Into the Fire

by Mark Tufo

  “He’s fine, bumped his head.” BT was thankfully dragging his sleeve across his mouth.

  “You sure, man?” I asked. “I felt like I was shot.”

  “You bumped your head and you bled a little. Besides a headache and a knot on your head, you’ll be fine.”

  “Couldn’t have let me milk it a little?”

  He shrugged and then released me.

  “Is the Prog ship destroyed?” I asked.

  “Not quite, and we’re going to have company soon.”

  “More incoming?” BT didn’t look like he could handle one more spin—who the hell am I kidding?—neither could I. I had a case of vertigo that was threatening to put me on my ass with every small step I took.

  “Fighters,” was her terse response. “I think we can outrun them.”

  “Think?”

  “What do you want from me, Talbot?!”

  I got the hint to shut the hell up about it.

  “Get up here and help me.” It wasn’t a request. I was not sure what she thought I could do besides come up with new and unique swear words.

  “Buckle up, you’re going to steer, and don’t ask if I’m kidding. Just do it. I’m going to be busy deploying countermeasures and defending this ship. I’d have you do that, but it’s more complicated than steering. Think you can handle that?”

  I know she wasn’t being condescending, and I didn’t have time to worry about hurt feelings even if that was the case. I sat down, strapped in, and grabbed the steering wheel that looked a lot like what you’d find on a jet fighter. It had been purposely retrofitted this way for any legacy pilots we could round up. They felt more comfortable with the joystick configuration, although I would have preferred an automobile steering wheel. But that’s me.

  “Keep it straight until I tell you otherwise.”

  “We’re shooting!” BT said triumphantly as Tracy began to shoot. He was turned so he could see out the window. “Missed.”

  I wanted to tell him to shut the hell up. I’m sure she knew that and didn’t need a spotter to inform her of that.

  “Meant to.” She was off to the next panel of things of which I had no clue what they did.

  “Explosions. Yeah, they’re blowing up!” BT said excitedly.

  “That was the idea. Motion activated, a little present from the Stryvers. They might be ugly fuckers, but they know their weaponry.”

  “More fighters!”

  “Could you please tell him I don’t need a play-by-play.”

  “I think he’s scared shitless, much like me, and he just wants to help.”

  “Fine. Stop looking at me and fly.”

  “Pretty sure a kid chasing a ball isn’t going to dart out in front of me.” When I turned to look back out the front I noticed the blue rays of fighter ordinance off to our left.

  “Hard right.”

  I was too mesmerized by the shots.

  “Mike! Hard right!”

  I yanked that stick like it had insulted my mother and I was going to throttle it. Well, maybe Tracy’s mother, my mom and I had not gotten along all that well in life. I loved her, and in some strange way I’m sure she loved me as well, just had a weird way of showing it.

  “UP!”

  I pulled the joystick back and we plunged down.

  “YOUR OTHER UP, MIKE!”

  I wanted to tell her to kiss my ass and ask how should I know the damn thing worked opposite of how one might expect. But any sort of fight or disagreement right now could spell disaster.

  “LEFT!”

  We all heard a shot as it peeled the paint off our right side.

  BT had moved his face from the window. “I felt the heat of that. You should move faster.”

  “Trust me, if I could find the gas pedal I would.”

  “You’re going to be on your own.” Tracy gave me no further instruction as she began to fire on the fighters.

  “Hail Mary full of grace…” BT started, he was cut short as we received an impact on the left rear that sent us violently to the side. We were, in effect, power sliding in space, had to be a hundred miles or so before I could regain control of the ship.

  “Can you shoot from any angle?” I huffed out as I fought the wheel.

  “Yes why?”

  “Fuck this,” I said, once I had the ship going in a semblance of a straight line. I pushed down on the stick sending us into a tight loop. We were now heading straight for the fighters.

  “I hate you, Mike!” BT was yelling. He could see out the window.

  Red streaks blistered by us. Tracy was unloading everything in our arsenal. A fighter blew apart, the shrapnel from the explosion causing enough damage to the fighter next to him that he peeled off and was heading back to the mother ship.

  “I would curse you out if I had the time,” Tracy managed.

  “You’re doing fine.” My teeth were clenched tight, much like my asshole if I’m being completely honest. I was giving myself a pep talk.

  I’d bought us a few precious seconds as we streaked by each other. I don’t know if the shuttle was more nimble or the Progs weren’t too interested in reengaging, but I had turned around quicker than they had, and for just a little bit, we were the only ones shooting. Seems that their fighters weren’t capable of rearward firing. Tracy was Annie Oakley, blowing the fuckers out of the sky. That was until they decided they didn’t like that so much, and spun to get back into position.

  I was jerking back and forth on that stick for all I was worth. I was playing a true life, not a quarter involved, game of Asteroids with their return fire, and I’d never been much good at that game. More than a few shots were making impacts, my straps digging into me as the ship was tossed around. We finally made it through the maelstrom; I’d thought we’d done so undamaged until I felt heat at my back. Then the “Captain Obvious” alarm went off to alert me to a fire.

  BT was already up and grabbing the oversized fire extinguisher. Instead of just grabbing the hose and spraying the fire, he’d taken the whole red can. If we lived, I was going to give him shit about that. Right now, I didn’t care how he got the fire out.

  “Don’t do that again,” Tracy warned. I would imagine it was because she hadn’t liked my barrel-roll strategy all that much. “Just keep flying straight, the fighters won’t stray too far from their base.”

  “Do they have an ‘out of range’ range we should be hoping we make?”

  “Soon.”

  “Is that ‘soon’ as in we might make it? Or soon but not soon enough?”

  “Mike.”

  “Is that Mike, as in ‘Mike, shut the fuck up’ or ‘Mike, I don’t know’?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “I’ll say it if she won’t,” BT replied. He had placed the fire extinguisher back after successfully blanketing the blaze.

  “The fighters are pulling back.” I looked over to Tracy, whose eyebrows were furrowed as she told me this. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “BT, strap in. Yeah, it does.” I didn’t give the big man much of an opportunity to get to a safe haven as I dipped the ship at a severe angle. A beam as thick as a whale flew overhead.

  “I was going to yell at you,” BT said as he was strapping in. “I’ll let it go this time.”

  “The mother ship is coming.”

  “Shit.” We were as good as dead with just the fighters, but with the Battleship getting involved…I guess we were still good as dead, can’t get much deader than dead I suppose. “Can this bucket go any faster?”

  “Oh sure, Mike, I was holding back on her full speed, figured I’d only use it when we were desperate.”

  I knew she was being facetious, figured I’d push it just a wee bit further. “Okay, good, because we could use that extra push right about now.”

  “You’re about as sharp as a soggy Saltine,” BT quipped. “We gonna make it?”

  “You a betting man?” I asked back.

  “I’ve done some booking.”

  “Weird. I would ha
ve thought you the collection muscle not the brains.” I’m glad I didn’t have a rearview mirror, as I couldn’t imagine the facial expressions he was directing at me to go along with his growls.

  “If the Progs don’t finish you off, you’re going to have me to contend with. Just tell me what you think our odds of survival are.”

  “Odds? Oh, I was just going to say don’t bet on us.”

  “We’re about to die and you’re making jokes?”

  “It’s how I deal with stress. My therapist says it’s a good outlet for negative neuroses.”

  This was followed by more growling. Another shot was so close, the heat of it melted some of the plastic type material on the port side. (Honestly, I have no idea which side is port, let’s just say the left side of the ship suffered some serious damage, if that’s the port side, then hooray for me!)

  “We’re fucked,” I mumbled.

  “That a joke, too?” BT asked.

  “No,” I answered solemnly.

  “Come on, man,” BT yelled, “sometimes you’re joking, sometimes you’re not! How is anyone supposed to know what the hell is going on?”

  “Say your prayers if you’re into that kind of thing, although I figure we must be pretty close to the divine one, being this far out in space. Would be kind of nice, God, if you came down and gave us a personal visit right about now!” I was shouting to the roof of the shuttle.

  “Don’t be blasphemous—” BT stopped.

  We all saw it, would have been a tad difficult not to. The Guardian popped into our field of view on the port (fine—the fucking left side), guns blazing. Looked like I even saw a kitchen sink or two heading towards the Prog vessel.

  “Fuck me, it worked,” BT managed to get out.

  I know you’re not supposed to hear explosions in space, but when the percussions hit our side they now had a chamber in which to evoke their voices. It was horrendous, it was stupendous. The screaming, popping protests of tortured metal under extreme violence were deafening. The Prog vessel was quicker on the draw this time, sending their ordinance downrange. I could see impacts dotting the side of the Guardian with enough force to tilt the ship momentarily, but as fast as she appeared and unloaded death and destruction, she was gone. The Prog vessel was still there, not destroyed, but definitely worse for the wear. The Guardian had bought us some time to make good on our escape.

  Like a prizefighter getting in one more shot before going down, the Prog vessel nailed something on our backside. Don’t let anyone ever tell you getting shot in the ass isn’t a serious thing. We lost some power; the console began blinking crazily, alarms going off to tell us alarms were going off. Smoke was beginning to fill the cabin, yet there was no fire that we could see, although BT was ready for it.

  “Move,” Tracy said, not really giving me a chance to do as she asked as she parked her ass on my seat. Any other time I would have stayed, had a feeling though that this was the furthest thing from her mind. It probably should have been from mine as well. Oh well, I was a young guy and about to die, what better way to go out was there?

  I joined BT at the back of the ship, smoke was pouring in and around the back panels. I touched one to see if there was a way to pull them off and get behind them. I was rewarded with a singeing of my fingers for my efforts.

  “It’s hot.” He wasn’t trying to give me a hard time. He showed me his blistered fingertips, which let me know he had tried for a lot longer to pull them off.

  “Smells like pulled pork.”

  “We’re going to talk about your comedic timing if we live.”

  “We’re about to hit atmosphere, you two had better strap in if you don’t want to become a stain on the side of the wall.”

  Let’s see, we had death by space ray, smoke inhalation, fire and-or crash landing looming over us, and now add in destruction by impact. Yeah, it was shaping up to be a hell of a day, I thought sourly as I quickly pulled my safety harness tight. BT had yanked his straps so tight that I thought he was going to pass out from loss of blood circulation. If we made it with the ship landing on Earth and we needed to get away from it, he wouldn’t be able to do so quickly because his extremities would be asleep. Dragging him wasn’t going to be any fun.

  I thought we’d been tossed around earlier, that was nothing in comparison to what was happening now. I’m pretty sure I lost a filling from the intense vibrations.

  “We’ve lost some heat shielding!” Tracy yelled.

  I’m not so sure that mattered. I turned to the rear of the ship to see flames were beginning to lick out from the back.

  “Space sucks!” BT managed to get out in staccato bursts. His eyes were closed and he was holding on to his restraints.

  Up front I could see the friction of reentry blazing up and over the front of the window. Tracy’s arms were bouncing as she fought to hold the ship steady. The interior of the ship was rapidly increasing in temperature like someone had stuck a can inside a microwave and was seeing how hot they could get it before it burst, or more likely caught flame and then burst. I wondered if I’d be alive for any amount of time as I plummeted to the ground. My hope was no.

  “This is worse than that one time at the dentist!” I shouted out. I joined BT in shutting my eyes and gritting my teeth. Nobody bit on my entreaty. I was left to my thoughts and I retreated forthwith to get away from the burgeoning nightmare I found myself in.

  I was sixteen when I was dragged into a dental appointment by my mother, who thought I may have taken a little more than my share of candy from the Halloween bucket that I was supposed to hand out to the little bastards. I mean ghouls and goblins. I was bitter; my mother had told me I had to stay in to hand out candy. Yeah, that’s pretty much what every teenager wants to do on All Hallow’s Eve. She figured it would keep me out of trouble, and I suppose it did for that night, but all I did was save up all my deviant and destructive behavior for the next night. Anyway, every time one of the little brats, umm, I mean trick-or-treaters, came to the door, I would give one to them and one to me. And normally I’d dig through the bin and give them the crappy little wrapped mints or Smarties while I grabbed the Milky Way and Snickers bars or the almighty Peanut Butter Cups. It was kind of funny watching their expressions sour when I would pocket the good stuff and hand them the leftovers.

  I got more than my fair share of “smell my feet” and, if they were older, a few eggs found their way to our siding. I had a damn bellyache by the time the last of them showed up. My mother was not amused when she did my laundry the next day and a fat handful of candy wrappers spilled out. She got me back though.

  “I think it’s time you went in for a cleaning,” she’d told me that morning.

  The following Monday after school we had a visit with a dental hygienist who had some serious issues. Looking back now, I wonder if my mother had requested Velveenda. Yeah, that was her name, should have known something was up right there and then. At first, I thought she was telling me about cheese spread or something. Whatever, I didn’t really care. Velveenda brought me back and put me in a chair where they took those stupid x-rays that make you feel like you’re choking on a cardboard box. She shoved that stiff film thing into the back of my mouth and my gag reflex was suddenly deciding about whether or not it should kick-in. She leaves, to go snap the picture I figure. Nope, not Velveenda, turns out she was talking to one of the other hygienists about what they did that weekend.

  I think she said something about Dumpster diving with her boyfriend. That’s when I remembered that she was sticking her hands in my mouth. If she ever came back I was going to tell her to put on another set of rubber gloves. Now that I got on that train of thought I could only start to imagine what else she had done with those hands. Who knows? Maybe she caught a wicked case of dysentery from what she found in the trash. Maybe she volunteered to give handies to lepers. I was in serious danger of grossing myself out. She finally came back, and before I could launch my protests, she pulled the cardboard torture device out and shoved
another one into the other side of my mouth. I resigned myself to my fate. This is still not where it gets bad.

  When she’s done with the x-rays, she finally sits down next to me and, for some strange reason, decides not to wear that little mask that dental professionals have been wearing for the last fifty years. Let me tell you now that her breath smelled like old salami slathered in a thick coating of congealed mayonnaise, wrapped up in moldy cheese. I think that’s close enough of a description. Still, it gets better.

  She’s got that little metal tool that is sharp enough it could probably rip through the steel of a tank, and just as she’s about to go into my mouth, her mouth twitches. I caught this out of the corner of my eye. I was doing my best to shy away from her halitosis, so I didn’t see it all. I didn’t think much about it, but she stopped moving that scary ass tool to my mouth. If I was smarter, I would have jumped up, thanked her for her time, and scrammed. But no, I was a teenager, and my choices were limited. I tried to rationalize that maybe she was just concentrating, which was a good thing considering she was about to scrape my teeth with something that looked like it was invented during the Inquisition. As she started over, I turned slightly to get a better look, that mouth twitch started again. She stopped.

  What the hell is going on? I thought, looking around, searching for someone to help. No luck. I guess the third time was the charm as she was finally able to get the teeth cleaner in there. I calmed a bit, having long since forgotten about her diarrhea-and-bodily fluid-encrusted hands. I had bigger things to worry about. Her entire head swung to the right and then quickly came back to center as the tip of the scraper immediately dug deeply into my gum line. I would have cried out if I wasn’t choking on the blood that was now leaking in rivulets from my gums.

  “Oh, sorry.”

  “Punking sorry?” was all I could mumble, as her hands were still in my mouth.

  “I have a mild case of Tourette’s. It acts up sometimes when I don’t take my medication.”

  My basic understanding of that disease at the time was that it consisted of swearing uncontrollably, which I sometimes felt like I could have had considering the vast amount and array of colorful things I would say while with my friends, although the true test would have been pulling it off in the presence of my parents. I had no idea that most times it just consisted of various tics. That is perhaps something that one who wanted to go into the health care profession should take into account. My hands had gripped the armrests, and my legs were getting ready to dance right out of the chair. The bitch was stronger than I imagined she’d be. All I can figure is she’s had more than one patient blitz on her, and the dentist said that if it happened again, she’d lose her job. Her forearm came down heavily on my chest, holding me in place. I pleaded to her with my eyes to let me go. She didn’t.