  Starting with Lance Reynolds and his wife, Patricia, Frank Kurns and Barbara Nickers, John and Jean, Eric and Darryl (Scott was on duty). Across the table from them were Gabrielle, Stephen and Jennifer, Barnabas and Tabitha. At the other sid
e were Ecaterina and Nathan, William, Marcus, and now with Bobcat, everyone that Lance had discreetly called had arrived.

  Others couldn’t be present because Lance had to make sure there were enough people to distract Bethany Anne if she came around, looking for some of those missing.

  Basically, they needed to lie their asses off if she asked questions, hoping she didn’t read their minds.

  Now, thanks to Bobcat, he knew his daughter was having a discussion with Ashur, Bellatrix, and Yelena and he needed to get this meeting going.

  “Thank you for joining me. It has come to my attention that we need to deal with a rather sensitive situation related to my daughter and one of her vices.” A few eyebrows lifted around the table, not understanding what the Queen’s father was talking about.

  Lance looked around. “You guys and gals don’t see it, do you?” He frowned. “Okay, I’ll lay it out. She’s about to have a birthday in a few weeks…”

  Lance was interrupted by multiple people talking at once. He put up his hand to quiet everyone down. “No, I don’t mean her human birthdate, I’m not that stupid.”

  “She loves you and all,” Patricia patted her husband on the arm, “but she would kill you, and I’d have to say I’d understand.”

  “If I could only be so lucky she would stop at that,” Lance smiled. “I can only imagine what she could do that would be ever so much more painful.”

  “Saint—” Bobcat started, before everyone at the table joined in with him pronouncing the creed, “Payback is a bitch!”

  Everyone laughed as Lance just kept his lips pressed together and nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Saint Payback WOULD be a bitch, so, I’m going to use the date TOM tells me is the closest to the actual date he would consider her changed. Since even Bethany Anne doesn’t know…”

  “Why wouldn’t she know?” Tabitha asked.

  “Because she was under for so long,” TOM’s voice came out of a speaker on the wall. A few turned in their seats before realizing that, except to hear better, looking at a speaker was rather futile.

  TOM continued, “After the disaster of turning Michael, I thought I should take my time and do it right. I followed the changes and got lost in time myself. Days and nights mean nothing when you’re inside of a spaceship, so I didn’t follow them. I’ve researched the information from inside my ship, and I’m pretty confident that the actual date of her conversion is the fourteenth of June.”

  “So, we have a little time,” Gabrielle considered, tapping a finger on her lips.

  “Bethany Anne has a vice?” Tabitha asked, a few turning in her direction. “I mean, other than cussing? Hell, she doesn’t even drink liquor that I can ever see.”

  “Oh, she drinks it,” Bobcat replied. “It just doesn’t do anything to her nanites. They rip through the alcohol in the drinks like nothing. She doesn’t get drunk,” he finished.

  John smirked and pointed at Bobcat. “You DID try to drink her under the table.” Darryl and Eric started laughing.

  Bobcat shrugged, his face turning red. “Well, I had beaten so many of the Wechselbalg, I thought why not give her a try?”

  “It was,” William agreed, “one of the first times I’ve ever seen him incapable of walking a straight line after a drinking contest.” He put up two fingers and acted like they were walking in the air, his hand swerving all around.

  They were, Lance had to agree, a very drunk pair of fingers.

  “Which is to say,” Marcus interrupted, “we captured it on video for research purposes of course.”

  “If it was for research purposes,” Bobcat jumped back in, “then why the hell do you guys play it on a loop in the lab?”

  William shrugged, straight faced. “We’re researching how long it takes for you to complain about it each time.” He looked over at Marcus who picked up his tablet and hit a couple of buttons on the screen. Turning the tablet towards Bobcat, Marcus displayed a spreadsheet with a graph on it. “See?” He pointed to the left part of the screen. “Right here you can see a sharp decrease towards the zero horizontal line. It took you about,” Marcus turned the tablet back to himself to look at it, “four days and twelve hours to get tired of the video.”

  “It’s been fourteen days,” Bobcat grated out.

  “Yeah, but we’ve had a bet…” William continued before Lance cut in.

  “GUYS!” They turned to the leader of the Etheric Empire’s defenses. “Save it for later, okay?” The three men nodded.

  Bobcat stuck two fingers up, pointing to William, then his own eyes, then to Marcus and back to his eyes again before mouthing silently ‘we will talk later’ at them.

  William smiled, and Marcus tried to stifle a laugh.

  Barbara, sitting next to Frank, asked, “You said ‘vice’ earlier Lance, is she cracking or something?”

  “Oh, nothing like that,” Lance replied. “It’s just you know that we’re about to leave the system and we need to get a jump on handling a potential problem before it becomes a real issue. I’m sure none of us want to see her suffer withdrawal.”

  Lance looked around at all of Bethany Anne’s closest friends and allies before asking, “How are we going to solve her Coke addiction?”

  2

  QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Queen’s Suite

  “Bethany Anne,” Meredith, the operations EI of the QBBS Meredith Reynolds spoke from the speaker. Although Meredith could have routed the information through ADAM, they tended to work like humans expected. “Scott says he’s ready to pass Yelena, Ashur, and Bellatrix, plus their five offspring through if you’re ready?”

  Bethany Anne blinked once as she processed the information. Then she jumped out of her bed, rushed into her closet, slid out of the nice suede shirt she was wearing to grab an old t-shirt and throw that on. Tossing off her pajama bottoms, she slid into a pair of leather pants.

  Puppy nails can scratch, and if they happened to get their fur all over her, the t-shirt was much easier to wash... or just ditch. She couldn’t remember if the puppies would shed, but no use chancing the suede top she liked to lounge around in.

  Walking back out of her closet, the doors shutting behind her, she wrapped her hair in a ponytail and called out, “Okay, let them in.” She passed through her bedroom’s doors to enter the more public area of her suite.

  Just in time to get ambushed by five German Shepherd puppies.

  Two came at her from the front, two jumped from the arms of the couch. The last was trying a sneak attack.

  Bethany Anne took a step and disappeared.

  Scott, listening, but not able to see inside the suite from the doorway smirked when he heard a ‘YIP!’ of surprise. This was followed by another yip when it sounded to him as if one of the puppies had landed on another.

  “So, letting them in early are you?” Bethany Anne, now only two feet in front of her guard, had caught his gleeful face.

  His eyes darted to where she was supposed to be and then back to where she was, staring at him with her hands on her hips.

  “Aaaahhhh,” Scott started, but then Yelena’s voice saved his ass.

  “Oh!” Yelena came around the corner to see Bethany Anne outside her own suite. “There you are!”

  “Hello, Yelena!” Bethany Anne smiled and waved at the woman before looking Scott in the eyes. “Just remember,” she whispered as she walked past her guard and back into her suite, “the Saint goes both ways!”

  There was a ‘chuff’ behind him, and Scott turned looked down at the large white dog. “Yeah Ashur, I think we’re both going to get it for that trick.” Behind Ashur, Bellatrix chuffed as well, and Scott smiled. “Yes, I know you told us, but it was funny, right?”

  Bellatrix shook her head and turned around to join Bethany Anne. Scott shrugged at Ashur and went back to watching the corridor. Scott’s position guarding Bethany Anne’s suite was ceremonial as anyone making it down the long hallway through Meredith’s scans was already checked for damn near everything. But at least one of her four closest
guards would be there even if standing there was a completely superfluous action.

  No one was going to see Bethany Anne without at least one of her Bitches checking them out first.

  “Take a seat, Yelena,” Bethany Anne pointed to the couch. “Not you,” she told Ashur. “Mr. White Mountain of fur and hilarity. Take your hairy traitorous ass back out to Scott. You two can console yourselves while we women figure this out.” Ashur chuffed, stuck his nose in the air and trotted back out of the room.

  Bellatrix, Yelena’s all black German Shepherd that had been saved on an operation in Europe, jumped up on the couch. Yelena sat next to her, one of her legs on the couch, one hanging off. Her black hair matched the female German Shepherd’s exactly. Bellatrix chuffed, and Yelena smiled and responded to her friend, “Yes, Ashur really didn’t want to stick around to chat about this, so he’s happy bullshitting with Scott.”

  Bellatrix put her head down and watched her five puppies roaming around the room. Well, four of them. Matrix, one of the boys, all black except for four white socks, sat next to the couch, watching the three ladies talk.

  Bellatrix chuffed to Bethany Anne who regarded her, then slowly raised an eyebrow. “You’re shitting me, right?” Another chuff. “Seriously? All five of them?” Bethany Anne looked up at Yelena who shrugged.

  “I know, right? It’s like five individual little puffballs who usually can’t agree on what they want to eat all zoomed in on one idea and now it’s written in stone.”

  Bethany Anne chewed on the inside of her cheek. “Where are they at on their maturity level?”