Wings of Retribution (32 page)

Stuart pursed his lips.  “How long did you fly it?”

“Two years.”

“That must have been an eternity.”

“It was.”  She gave him a shocked look.  “You believe in ghosts?”

“Absolutely.  It’s one of the few psychic fields in which humans seem to excel—messy, violent deaths.  What happened on that ship to leave it haunted?”

“Never did find that out.”  Dallas shuddered.  “Don’t really want to know, either.”

“I can check,” he said, reaching for the console.  “What was the name?”

Dallas scowled at him.  “I said I didn’t want to know.”

“I do.  Watch the screen.”

“
Bloody Mary
,” Dallas muttered.

“Sounds promising,” he said, typing it in.  In moments, he had his answer.

“Captain George Yuma,” he recited.  “Was forcibly retired after a hundred and sixteen years as captain.  He refused to step down.  He defied orders, flew his ship out to empty space, and murdered his crew.  An exploration squad found it thirty years later, the corpses frozen inside.  Perfectly preserved.  They re-named it
Bloody Mary
because the captain left a note on the wall of the air-lock, written in blood.  Said he’d walk the place forever, and if anybody else tried to take his ship away from him, and would haunt the next captain all the way to his tomb.”

“Damn it, why’d you hafta tell me that?!”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Stuart said.  “The next captain died of a heart-attack a few weeks after taking command.  Oh, and the one after that keeled over in his pea soup, three months into his commission.  Stroke.”

Dallas went pale.  Her knuckles bone-white where they clung to the stick.  “I said I didn’t want to know,” she managed.

“Hmm,” he said, “Well, if it makes you feel any better,
Bloody Mary
was scrapped right after you took another commission.  And oh, look! 
Retribution
is using a refurbished version of the
Bloody Mary’s
intercom in the captain’s chambers.”

Dallas turned green.

“I’m kidding.  You were the first commission, after the murders.”

She swallowed and stared down at her debris screen.

“You need to lighten up.  Ghosts can’t hurt you.”

“They can’t?” Dallas demanded.  “What about hovering knives and rotating beds?  That’s all harmless?”

“That’s a poltergeist,” he said.  “Completely different energy patterns.”

Dallas narrowed her eyes and turned back to the controls.

“So how long until we reach Erriat?”

Her eyes flickered over the console.  “Oh hey, that’s neat.  Seven days, seven hours, and seventeen minutes.”

“Are you really gonna make Athenais ride in the airlock when we find her?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“She did it to me.”

“Why?”

“Because I took
Beetle
out without permission.” 

He raised his host’s brows.

“I just wanted to get the feel of her,” Dallas said quickly.  “No harm in that.  Hell, I brought her back without a single ding and Athenais acted like I had scattered wreckage over half the quadrant.  She took me out and did so many maneuvers that the artificial gravity system crashed.  Flung me all around the inside of the air-lock and bashed me all to hell.  I was lucky to be alive by the end of it.”

“That’s a little extreme.”

“Yeah, I know, right?!” Dallas cried, nodding.  “And before she locked me in, she told me she was headed out to dump me in space.  So the whole time I was vomiting my guts out, I was also wonderin’ when she was gonna open the hatch.”

“Seems like you two got off on the wrong foot.”

Dallas pressed her lips together and scowled at the debris field, her small body obviously prickling.  “No.  She’s just a bitch.”

Friends in Sticky Places

Twenty-four hours later, Rabbit called them all to dinner again.  He had made a pungent dish of baked eggs mixed with a potent herb that made Stuart’s host’s eyes water.  He choked it down, but shook his head when he was offered more.

Dallas barely touched her meal, and when Rabbit told her to finish it, she pushed the plate away from her and told him to go to hell.

Colonel Howlen had refused to eat with them entirely.  In response, Dallas had ordered him to join them in the mess hall, but he had simply dragged a seat as far away from their table as possible and spent the entire time scowling at Stuart’s back.  Stuart felt the man’s eyes like razor blades at the base of his neck, and it was everything he could do not to get up and go shock him again.

Darley was equally as gloomy.  He ate everything Rabbit put in front of him, but sat at the table staring at his empty plate afterwards, moving crumbs of egg around with his fork.

Finally, Rabbit heaved a huge sigh.  He hadn’t even opened up his handheld case to begin his usual scouting missions, and his wine glass was dry.  He eyed the four of them over his empty plate.  “Aren’t we a spirited bunch,” he commented.  “Was my cooking really that bad?”

“It’s the damned
alien
you brought aboard without telling me,” Howlen snapped.  “He electrocuted me the other night.”

“Yes, I heard about that.  You insulted his ancestors or something, right?”

“I don’t want to be on the same ship as that thing.”

Rabbit nodded.  “All right.  You’re welcome to get off at any time.”  He gestured at the front air-lock.

“Next stop, Erriat,” Dallas added with a smirk.

His face turning purple, Howlen got to his feet and stalked from the room, leaving his chair beside the door.

“What about you, Darley?” Rabbit went on.  “Why so grim?”

Darley sighed and let his fork fall back onto his plate.  “I’m just worried about Attie.”

Dallas snorted.  “Coldhearted bitch is getting what she deserves.”

In one swift motion, Darley was on his feet, Dallas’s collar in his fist.  He brought her face inches away from his and said, “Maybe we should drop you off on our way out, you stupid child.  Give you a few years to think about it.”

“Darley,” Rabbit warned.

“No!  She’s too stupid to overlook her grudge for one moment to realize that Athenais is in a hell worse than anything she could ever think up.  It’s no wonder Athenais kicked her off her ship.”

“That’s your captain you’re speaking to,” Rabbit said.

“She sure doesn’t act like one.”  Darley released Dallas’s collar in disgust and stormed off.

Dallas’s face was scarlet as she sat back down, hand at her throat.  Throwing a trembling finger in Darley’s direction, she said in a wavering voice, “Stuart, follow him back to his room and lock him inside.  I want him in confinement for the rest of the trip.”

Stuart sighed.  “No.”

“No?!”  Dallas looked betrayed.  “What is this?  A mutiny?”

“If this were a mutiny, child, you’d be dead already.”

Dallas glared at Rabbit.  “You’re gonna start callin’ me child, too?  On my own damn ship?”

“Your actions today have made it necessary,” Rabbit said.

“What actions?”

Rabbit stopped to give her a long look.  “When we get Athenais aboard the ship, I want you to take a good look in her eyes.  If you still think that she deserves punishment, you can throw her in the airlock and do all the barrel-rolls you want.  Until then, stop insulting her.  I’ve known her as my friend more than a hundred times longer than you’ve been alive, and, if we get to Erriat and something goes wrong and I have to choose between which of the two of you to leave on that planet, it would be her.  As much as I love her as a sister, I’m not about to put that burden on my soul, because I know you wouldn’t survive it.”

Oh gods, girl, shut up
, Stuart thought, cringing, knowing what was next. 
Don’t say it.  Don’t—

“
That’s just because the Potion keeps her alive,” Dallas retorted.

Stuart dropped his face into his hands.

 “The Potion keeps her alive,” Rabbit agreed.  “And that will only make it worse for her.”  He stood up, gathering up his electronics, then stopped to give her a long look.  “Unfortunately, I wasn’t referring to physical survival.  I’ve seen kids like you break, in the wars.  Hell, spent my fair share breaking them.  You’d let go in the first six hours.” 

“Let go?” Dallas asked.  Stuart could have groaned.  He pulled his hands along his face, wishing he were anywhere but here.

“Lose it.  Belly up. 
Break
.” 

“Why do you think that?” Dallas demanded, puffing up.  “I went through the
Academy
.”

“You’ve still got the mental resiliency of a toadstool.”  Without another word, Rabbit left the mess hall.

Stuart quickly got up to follow him.

“You, too?”

Stuart froze and sheepishly glanced back.  The hurt in Dallas’s face was unmistakable. 

“I was finished eating,” he said, embarrassed.  “Thought I could catch some sleep before my shift comes up.”  Never mind that a
suzait
didn’t need to sleep, aside from brief catnaps to repair muscular damage or recharge glucose levels in the host bloodstream.

The whimper that followed chipped at his soul.  “Why does everybody hate me?”

Stuart sighed and sat back down.  “They don’t.”

“Yes they do.  In the Academy, on
Mary,
on
Beetle
…  Nobody even stood up for me when Athenais decided to dump me on T-9.”

“Yes they did.”

“What?”

“They did.  She came down to The Shop afterwards and complained to everybody who’d listen that her entire crew was trying to mutiny on her.  They all wanted you to stay.”

“They…did?”  Dallas sniffled and wiped the back of her hand across her nose, looking up at him, hope all-too-clear in her face.

“Yeah,” Stuart said.  “The way things were going, she was gonna have to come crawling back to you on her knees.”

Dallas wrinkled her face immediately.  “I woulda told her to go to hell.”