Dystance 3

by Mark Tufo

  “You’re welcome!” Cedar said from across the room. She was sitting on the bed, looking over the gun.

  “Seriously, what do you think is going to happen? You think you can take me hostage, force me into the hangar, take a ship and somehow get away? Well, I’ve got some news for you. That kind of stuff doesn’t happen.”

  “I beg to differ,” Cedar said. “What?” she asked when we all looked at her. “I read about it in a book once.”

  “Fiction or non-fiction?” Tallow asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yeah, yeah it does,” he replied.

  “Stop touching those buttons! You don’t even know what you’re doing! You’re like a monkey with a bongo!” Manuel yelled over to Cedar. She got up angrily.

  “This button marked ‘joules’…if I turn this up to 10 megawatts, I’m thinking that would be enough power to burn that head of yours clean off. Now, this button here changes the rate of fire from semi-automatic to fully automatic. When I depress this button, it tells me how much of a charge I have remaining, which pertains to how many rounds I have at my disposal, and since this is fully charged, I’m going to say I have quite a few. What say you?” she asked. Manuel was silent and seething. “This back here? When I click the knob, it opens up where a traditional magazine would go to expose two metallic leads. Now I can’t say for sure because I’ve never seen one, but I would imagine this is how you charge it up when it begins to run low. How am I doing? Any better than a monkey? And this, this button right here,” she made sure to shove the side of the rifle into his face, “this button has an F for Fire…or for what you are right now (but I can’t say in mixed company), and this S stands for Safe, which you most definitely are not. We on the same page?”

  Manuel said nothing.

  “She asked you a question. I suggest you answer it,” Lendor said.

  “I’m betting this little pully tab makes the gun fire,” Cedar said. She had the rifle pointed around where she had kicked him; Manuel took that threat seriously.

  “Same page,” he said reluctantly, but there was relief when she moved the muzzle.

  “Who are you people?” I asked.

  “We’re the people that saved your asses from the Stryvers on top of that mountain. Or have you already forgotten?”

  “He does have a point,” Cedar said.

  “Seriously?” I asked her. “You’re the one that took him.”

  “Someone should have maybe talked some sense into me; I can’t be trusted.”

  “They took Frost and Ferryn; that makes them the bad guys,” Tallow said.

  “It’s a war. How many unsavory things do you think are happening all around us? When you all were stuck up on that mountain and were about to become spider food, what wouldn’t you have done to save yourselves? Now I’m not talking about any one of you personally, but the entire group?” Manuel asked.

  “He’s making sense,” Cedar said.

  “Cedar!” I nearly stomped my foot. She’d set all of this in motion and now looked to us to stop the ball from rolling.

  “What about us? We’re stuck here too.” Even to my ears, Tallow’s argument sounded weak.

  “You heard the ship-wide warning of an imminent arrival, right? Don’t normally get one of those if the ship is a friendly. There’s a good chance we’ll be under attack soon. You think Commander Breeson would risk this entire ship to make sure you four got home? There aren’t any four people on here that he would do that for. But don’t do anything stupid; I can’t guarantee it, but I think if the opportunity presents itself sometime in the future, he’ll get you back, even if he has to defy an order or two to do it, that’s just the kind of guy he is.”

  “Wow, I’m sort of feeling bad we hurt him now,” Cedar said.

  “We?” I asked.

  “No need to split hairs,” she replied. “So what about the sensors in the hallways, the ones that have the lasers?” She turned her attention back toward Manuel.

  “What about them?”

  “Belnot said if he turned them on, they would kill us, but not you. How are we so different?”

  He was tight-lipped. He answered with: “I don’t know.” But the stiffness in his voice and how uncomfortable he looked led me to believe he did know. “My replacement is due in ten minutes, so this can go one of two ways. Winter was right; this will look really bad for me if they find out I was overpowered and taken hostage. Might lose a stripe and some pay. It’ll be a lot worse for you, though. They’ll have you all in the brig, which is far worse than this room—this is an officer’s quarters, by the way. Better than I stay in. Right now, you’re guests. If you get bumped to being prisoners, the odds Breeson is going to want to bring you home goes down. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that there is not much you can do with me to further your cause. If they think you’re gaining any sort of advantage, they’ll take us all down and I’ll just be a casualty of war.”

  We stepped away from Manuel and the four of us had a small huddle, attempting to figure out our next steps.

  “He’s full of crap. I say we at least use him to force a meeting with Breeson,” Tallow said.

  “That won’t work,” Serrot said to him. “If they are indeed preparing for war, he’s not going to waste any time on us.”

  “I think the guard is right. The best thing we can do is to let him go,” Cedar said.

  I wanted to slap my palm against my forehead. “Okay, I’m for letting him go too.”

  “What are the chances he’s lying and the moment he gets free he doesn’t harm us or at the minimum tell his superiors what happened?” Lendor asked.

  “I know!” Cedar said excitedly. She went back to Manuel and searched his pockets.

  “What are you doing?”

  “How does this work?” she asked, holding up a small rectangular device that could have fit in the palm of my hand and was no thicker than one of my fingers.

  “That’s mine!” Manuel surged in his chair.

  “I realize that; I got it from your pocket. Or have you already forgotten, silly?” Cedar asked.

  “Give it back!”

  “I’ll smash it under my boot if you keep yelling. Listen, we have about five minutes before we’re all in trouble. How about you tell me how to work this thing before my incredibly idiotic fingers do some irreparable damage to it.”

  “It’s not just some thing! It’s a Pear Pie 21B, the state of the art comm device for all star travelers.”

  “Pear pie? Sounds delicious,” Tallow said.

  “Better hurry, Manuel. I’m thinking that something like this must cost a small fortune and from what I’ve read, military people aren’t paid a whole lot. Didn’t stop Isabella from marrying Troy though. Now, Isabella, she didn’t care about the money or the security Conrad could have offered with all his millions.”

  “Huh?” Manuel tilted his head, attempting to follow Cedar’s tangent.

  “Go with it, much easier,” Tallow informed him.

  “Okay! On the bottom, there are four small tabs. Press the second one twice and the first one three times.”

  Cedar did as he said, the device expanded to nearly three times the size it had been and a display came up, much like on the shuttle. She had to swing her hand out and catch it in mid-air when she dropped it as the device began to speak to her.

  “Your facial features are not recognized. This Pear Pie will only open when its owner is recognized.”

  “It needs to see me,” Manuel said. Cedar turned it around. “Unlock.”

  There was a small chime. “Unlocked, Manuel. How can I be of assistance?”

  “Well?” he asked Cedar.

  “Have it take a picture of you tied up.”

  “Is she serious?” he asked me.

  I shrugged.

  “Fine. Dierdre, take….”

  “Wait, wait!” Cedar said as she handed me the device. She quickly ran her fingers through her hair and got behind Manuel, smiling widely.

  “W
hat is going on here?” Serrot asked.

  The only two that seemed to know weren’t saying anything.

  “Smile, Manuel,” Cedar whispered in his ear. He gave a weak one before telling the device to take a picture. There was a snapping sound and that was it.

  “How’d it turn out?” Cedar asked, coming from around Manuel and grabbing the thing from my hand. “Manuel, what kind of smile is that? You look like you just ate frogs.” Cedar frowned. “I, on the other hand, look ravishing!” She held it up so we could all see.

  “What is this sorcery?” Serrot asked. “Did it make small copies of you both? Are they trapped inside now?”

  “You’ve never seen a camera before?” Manuel asked.

  “Up until recently we’d never seen a light bulb,” I told him honestly.

  “Make it print,” Cedar said, holding the Pear Pie up.

  “I can’t.” Manuel’s head sagged a bit.

  “Print?” Tallow asked.

  “Like in the books,” I told him.

  “It’ll make a copy of this and then we have proof we had Manuel as our prisoner so he won’t turn us in after we let him go.”

  “Oh,” I said. “That’s pretty smart.”

  “Looks like I got all the brains of the family and you the brawn,” Cedar said playfully. “Now make a copy,” she demanded.

  “That’s the 21A, okay? I couldn’t afford it. It’s incredible; prints out pictures on these translucent discs. You can stretch them out to cover a whole wall if you want and not lose any resolution. Someday…maybe when I make sergeant or I leave the service and take a job at my cousin’s ship repair shop. He said he’d get me a job there.”

  “No picture? I guess we’ll just hold on to this.”

  “You can’t!”

  “I thought I told you enough with the yelling.”

  “Sorry.” Manuel did seem very contrite. “It’s the only way I can stay in touch with my girlfriend back home. It’s the only thing that makes all of this bearable.”

  “How far away is your girlfriend?” Tallow asked.

  “Right now? I don’t even know…millions, billions of miles, I guess.”

  “And this thing lets you talk to her?” Tallow was pointing.

  “Listen Cedar, you let me go and take that with me, I swear to you I won’t say anything.”

  “We can’t believe him,” Serrot warned, but I was looking at his eyes. They were focused on the Pear Pie, picturing the girl on the other end.

  “Let him go. I, for one, trust him and I don’t want to go to the brig, whatever that is. Just sounds foul,” I said.

  Tallow immediately began undoing the binds. “What are we going to say about all the ripped-up sheets?” he asked, holding them in his hands.

  “I’ll get you replacements on my next shift.” Manuel had stood and was rubbing his wrists. “Can I have that?”

  Cedar handed him the Pear Pie.

  “Probably going to need the rifle as well.”

  “Fine.” Cedar reluctantly let it go. “You turn us in and when I escape the brig, you’ll be the first person I hunt down and kick in the crotch.”

  Manuel hunched over a bit and protectively covered himself. “Duly noted.” He fixed his uniform, gave us all a once over before heading out the door.

  “We shouldn’t have let him go,” Serrot said sourly.

  “And do what with him?” I asked. “Our choices were fairly limited and I’m not much for killing if we don’t need to.”

  “Did you see the way he avoided my question?” Cedar asked. “What’s that all about?”

  “Do you think he’d answer now that we’re not holding him captive?” Tallow asked, heading for the door.

  We were just in time to see Manuel’s relief come and change out with him.

  “Get your scurvy asses back in that room. I almost feel like I could catch something nasty from just looking at you,” the replacement said, his rifle pointed at us menacingly. Manuel looked back as if to say sorry.

  “I don’t understand the hostility,” I said once Cedar shut the door. “They definitely think less of us.”

  “Part of it might be that, by comparison, our world is so less advanced than theirs. Kind of what we thought about the Comanchokees. We inherently assumed we were better than them just because of how they chose to live. This disparity is many times greater than that,” Cedar said.

  “I get that part of it, even maybe understand it, but it’s more like not only do they believe how they live is better, but they themselves feel superior. There’s something weird going on here and I don’t like it,” I said.

  “I don’t like it either, but I’d be able to think on it more clearly if I could find a bush to use.” Tallow was nearly dancing from foot to foot.

  “Should I tell him?” Cedar asked.

  “No clue what you’re talking about, sis, but if you have any ideas feel free to share, because…now that he brought it up…”

  Cedar looked at me funny. “You don’t know either?”

  “Don’t know what, either?”

  “Come here.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me to a small room in one corner and pointed to a strange, oblong device sticking out of the wall. Couldn’t have been more than a foot deep, and when she turned on the light, I could see water at the bottom.

  “That a well for drinking?” Tallow asked as we all crowded in.

  “It’s a toilet.”

  “A what?” I asked.

  “You do your business on it.”

  “How?” Tallow asked getting close and sniffing at the feature.

  “Well, it’s not like I can show you,” Cedar said, embarrassed.

  “No way,” I said. “You have no idea what to do right now either.”

  “Whatever. It’s not like they have pictures in the books I read, but this is a bathroom. This is where people do what they need to do.”

  “Oh, I get it.” Serrot had moved over to a small basin about hip high. “This is where…” He made a motion as if to pull out his privates.

  “Oh!” Tallow said in surprise. “Perfect. Okay, everyone out. Wait, what do those handles do?” He twisted one then stepped back as water jetted out. “Clean up. Perfect.”

  “Wait, that’s a sink, I think.” Cedar messed with the handles; copious amounts of water came pouring out.

  “That’s not helping,” Tallow replied, crossing his legs.

  We all left the bathroom and Tallow to his own devices. I looked up as the color in the room changed from a natural sunlight tone to a glaring red; this was immediately followed by a loud, three-round blast of sound.

  “I do not think any of this signifies something good.” Lendor went to the door and pressed the button.

  “You open that again and I’m going to shoot you,” the guard said harshly as Lendor made sure to shut it quickly.

  “It would seem he is nervous,” Lendor said, not overly concerned he’d just had the muzzle of an extremely dangerous weapon pointed at his abdomen.

  “The ‘imminent arrival’ has arrived,” Cedar said.

  I reached out and grabbed my sister as we were violently rocked to the side. The entire ship thrummed, sounding much like the rumble of a sleeping hog. This was followed by an extremely uncomfortable sensation. I felt like someone massive and powerful had wrapped one hand around the entirety of my head, wrapped my feet with the other, and then attempted to pull me apart. I could barely focus on the others to see if they were experiencing the same thing that I was. Then as quickly as it started, I snapped back into my normal self.

  The door to the bathroom opened up, a haggard looking Tallow walked out. “I’m never doing that again.”

  “This ship was attacked and they ran.” Lendor had his hand upon the wall.

  “You know this how?” Serrot asked.

  “No more explosions and the feeling of being pulled apart; similar to the sensation one gets when they are running down the face of a mountain at an excessive and uncontrolled pace,” he re
plied. “That, and there are no more explosions,” he repeated, still suffering some after-effects.

  “The lights are still red,” Serrot challenged.

  “How quick are you to let your guard down after being attacked?” Lendor countered.

  “So we’re traveling further away from our home?” I asked.

  “It would appear that way,” Lendor said.

  After a while, the lights turned back to their normal color. We took turns sleeping, though if these people wanted to do us harm, there was very little we could do to prevent it. It is nearly impossible to tell how much time has elapsed when you are in an enclosed room, much like a cave. It sometimes felt like a week, but knowing plenty about shift changes, it hadn’t been more than twenty-four hours when Manuel returned.

  He came in apprehensively; two others were with him, one pushing a large cart. It had more food on it than I’d ever seen at one time. I was convinced this must be for all the personnel upon the ship and they were going to give us our allowance. When the one with Manuel turned quickly and left the room, I thought he’d made a mistake.

  “You coming?” the man with Manuel asked; he was the guard that had threatened Lendor.

  “Yeah, be right there.”

  “Don’t linger—you don’t know what kind of things you can catch from these animals,” he sneered. “I don’t like that they know how to speak, like they’re making a mockery of us.”

  “It’s alright, Blainer, I’ve got this.”

  “Okay, your funeral. Death by feral animal, that would be a horrible way to go. Better than by Stryver, I guess. Back in four. These cannibals kill and eat you, that’s on you—I’m going to tell the Old Man I warned you.”

  Manuel nodded at Blainer; he waited for the other to leave before speaking. “How you all doing?”

  “This is all ours?” Cedar asked around a mouthful of food she was double fisting into her face. “What is this? It’s delicious.”

  “The blueberry muffin or the croissant?” Manuel asked.

  “Yes,” she sighed contentedly.

  “Can you tell us what is going on?” I asked.

  “Eat first. I’m sure you’re hungry. As you’ve heard, I’ve got four hours.”

  The food was incredible. There was fresh fruit, vegetables, pastries and meats of a variety we’d not even known existed. We ate to a level none of us were accustomed to.