Suzy Spitfire Kills Everybody

by Joe Canzano

  “Super stunners” or “continuously calculated energy incapacitation guns” were special high-energy blasters connected to a computer that continuously calculated the amount of power necessary to disable an opponent’s deflector shields without breaking through them and obliterating the target. Despite its mathematical precision, it often took multiple hits from such a weapon before it would work; it was important to not destroy the victim’s vessel, and the calculations were inclined to err on the side of profit.

  The alarm kept screaming and was now accompanied by an announcement: “Battle stations! Battle stations!”

  Ricardo shook his head in disgust. “This is great. These people are going to get us killed and we can’t do anything but watch.”

  Suzy felt the same frustration. In fact, it was worse for her because she’d seen more of the crew than Ricardo had, and she was convinced the Heartbreaker would never last against a real opponent.

  She heard someone outside in the hall—maybe about to open the door? Usually, when the door was opened, there were three people waiting and two of them had their guns drawn. But at this point it didn’t matter. They had nothing to lose.

  She gave a look to Ricardo and Maria and they instantly understood. This was their chance and they had to make it count.

  Ricardo ran to one side of the door. Maria stood on the other. Suzy stayed in front of the door, ready to welcome their guests.

  She felt a knot in her stomach, but it was fine. She enjoyed the anticipation.

  The door slid open and Suzy saw a woman she didn’t recognize. On either side of her, a few steps back, were two people with guns.

  The woman had a tray of food. She was slim with fiery red hair and seemed young and pleasant. She said, “I guess we’re in a fight now, but the food was made so I thought I’d bring it.”

  Suzy stepped forward. “Thanks. That’s nice of you. I like to eat while I’m getting blown to bits.”

  She glanced at the tray and saw some crab cakes along with a pile of steamed green beans. There was also a butter knife. Not as sharp as she’d like, but sharp enough.

  Suzy snatched the knife. In a flash, she spun the girl around and held her tight against her own body—with a knife at the girl’s throat.

  The girl shrieked as she dropped the tray. The gunmen blinked. “I don’t want to hurt her!” Suzy said. “Drop the guns.”

  The two armed men hesitated. Had they ever fired a gun before? Suzy yanked the girl sideways toward the bathroom.

  The gunmen charged into the room—and as they crossed the threshold, Ricardo and Maria attacked.

  “Motherfucker!” Ricardo said, and everyone started grappling. Luckily, the person on Maria’s side was a small guy, not much bigger than her. She grabbed his gun with two hands, banged her forehead against his face, and then slammed her knee into his groin. Ricardo’s guy was much bigger, with huge biceps—but Ricardo used the same technique. There were no special muscles in the guy’s testicles.

  Maria had a gun now. She pointed it at Ricardo’s opponent, who was still on his feet.

  “Drop it!” she said.

  He did, and now Ricardo had a gun.

  Meanwhile, Suzy was reaching down and grabbing a gun from the “food girl,” who had one strapped to her thigh. Then she leaped forward and slammed the door shut.

  “Let’s keep them as hostages,” Ricardo said. “Let’s get to the hangar and get out of here.”

  “No,” Suzy said. “Our ship is still damaged and we’re low on missiles. Besides, this ship is awesome. We’d be better off fighting the pirates with this ship.”

  “But this isn’t our ship,” Ricardo said.

  “Not yet,” Suzy said. “But we can change that.” She shoved her gun at the prisoners. “Take us to the bridge. Let’s go talk to Captain Orange.”

  The ship was suddenly rocked by an explosion and the lights flickered.

  The red-haired girl was trembling. “Please don’t hurt me… I’ll take you there! Can you save us? We have no clue what we’re doing.”

  Suzy, Ricardo, and Maria looked at each other—and then at the other two prisoners, who seemed just as terrified.

  Another explosion rocked the ship. The lights stayed out for a few seconds this time before coming back on.

  “We’ll do our best,” Suzy said. “Let’s go!”

  Hopefully, it’s not too late.

  They ran down the hall and passed a few people running the other way. No one seemed concerned about what they were doing or where they were going—they looked frantic, like they were running to hide somewhere. But of course, there was nowhere to hide.

  They burst onto the bridge. It was a circular room lined with control stations. It was also a scene of hysteria, with at least half the ship’s crew there. They were all running around—no one seemed to have an assigned post, and no one seemed to notice them enter. For some reason, they were also wearing costumes, like they were characters in a Shakespearean play—and they were busy screaming at each other. Nate was in the pilot’s chair, dressed in a long, ornate blue jacket with bright brass buttons. Captain Orange was standing nearby, shouting orders. He looked pale and probably had quite a few bandages on underneath his black tunic. He also wore a matching cloak and some kind of baggy balloon pants. Alice was seated at a control desk along the wall, in another tight red dress, doing something or other but mainly looking scared and disgusted.

  “We’ve got to surrender!” Alice was screaming.

  “We will fight!” Captain Orange said.

  Everyone else seemed to be shouting out a jumble of ideas.

  “Fire the missiles! Fire the guns! Arm the thigamajig! We have to fight!”

  Nate was gritting his teeth and swinging the ship here and there. Outside, there was a swarm of pirate vessels. They were small attack craft.

  Suzy wondered why they were picking on the Heartbreaker; it wasn’t that big of a ship—and it was heavily armed. Then again, it was worth a sweet little stack of money, and people had done dumber things for much less.

  Alice said, “A message is coming through, Bob.” She broadcast it throughout the room.

  “Hello again, Captain Orange,” said a deep voice. “This is Captain Crush on the Stiletto. Surrender your vessel and your prisoners and no one gets hurt.”

  Bob replied in his gruff, pirate voice. “Never! Fuck off or we’ll kill you all!”

  There were more shouts and fearful looks from the crew.

  At the mention of “surrendering prisoners” Suzy narrowed her eyes. Were these new pirates looking for her? She raised her gun. She wanted to fire it and get everyone’s attention, but firing a gun unnecessarily inside the confines of a spaceship was usually a bad idea. Then she spotted a ridiculous potted plant sitting on a plant stand. Fine, perfect. With the loudest shout she could manage she kicked it over and watched the pot smash to pieces on the floor.

  Everyone turned and looked at her.

  “All right!” she said. “Hands in the air! We’re taking over this ship.”

  Suzy, Maria, and Ricardo pointed their guns at the crew. They all looked shocked—except for one gaudy-looking guy with a twisty braid of blond hair and tight pantaloons. His eyes opened wide and he reached for his weapon.

  Suzy shot him. There were screams, and then two more Elizabethan fighters reached for their weapons—she shot them, too. They flew backwards and hit the deck hard. They were only stunned, but of course the stun blasts knocked them out cold and hurt like hell.

  “Anybody else?” Suzy said.

  Everyone else raised their hands. Maria moved fast, slipping around the room, collecting their weapons.

  The ship was hit by another blast, and it shuddered like a wounded animal.

  Captain Orange’s face turned purple with rage. But he hadn’t made a move for his gun.

  “Are you out of your minds?” Orange said. “We’re under attack!”

  Suzy aimed her pistol at his forehead. “The controller, Bob. Give it to Maria.
”

  He sneered and pulled the device from his tunic—good. All the guns Suzy and her crew had commandeered were equipped with the controlling device, and there was no need for them to suddenly be turned off.

  Maria took the device from Bob’s snaky fingers. She gave it to Suzy, who dropped it on the floor and stomped on it hard. It crunched to pieces under her boot. Then Ricardo lunged forward and punched Bob hard in the face.

  “You asshole!” Ricardo screamed. “I’m going to kill you.”

  Orange fell to his knees, obviously hurt. Alice leaped to her feet with a dagger in her hand.

  “Don’t kill him!” she screamed.

  Suzy pointed her gun at Alice—but didn’t shoot. Instead, she said, “Ricardo—no! Not now!”

  Maria also shouted, “Ricardo—no!”

  “Alice—drop it!”

  The ship was hit again. More shaking and shuddering.

  Ricardo looked at Bob like a rabid dog but he stopped his assault. Maria snatched Alice’s weapon and then stood at the door to the bridge, pointing her pistol at everyone who remained standing.

  Suzy sighed with relief. She despised Bob but knew his death would hurt her chances of recruiting the remaining crew. She motioned for Ned to get up. He quickly obliged and she slid into the pilot’s chair. Ricardo slid into the copilot's seat. Suzy knew he wanted the pilot’s seat, but he also didn’t object and that was good because he wasn’t getting it. She was flying this bird.

  Meanwhile, Alice sat back down and started spitting out information.

  “All our deflectors are weak—we can’t take too many more hits. They seem to be surrounding us, trying to wear us down.”

  “No shit,” Suzy muttered. Because that’s what real pirates do.

  “How about our guns?” Suzy said.

  Alice’s fingers slid over the controls. “Energy level is only at sixty percent.” She scanned the readouts in front of her. “I might be able to cut the power somewhere and channel it into the guns.”

  “Do it,” Suzy said.

  “Ten ships,” Ricardo muttered. “They’ve beaten us up pretty good. They look like they’re in a half-sphere formation.”

  Suzy nodded as she grabbed the controls and swung the ship hard starboard, away from an attacker. She rotated the vessel fast and quickly switched course.

  “Get them with a broadside!” she said. Ricardo let loose with a salvo of blasters from the ship’s portside guns.

  “A hit!” Alice screamed.

  But the pirate vessel wasn’t damaged. The Heartbreaker’s guns were too weak.

  “Damn!” Suzy said. “Alice, what happened to our extra power?”

  “That was it,” she said.

  “Okay, we’re really fucked,” Suzy said. “Try the missiles!”

  “I’m already on it,” Ricardo said.

  Suzy swerved the Heartbreaker between two enemy ships. The grey-bottomed hull of one nearly scraped the top of the bridge as they whooshed under it. Another raced past the bow. But the risky maneuver put a third ship right in their sites.

  “Fire!” Suzy said.

  Two missiles roared from the Heartbreaker. There was a blast of red and orange light as they struck the opponent’s deflector shield. They hit it just right—the ship exploded.

  “One down, nine to go,” Suzy said.

  Ricardo scanned more readouts. “We don’t have enough missiles to get them all—look out!”

  “I see them.”

  Two more ships closing fast. Suzy spun the ship away from them as they fired and missed. She turned again, rotating toward another enemy vessel. Ricardo fired two more missiles.

  Another pirate ship exploded.

  “They’re out of formation now,” Suzy said.

  “But two right behind us!”

  Suzy cursed and changed course. The Heartbreaker maneuvered well but it wasn’t as nimble as she’d expected—probably due to all the sustained hits. She snarled and gripped the thruster hard.

  Ricardo’s eyes popped wide open. “What are you doing? Don’t do that, Suzy.”

  “What have we got to lose?”

  The Heartbreaker roared at two opposing vessels on an apparent collision course. They took evasive action but Suzy followed. Meanwhile, the two pursuers stayed close behind. More twisting, turning—another ship, right outside the main window. It passed within a hair of hitting them.

  The Heartbreaker shook as an aft antenna was clipped off.

  Ricardo cursed and the bridge lit up with a flash of light.

  Two of the pirate ships had collided. And there was another one right in their path.

  “Fire!” Suzy said. Ricardo unleashed two more missiles.

  One more blinding ball of light—another pirate ship destroyed.

  “Nice!” Ricardo said. Then he added, “We’ve got no missiles left.”

  “Fuck,” Suzy said. “We’ve got bigger problems.”

  Two pirate ships were right there, on either side. Two salvos simultaneously struck the Heartbreaker’s deflector screens.

  The ship rocked around like it had been hit by an earthquake. Everything and everyone not strapped down went flying. Maria fell to the deck but scrambled up fast.

  The ship was in darkness now. Emergency lights snapped on and covered the room in a crimson glow.

  Suzy reached up from the floor, groping for the controls. Then she slid back into her chair and flipped some switches but got no response.

  “That’s it,” Alice said. “Our deflectors are down. No guns… Missile systems out… Engines at twenty percent.”

  “We can still fight,” Suzy said. She flipped her fingers across the console, but Ricardo grabbed her hand.

  “Suzy—no!” he said. “This part of the fight is over—but it doesn’t mean we’ve lost.”

  She hesitated. Then a message came through from the pirates.

  “Heartbreaker, this is Captain Crush. You should’ve given up while you had the chance… If you surrender your ship and the prisoners, we’ll cut you some slack—maybe. Otherwise, you all die. What’s it going to be?”

  Captain Orange lunged toward a console before anyone could stop him. “This is Captain Orange!” he said. “We’ll give you the prisoners if you let us keep our ship.” He flashed Suzy a smug look.

  The rest of the Heartbreaker crew looked at Suzy, Ricardo, and Maria.

  Captain Crush said, “This isn’t a negotiation, Orange. You either give it all up or we vaporize you—just like you did to four of ours, you fucking asshole!”

  Suzy snapped off the radio. “He doesn’t sound happy at all.”

  Everyone started talking at once. Some of them wanted to surrender, and some of them wanted to fight, and all of them wanted to go home and erase the pirate experience from their resumes.

  Suzy leaped on top of a chair and fired her gun. What the hell, she figured that spot on the wall could handle a stun blast.

  “Quiet!” she said.

  Everyone stopped talking; Suzy pointed her gun at Bob. “Why are these pirates looking for us?”

  Bob leered at her. “Because they don’t like you, Suzy. You have a harsh personality. You’re not the kind of girl anyone wants his mum to meet.”

  “It’s for the reward!” Alice blurted. She was looking at her console now and listening to something in her earpiece. “A message was received here by someone—Bob, I assume—about a reward for capturing you. And I must say, I’m playing this back for the first time, and it’s a very good reward. I also see that Bob broadcasted a message soon after, telling other ships that we’d claimed the prize and they should back off—a bit of stupid bravado on his part, since it probably caused the opposite effect. I suppose this is what we get for letting Bob control all the communications.”

  Suzy rolled her eyes. Okay, so now she understood.

  Ned said, “When were you planning to tell us about this reward, Bob?”

  The rest of the crew stared at Bob with confusion and dirty looks.

 
Bob squirmed a bit. “I would have,” he said in a rush. “I was going to share it with everyone.”

  “Really, Bob?” Ned said. “Surprise us all, eh? What a fucking mess you’ve got us into.”

  Once again, everyone started talking and shouting. Then there was a beep from a nearby console.

  “Message from the pirates,” Alice said. “I suppose they want an answer.”

  Suzy stuck her gun close to Bob’s head. “This thing’s set to fire a stun bullet, Bob—but if I shoot it into your ear, I’m pretty sure it’ll destroy your brain, not to mention your hair gel. Now tell the pirates that you surrender.”

  A murmur went up from the crew.

  Bob just sneered again. “I’m the captain here, Suzy—and I don’t take orders from a slut.”

  “Is that right?” she said through gritted teeth. “Well, I don’t take insults from a fucking rapist.”

  She shot him in the neck. Alice shrieked as he hit the deck.

  Alice ran to him and knelt by his side. She looked at Suzy with raging eyes. “You bitch!” she screamed.

  “That asshole deserved worse, and you know it,” Suzy said. “And this bitch is the best chance you’ve got.” Then she hit the radio button.

  “Hello, Captain Crush. This is Suzy Spitfire… There’s been a change in the management over here, and I understand you’re looking for me.”

  There was a long pause. “We might be.”

  “Well, here I am. I was the one who destroyed your ships. If I give myself up, will you let the Heartbreaker and everyone else go?”

  There was dead silence on the bridge. Ricardo started to say something, but Suzy motioned for him to be quiet.

  “No chance!” roared Captain Crush. “You’re in no position to negotiate. We want you and the other prisoners. And we want Captain Orange hanging by his balls—and we want the ship! Now do you surrender or do we just say ‘fuck it’ and blow you all to bits like I should’ve done in the first place?”