Wings of Retribution (11 page)

“Turn on your light,” Smallfoot instructed as he pulled on a lead-reinforced glove.  He stepped up to the engine block and pried up a lever from the looming mass of metal.  He gripped the lever with his gloved fist and pulled.

The lights went out.

Dallas flipped on her flashlight in a panic.

Dangling from Smallfoot’s gloved fist was a glowing blue ceramic cylinder.  “Got it,” he said.  He hefted his prize cheerfully and headed back toward the stairs. 

Dallas followed at a subdued distance, her mind reeling.  Without a power supply, Beetle was crippled.  There was no going back.  She had pulled off the main travel-route in her attempt to thwart their attackers.  They would drift for years, maybe even centuries, before someone came and discovered them all frozen like Halloween popsicles.

Back on the upper level, Smallfoot handed the ceramic cylinder to one of the Utopian agents who was waiting for it at the air-lock.  The man hefted it, grinned at Smallfoot, and disappeared into the other ship.

“Last chance,” Smallfoot said, pausing in the air-lock to look back at her.

Dallas swung her light into the Beetle’s deserted hallway.  Little specks of dust drifted in front of her flashlight’s beam.  The place reminded her of a tomb.

“I’m staying,” she said with more resolve than she felt.

Smallfoot shrugged.  “Your choice.”  He started to turn, then paused, handing her the second flashlight.  “You’ll need this,” he said, and stepped into the other ship.  In moments, the two doors had shut and the air-lock sealed itself once more.  The Beetle jolted as the Utopian vessel released it.  There was a momentary rumble as the other ship’s engine powered up, and then nothing.

Dallas sprinted back to where Dune was collapsed on the floor outside the command room.  He was still in the exact same position she had left him.

Dallas knelt beside him and touched his shoulder.  Dune was breathing, albeit shallowly.  She shook him, hard.

The mechanic grunted, sucked in a huge breath, and rolled onto his back, gasping.  The first thing out of his mouth was, “Differentials’ll need work.”

Dallas frowned at him and shone the flashlight into his eyes.  “What are differentials?”

Dune threw a grease-marked arm over his face and groaned.  “What the hell’s going on?  Who’s there?  Get that blasted thing out of my face.  Why’s it so dark?”

“Smallfoot took the energy-core,” Dallas said.  “Turned the colonists in to the Utopis.”

Dune grunted and sat up.  “Fairy?”

Dallas nodded.

“Where’s the Capt’in?”

Dallas hesitated.  “He said he killed her.”

Dune scoffed.  “That’d be the day.  Help me up.”

She pulled him to his feet and held him steady while he got his bearings.  “He had her gun.  I think he shot her.”

“Prolly did,” Dune said.  He took Dallas’s spare flashlight.  “You go find the others.  I’m gonna check the engine.”  At that, he jogged off toward the stairs, leaving Dallas alone in the hall.

Dallas turned toward the sleeping chambers with trepidation.  Though she had worked for Athenais for two years and the Utopia for fifteen years before that, she had never actually seen a dead person before.  She was not looking forward to the experience, since she was terrified of ghosts.

Her first command had been haunted.  It was the only reason that she had been able to get the post at such a young age with so little time in service.  They had actually given her the ship as a punishment because it had driven its previous two commanders batty. 

Bloody Mary
, as they had re-named it, had been absolutely and categorically haunted.  For two horrible years, Dallas had endured apparitions, poltergeists, and strange whispering voices, all so she could continue to fly.  Though she didn’t know exactly what had happened to the people who haunted the place, she was pretty sure that murder had been involved.

Now her boots felt heavy as she made her way to the Captain’s apartments.  It was the first room on the right.  The door was open.

Swallowing hard, Dallas peeked inside the entryway.

Immediately, her headache was back.  Gray and red mush was splattered over half the wall.  Though she couldn’t see a body, she knew what that meant.

Forcing down the urge to gag, Dallas ducked past Athenais’s room and knocked on Squirrel’s door.  “Squirrel?” she called, not liking the way her timid voice carried down the hall, echoing right into the room where the dead Captain lay in a pool of her own blood. 

When she got no answer, Dallas fought down a pang of dread.  Though she’d been screamed at to stay out of the woman’s room on numerous occasions, she jiggled the latch anyway.  Squirrel, as usual, had it locked.  After a moment’s deliberation in the cold, dark hallway, Dallas glanced behind her to make sure no one was watching, then got out a paperclip and a sliver of metal sheeting and proceeded to pick the lock.

With the power off, it wasn’t difficult.  Picking locks came in handy when hardnosed Utopian colonels liked to keep sensitive war-plans secured behind locked doors, and only doled out tiny bits of information on a ‘Need to Know’ basis, when it was obvious that the pilot running the mission needed to know everything she could about her job before she started it.  On that note, it also came in handy when Military Security caught her scrounging through top-secret files in the middle of the night and was about to take her back to the station in cuffs, where they were
sure
to figure out her name and Service ID number.

 …Or when way-too-full-of-themselves space pirates decided to lock her in her room for a day for ‘spying on me.’  Dallas didn’t spy on people.  It wasn’t her fault if she accidently overheard something important while running normal, everyday errands around the ship.  So she liked to spend time in the broom closet.  Big deal.  Sometimes people just needed some alone time.  Besides, locking someone in their room was illegal.  Basic human rights.  She could take Athenais to court.

Once she had the door open, Dallas quickly checked to make sure she hadn’t been seen, then returned the paperclip and its mate to her shoe.  Then, hand on the latch, she tentatively pushed the door open.  “Squirrel?”

It was dark inside.  Cringing, Dallas swept the flashlight across the bed, expecting to see another blood-stain.  What she found made her stare.

Squirrel, to her relief, had not been shot.  She
was
, however, lying in bed, her face slack with sleep, cheek scrunched up against the pillow, drool pooling under her nose.  It was the first time Dallas had seen the woman without makeup, and she had to pause a moment, just to soak it in.  She looked a lot less like a stuck-up, elite snob and a lot more like a normal person.  Dallas almost wanted to take a picture, to preserve the moment.  Then, catching herself, she slipped inside and shook Squirrel awake.

“Dallas?”  Squirrel asked, blinking up at her in confusion.  “Comm down?”  Then her face darkened suddenly.  “How did you get in my room again?”

“Everything’s down,” Dallas hastily informed her.  “Smallfoot sold us out.  Took the power core, left us all to die.”

Squirrel sat up immediately.  “Where’s the Captain?”

“Dead,” Dallas said, wincing.

Squirrel snorted.  “I’d like to see that.”  Then she got up and started dressing.  Dallas watched, fascinated.  Pausing as she caught Dallas’s stare while donning a flowing silk robe, Squirrel frowned.  “And get the hell out!  Just ‘cause the power went out doesn’t mean you can lurk.  I hate lurkers.” 

Narrowing her eyes, Dallas went to wait in the hall outside, shutting the door behind her.  “I’ll show you a lurker, you cranky old broad,” she muttered to the latch, kicking herself for not taking that picture.

“And stop muttering, you skinny little curmudgeon!” Squirrel shouted through the door.

Dallas squinted at the closed door.  What the hell was a curmudgeon?

A few minutes later, Squirrel came out with a flashlight of her own.  She paused a moment to slip a set of fancy shoes on at the door, then made a point to lock the door behind her, giving Dallas a pointed glance as she did.  As usual, she looked stunning.  Well-dressed, her sleek designer clothes lacking a single wrinkle or snag, her short blonde hair fluffed-up to perfection, her makeup solidly back in place.  She looked like she belonged in a sheik’s harem, and idly, Dallas wondered if she was somehow doubling as the old bat’s concubine.  Now
that
would be a good picture…

“I’m gonna check on Goat,” Dallas said.

“You do that,” Squirrel nodded.  “Somebody needs me, I’m working on comm.”  At that, she turned and strode away, not even pausing for a glance inside Athenais’s cabin.

“I told you, Smallfoot took the core,” Dallas called after her.

Squirrel waved a dismissive hand and disappeared around the corner.

Dallas passed Smallfoot’s empty quarters and was about to put down her flashlight to jimmy open Goat’s door when it shuddered and moved.  As Dallas was hastily tucking her paper-clip back into her boot, Goat stumbled into the hall, hair mussed and eyes puffy.  If he had been smoking tanga-weed recently, the smell was masked by his overpowering body odor.

“What’s with the lights?”  Goat muttered, holding the side of his head.

“Smallfoot sold us to the Utopis,” Dallas said, straightening.  “They took the power-core and all the colonists.  Ragnar, too.  And he killed the Captain.”

Goat snorted and scratched himself.  “He killed her, huh?  ‘magine that.”

“Why doesn’t anybody believe me?”  Dallas demanded.  “I saw her
brains
on the
wall
.”

“You prolly did,” Goat said.  “Gimme the flashlight.”

Dallas reluctantly handed it over.

Goat stepped back into his room and came out with a massive, industrial-size searchlight.  He switched it on and the hall blazed.  “I’m gonna go help Dune.  Come get me when Capt’in wakes up.”

At that, he left her standing alone in the hall.

Was the whole ship crazy?  As Confucius would have said, ‘One does not wake up from a head wound that leave one’s brain smeared across a wall like a new style of abstract art.’  Frowning, Dallas hurried back down the hall, quickly passing the Captain’s quarters without glancing inside.  She hurried to the helm, where Squirrel had a side-panel open and was rooting through the wires she found there.

“Need help?”  Dallas suggested.

Squirrel had four different-colored wires poking out from between her teeth.  “Nope,” she said around them, as she fiddled with something above her head.

“Got somethin I can do, then?”  Dallas asked.  “I don’t know engine stuff.  Maybe I could help with comm?”

“Nope,” Squirrel said.

Dallas sat in the pilot’s chair and glanced at the console.  The eerie darkness of the controls was more final than the loss of power.  In that moment, she knew they were going to die.  “I’ll just stay here and keep you company,” she said.

Squirrel let out an explosive sigh and turned toward her as far as the wires would allow.  “Go bug the Captain, will you?  I’m trying to concentrate, Fairy.”

“The captain is
dead
!”  Dallas snapped.  “Smallfoot was right.  You
are
an uppity bitch.”

Squirrel laughed.  “He said that, did he?  What a dweeb.”  Dallas sensed no hostility in her manner, despite the fact that Dallas had just called her an uppity bitch.

“Sorry,” Dallas muttered.  “Just wish I had somethin ta do, that’s all.”

Squirrel grunted and went back to work.  After a few minutes, she said around her mouthful of wires, “You know we’re not getting out of this mess, right?”