Because your language when you change your body to grow red hair reverts back to when we first met.
Oh, hadn’t noticed.
Either way, tell him that I will speak to him within two galactic-standard hours, and he will produce his cousin. If I’m waiting more than five minutes, I’ll find his cousin, and he and his men are forfeit. Please keep the area calm until then.
Wait, what? I just need a battalion. I’m not asking you to show up.
I understand, but think about your reputation. When you threaten a Queen’s Battalion on this nowhere little planet, and the Queen Bitch shows up?
Yeah, but which rep? The one with the criminals, or the one in the Rangers? I complained. My group is going to laugh their asses off.
Well, the rep with the Rangers is your own to deal with. Besides, Barnabas is going to think this is funny as hell.
Yeah, well he would. I grumped.
All right, Pilot says the new course is locked in and I’ve told the group I’ll catch back up to them on the third jump. Besides, you can tell the other Rangers I was bored.
You are bored, I told her.
See! When you tell the truth, the truth will set you free.
With that, she closed off our connection.
I looked back over at Tet’gurky, a clearly noticeable annoyance showing on my face.
“What?” he asked, an expression I’d learned was glee for his kind, “Did she tell you to figure it out on your own?” He gave that shitty laugh again, and his group took it up. Sixteen annoying hissing laughs.
“No,” I told him, “She said to tell you she would be here within two galactic-standard hours, and you would either produce him within five minutes, or every one of your lives here are forfeit,” I smiled sardonically back at him.
Tet’gurky’s laughing stopped abruptly and his face turned angry, “She didn’t! You lie to continue this negotiation.” He was leaning towards me. I wanted to punch his nose out the other side of his skull.
“No, you ass,” I reached into my duster and pulled out a clock timer. It’s a rolled up little piece of plastic maybe ten inches long and four tall. I had my cyber-core program it to two galactic standard hours. That was about three and a half hours on this world. I walked over to the wall to the left of his desk. We had been bitching at each other in the back room of a bar. It had seven round tables in it and five of them were filled. I took a knife from under my coat and pinned the clock to the wall, stabbing it hard to hold it in place, turned to the table next to me, grabbed a chair and sat down. “When that reaches zero, if the Queen hasn’t shown up, I’ll leave.”
The men all looked back to Tet’gurky, for guidance, I guessed. “So, that is a Ranger’s promise?” he asked. Apparently, rat-face had been studying.
I nodded, “Yes, it is. More, it’s a promise from Ranger Tabitha specifically.” I had cultivated the hell out of never personally swearing on my name unless I knew something would happen. “If she isn’t here within two hours, I walk without your cousin. However, if she is here within two hours, she expects your cousin to be here as well. I’m sure you know the ‘or else’ if that doesn’t happen,” I smiled at him. To a lot of aliens, a human smiling is a scary sight. Sver’an smile showing their teeth during negotiations as well, so no psychological benefit to me.
“What if I have him brought nearby, are you going to grab him and leave?” Tet’gurky asked, “Is this another Ranger trick?” he hissed, a little worry cracking through his mask of boldness.
Well, shit. He had been researching the Rangers, and specifically me. I enjoyed tricking the hell out of my foes. It kept the many years of my life interesting.
“Nope, no trick. I’ve talked with the Queen, and she should be here soon. I guess she was in the neighborhood... and bored.” I faked a yawn and looked back up at the clock. Three minutes had elapsed. Shit, this was going to be one long ass boring two hours.
Then again, I started to see Tet’gurky sweat, so maybe it wasn’t.
I reached under my duster for another knife and began to clean my fingernails with it. It was all show. This knife was dull. The knives I actually use would slice my fool fingers off at the tip, and I’d have to grow them back. Which, frankly, for fingers is an annoying pain in the ass as it makes it difficult to grab shit. The other Rangers think it’s funny as hell to give you a sphere large enough you need the non-existent tips of your fingers to grab.
Last time it happened to me, I used a type of glue to grab it with my palm and gave them the smallest-fingered rude gesture ever.
Just after I got inducted into the Rangers, back on Earth before we closed the door on that rat-infested place... Huh, rats, I guess everything’s coming up rats for me right now. Anyway, I digress. Back when I was on Earth and had just been inducted into the Rangers, I did all I could to study the original Texas Rangers.
Then the stories about the Lone Ranger and finally American westerns in general as I’m originally from South America on that world. I never wore a cowboy duster until we left Earth and I started doing this job on other planets.
First, because they weren’t fashionable on Earth. I mean, how the hell do you get respect for being a Ranger when everyone looks at you and asks if you’re trying to copy the movie The Matrix? Out here, no one knows about the Matrix, and considering the second and third films from that series, that’s a blessing.
Second, because I didn’t need to keep so much shit on me back then, including special vials of blood in case I became someone’s bitch in a fight. It doesn’t happen often, but every now and then someone is as fast as me, or stronger than me or just downright sneakier than me.
I’m ok with faster or stronger, but sneakier pisses me off.
Now I’ve got a damned military arsenal secreted about my body, including the body armor hidden underneath all these body hugging clothes. With the Kurtherian Nanites I’ve got running through my system, I can change my appearance over time and adjust my body.
Unfortunately, it isn’t quick.
Takes up to a month sometimes depending on what I’m doing. Hair? Well, it will grow twice normal, but that’s only an inch a month for me. So, if I change color, it could take a year to get to a foot without dyeing my hair which I can do, but it feels fake. When I go red, which I occasionally do, it’s because I’m really, really bored, and I need action.
Depending on the solar system and what they think about humans—if they’ve ever seen a human—I’ll change my body. Bigger tits, smaller tits, hips big or small. I can only do slight changes to my height up or down. The nanites do not like adjusting my perfect genetic height. I know this because I tried once to get taller for two damned decades.
Obstinate little nanite bastards.
Within fifteen minutes, three of Tet’gurky’s guys left the room. I could hear a mewling little prick get tossed on a bed some thirty minutes later, bitching behind a gag of some kind. I kept cleaning my fingernails and making sure no one was planning on a hole and run.
As in, plug me full of holes and run.
Because, if that shit did happen, then I was going to get some serious payback. The armor repulses most damage, but it still throws me around. Kinetic force disperses around my body and somewhat into the ground, but it never gets rid of all of it. I can stand most all pistols and a good many of the rifles. Those crew mounted weapons? I do my dead level best to dodge the shit out of them. One sent me through a fourth-story window. At the time, I hadn’t thought to have any sort of anti-gravity options.