by Sara King
Mari watched Dallas position Stuart over her with increasing horror.
“Don’t worry, Mari,” Dallas said. “I’ll be fine. If you don’t want to watch, you can go check out the regen room. See if it’s got everything you need.”
“No,” Mari said, “I can stay.”
“Uh, that’s not really what I meant,” Dallas said, wincing. “I meant this is kind of personal, Mari. I’d feel more comfortable if it was just Stuart and I.”
“Oh. Of course.” Mari nodded and hurried from the room, her relief clear on her face.
“You ready for this?” Dallas leaned back on the carpet, nostrils-up.
“Ready.” Stuart laid his nose over hers.
“Go.”
Dallas closed her eyes as Stuart sprang from the host’s nose and slid into her own. The nose, Stuart had informed her, was the most painless way to do things. Dallas still thought it was gross, but, remembering the agonizing headache from last time, she was willing to try.
At first, it was an uncomfortable warm, squishy wetness that made her want to sneeze. Quickly, though, it turned into that boring, nerve-wracking agony. She squeezed her fists together, grinding her teeth against the pain, but started screaming anyway. Her body shook and she pounded the floor with her fists, stubbornly fighting the instinct to reach up and try to tear him out.
Then it was over. Like last time, he shut off the pain receptors of his entry point, leaving her with only a minor tingle from the adrenaline.
Welcome back, Dallas thought.
Good to be home, Stuart replied. Now say something to Mari. She looks about ready to reach for your gun.
“Mari, it’s me,” Dallas said. “Stuart stays in the background unless it’s something important.”
Or if you’re being stupid.
“Shut up.”
Mari nodded, wide-eyed, but her hand went to her mouth as the trickle of blood leaked from Dallas’s nose.
“It’s okay,” Dallas said, wiping he face with a sleeve. “He didn’t hit an artery or anything. It’s just leftover from when he—”
Mari lifted up her hand and pointed.
Dallas turned. Behind them, the Warrior was groggily getting to his feet, the strips of sheet hanging broken from his wrists. Dallas kicked him in the back of the knee and ran past him, opening the airlock.
Hurry, Dallas! While he’s still uncoordinated.
“Help me, Mari!” she shouted, grabbing the Warrior by his wrists and pulling. Mari ran to her and grabbed the Warrior’s shirt, and together, they tugged and pulled him out the door.
“What is the meaning of this?!” a commanding female voice demanded. “Who is this man?”
Dallas looked up. Behind her, Mari backed into the ship, biting her lip.
“He’s a shifter, apparently,” Athenais said, shoving the Warrior out of her path. “Dallas, meet Colonel Burke. Colonel Burke, this is our pilot. Now everyone get on the ship. We’ve got to hurry.”
Dallas glanced from Athenais to Ragnar, but they offered her no insights. Confused, she turned to go back onto the ship.
“Wait a minute, young woman!” the Colonel snapped. “Aren’t you gonna ask for some sort of passcode? Don’t you want to make sure we’re not shifters?”
Dallas turned back, frowning. “Why would I want to do that?”
Ragnar groaned and Athenais whipped out her pistol, pointing it at the Colonel. “Get on the ship, Burke, or your brain is about to decorate the walls of my ship.”
“My ship,” Dallas interjected.
Burke’s eyes narrowed on the three of them. “You’re just common thieves. Criminals. You’re probably the ones exporting the drugs off of this planet.”
“Damn. You caught us,” Athenais said. “Now get on the ship.”
Burke turned around and spat directly in Athenais’s face. “You’re going to die here, pirate.”
Athenais’s eyes opened wide and her lips pressed together in a puckered line. Her finger clenched around the trigger, but Ragnar grabbed the gun and lifted before she could fire. “She’s not going to help us,” he said. “Our cover’s blown. She’s just doing her job. There’s no use killing her.”
“But I want to kill her,” Athenais said, wiping spittle from her face.
“Just get on the ship, Athenais. It’s up to Dallas, now.”
The Colonel’s expression changed and she took another look at Dallas. “Wait. Dallas York?”
“Do I know you?” Dallas asked.
The woman glanced back at Athenais and Ragnar with a calculating expression. “There’s a two million credit bounty out on your head, girl.”
Dallas’s heart began to pound. There…was? That was twice as much as Athenais. Oh shit. “For what?” she managed.
“Erriat.”
Dallas winced. “Oh.”
“Two million?” Athenais demanded, sounding disgusted. “How’d the little twit rate two whole million?”
And it’s about to get a hell of a lot bigger, Stuart said, If we’ve got any luck at all.
Dallas realized, more than a little horrified, that he was right. Flying down forty ships was bad. But hundreds of thousands? She was going to be painting a nova-sized target on her back if she managed to get them out alive.
“Should be fun,” Dallas said.
Someday, you and I are going to have to have a discussion on our definition of ‘fun,’ Stuart replied.
Chicken.
Still standing at the edge of the loading ramp, the Colonel, who had been staring at Dallas, turned to Athenais. “I was wrong. You might have half a chance, after all.” At that, stiff-legged, she turned and began stalking back across the docking bay.
Athenais gave Burke’s back a long look, and Dallas saw the pirate consider blasting her in the back anyway. Then the woman grunted, returned her weapon to its holster, and pushed past Dallas into the ship. Ragnar followed, and Dallas shut the airlock, leaving Stuart’s Warrior stumbling to his feet outside.
“What was that all about?” Dallas muttered.
“We’re dead,” Ragnar said, sighing. He threw the gun haphazardly into a corner, making Dallas yelp.
“Who’s the blonde?” Athenais demanded, scowling at Mari.
“She’s our new surgeon.”
“She any good?”
“She patched up my brain after Stuart left.”
“Hmm. I take it you left Howlen behind?”
“He’s inside, strapped to his bed,” Stuart said through Dallas. “We figured it might be a bumpy ride.”
“I see.” Athenais glanced around the ship with a sigh. “Well, I’m sorry to say this, but I plan on being the only one to survive this.” She settled back against the wall and yawned.
Dallas frowned. “What is your problem?! I told you I could get us out of this!”
“Sorry,” Athenais said, closing her eyes, “But you can’t. Burke was our last card, and she just fell out of our hand.”
She doesn’t think I can do it. Never did. Not even after I rescued her on Erriat. A deep fury was building in Dallas’s chest, and it was all she could do not to scream at the woman. Very calmly, she said, “I want you to promise me something, Athenais.”
The pirate looked up at her, lifting a tired brow. “Promise what?”
“I’m getting us out of here,” Dallas said. “And when I do, Retribution’s mine. No more quibbling. You want to stay, you call me Captain and salute me whenever I come on deck.”
Athenais’s brow lifted. “Salute you?” She snorted. “Hell, I’d kiss your big rosy ass a hundred times a day, for all the good it’d do.”
“Then it’s a deal,” Dallas said, settling into the pilot’s seat. “Ya’ll might wanna strap yourselves in.”
Final Retribution
“Retribution, this is battlecarrier Glory. You are not cleared for departure. I repeat, you are not cleared for departure. Turn off your engines and surrender your crew to Colonel Burke or you will be fired upon.”
Dallas clos
ed her eyes. “Let’s go.” She thrust the stick forward, backed off on the vertical thrusters, and shot forward, clipping the tip of the Wall. Behind her, the beam of a battlecarrier cut the ocean in a line of bubbling water and melting sand.
I’m taking over all your automatic body functions and rerouting that capability to your visual and motor processing centers. It should help you react faster than you’re used to.
Thanks, Dallas thought, But I’m gonna need more than that—
I’m also secreting a mental stimulant similar to caffeine. You should be feeling the effects in moments.
Mental stimulant?
Yes. Remember what I said about one drop of the fluid in my body being equivalent to an entire human brain? Well, I’m giving you a couple drops. Any more would be a waste, since the effects will only be temporary. The physiology of the human body is such that foreign substances are filtered out and excreted.
Thanks, Stuart.
You’re welcome. Now get us out of here.
As he predicted, Dallas began feeling the effects of the drug. Even as she was dodging laser fire, trying to gain altitude, her eyesight sharpened, she started moving faster, and her response time was instantaneous. She floored the planetary throttle, and when that didn’t satisfy her, she began using a bit of the interstellar engines to evade the Utopia’s weapons-locks. A mistaken twitch of her finger would send them plowing a hundred miles into the ocean and out the other side.
“Have we broken atmosphere yet?” Athenais asked, staring at the controls.
“No,” Ragnar breathed. “She’s using interstellar planetside.”
The helm fell into utter silence, all eyes glued to the controls.
Above, the Utopia was doing its best to keep her from breaking the atmosphere, detonating massive expanses of ocean in an attempt to shoot her down. None of the rounds even came close.
She shot out of the atmosphere and out into orbit, immediately correcting her flightpath to keep from colliding into one of the waiting warships.
“Well, that was fun,” Athenais said. “Here’s where they cut off automatics. Without the computer, you’re just wasting your ti—”
I’ve disabled your audial nerves. Ignore them. You need to concentrate.
As soon as Retribution was free from the pull of gravity, the battlecruiser fired its ASP, scrambling its computer, overloading its automatic controls. It shut off, leaving everything on manual.
Without a pause, Dallas took over. She flipped the display to a 3-D view of the surrounding space—an act usually reserved for one-time checks of proximity problems because it was too complicated for the human brain to analyze continuously—and left it there. She began compensating for the loss of automatics with deft flicks of her hand to the console in front of her, without ever taking her eyes from the three-dimensional view.
Even though she couldn’t hear it, she knew the bridge was once again draped in utter silence.
You’re doing good, Stuart said. Aim for the outgoing Z axis. That’s the likeliest point for a clean exit.
No, Dallas said. They’d follow us. We’ve got to stay and fight.
In her head, she could feel Stuart balk. Tentatively, he said, Stay and…fight?
Yes. Now shush. You’re breaking my concentration.
She launched Retribution at the nearest battlecruiser, a few hundred warships in hot pursuit. She veered down at the last moment, twisted, and shot around the underbelly, blasting through the startled warships on the other side using slipstream and a fraction of interstellar thrust. Several ships moved to block her path and she doubled back, scattering her pursuers in a startled burst of automatics.
Dallas grinned. Rabbit was right. This was what she was born to do.
“Abort! Abort! We’re dealing with a fairy!”
All around the helm, blaring PROXIMITY WARNING lights were going off, and had been for the last thirty minutes. Athenais reached forward and shut them off, eyes fixed to the comset.
“This is Admiral Redstone. That’s a negative. Keep on him. Glory, what are our casualties?”
Another captain came on the air, bewilderment in her voice. “None, sir. He hasn’t even fired on us.”
“Had plenty of opportunities, too,” another captain added.
“Guns malfunctioning?” Redstone asked.
“Fully functioning, Admiral. He’s made no attempts. The array is not even hot.”
Athenais glanced up from the comset, then glanced at Ragnar. Together, they turned to stare at Fairy.
“Looks like I might end up kissing her ass,” Athenais whispered.
“I’d pucker up,” Ragnar agreed, also whispering. “Do you see that? She’s using the 3-D view as her map.”
“And she’s using the damn interstellar thrusters,” Athenais said between her teeth. “God, I wish she’d stop doing that. One muscle spasm and we all become a metal patty.”
“She’s not shooting them,” Ragnar noted. “We could’ve taken out at least thirty ships by now, but she’s not even trying.”
“Maybe she needs a gunner,” Athenais said, moving to the weapons panel.
“No,” Ragnar said, grabbing her wrist. “Leave it alone. You might break her concentration.”
Athenais flinched at Dallas and very slowly pulled her hand away from the gun controls.
As she watched, they took a nosedive between two battlecruisers, so close that the sides of the cruisers loomed up around them, blocking the view through the cockpit windows.
“What is she doing?!” Athenais hissed. “We could’ve been through twenty minutes ago!”
Dallas shot her hand over to the weapons panel without looking up from the 3-D display. Then she dove back through the opening between the two cruisers, adding extra thrust from the interstellar engines.
“She does that again and my stomach’s coming out my mouth,” Athenais said between gritted teeth.
“I think I just pissed myself,” Ragnar said. He looked down. Grimaced. “Yep. Pissed myself.”
“Admiral! Retribution’s weapons are hot! She’s targeted on Glory! Aiming for the Section B—he knows the ship’s anatomy! Admiral, he’s aiming at the central engine’s exhaust vent!”
Athenais’s brow lifted. “How does she know how to find that?”
“Space Academy,” Ragnar whispered. “She’s about to take out a cruiser.”
They waited, breathless, for the killing blow.
Dallas’s hand darted back to the weapons panel and then she twisted back and away, leaving the two carriers behind and allowing the cloud of fighters to swarm her. Then, as she backed off, she picked up the com and said, “Admiral Redstone, this is Dallas York, and that was your only warning.”
“She didn’t kill it?!” Athenais cried. A hundred thousand ships—a quarter of the firepower arrayed against them—would have been out of commission, in an instant, and she’d left it? She would have jumped from her seat, but the harness held her in place. “You had a clear shot and she didn’t take it?! Fairy, you moron!”
“She didn’t need to,” Ragnar whispered, his voice awed.
“What do you mean, she didn’t—”
“Stand down.”
Athenais’s eyes jerked back to the comset.
“Utopian forces, stand down. This is Admiral Redstone. Return to formation. Retribution, you are free to go.”
Athenais’s jaw fell open. “Is he serious?”
Ragnar said nothing.
“He’s serious?! He’s just letting us go?!”
Dallas picked up the comset and turned to grin at Athenais. “Admiral Redstone, this is Dallas York. I appreciate it, sir.” At that, she hung up the comset and turned back to grin at Athenais.
Oh, this was too much. “Wipe that smirk off your face,” Athenais snapped. Then, belatedly, she added, “Captain.”
Dallas spent the next four days sleeping off the side-effects of Stuart’s drug. When she woke up, they were only a week from T-9. The rest of the trip went smoothly, e
xcept for the day Tommy recovered from his coma.
Dallas was flying while Ragnar and Athenais slept, watching the debris field and bantering with Stuart, when Mari came running into the helm, face flushed with excitement. “Dallas! Tommy is awake. He woke up!”
“That’s great,” Dallas said, setting the ship on autopilot and getting up.
Mari shook her head vehemently. “No. That’s bad. Very bad. It’s forbidden.”
Dallas frowned at Mari and hurried down the corridor to Tommy’s room. The Colonel was sitting on the bunk, staring wide-eyed into space. When Dallas came to the door, he turned to her and swallowed, hard.
“Tommy?” Dallas said tentatively.
“Hello Dallas,” Tommy said, his voice gruff. “And Stuart.” He nodded respectfully and looked away.
Is he feeling all right? Stuart asked.
“You need anything?” Dallas asked tentatively. “You hungry? I can get you some water, if you don’t want to get up. You were out of it for quite awhile. We had to convince Mari to install an IV line on you.”
“I know,” Tommy whispered.
He sounds like he’s about to cry, Stuart said, sounding troubled.
“Look, Tommy, Mari says there’s no brain damage. You’re fine. We’re only three days out from T-9 and scott free. Juno got her ass kicked by the Utopia…what’s wrong?”
Tommy looked up at her, his eyes wet. “Nothing. You’re a real sweet girl, Dallas. Stuart’s got good taste.”
Okay, now I’m sure there’s something wrong, Stuart said.
“Tommy, what happened back on Xenith? What put you under? Was it Juno?”
Tommy stood up. “You can stop worrying, Captain. I’m just happy to be alive.” He stumbled around his bed toward the bathroom door. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve gotta take a major dump. My bowels just kicked in and I feel like I’m gonna explode.”
“Sure,” Dallas said, backing out of the room.
“You see?” Mari whispered, peeking over Dallas’s shoulder. “It was the wash. Oh, this is very bad. Very, very bad.”
“It’s good,” Dallas snapped. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but one of my crew just woke up from a coma. You ask me, this deserves a celebration.”