“The long way round it is, then,” he agreed. “McKendrick, you’re not bad at navigation. Help me pick a world.”
“Sure.”
Steffi raised an eyebrow. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d cooperated voluntarily without ribbing each other first. “Holler if you need me,” she said.
Whiling away the hours in her own tiny quarters curled her toes and made her want to run a cross-country marathon. She read the same passage in her Arabian Nights at least six times without imbibing a single complete sentence. Her mind could not anchor without thinking of Arne. What was he doing right now? Who was he with? She shuddered and slammed the book down on her quilt. She stared at the moisture-stained ceiling—an off-copper green. Even breathing felt toxic, incomplete.
“Screw this.”
She marched to the changing area outside the airlock and switched on the comm system of a spare helmet. “Flyte, you there? Flyte? Cap here.” She whistled and tapped the receiver. “Joseph Marchmain, this is Captain Steffi Savannah ordering you to stop snogging and pick up your helmet. You there?”
“Hi, Cap.” He sounded surprised and out of breath.
“I sincerely hope I’m interrupting something.”
“Actually I was…no, what can I do for you?”
“Is Arne there at all?”
“Um…” his pause seemed drawn out, “…no, I don’t think…wait a minute, he’s here now.” Flyte’s posh voice lowered almost to a whisper. “Cap, the next time you visit, we have to talk. It’s about the lagoon folk. It’s something you really need to see.”
Steffi swallowed a hundred bad dreams in one go. “What is it?” Surely it couldn’t be anything horrific. He didn’t sound distressed at all.
“It’s okay, Cap. We’ll talk later. Shall I put Arne on?”
“I think you’d better.” With her finger, she drew a question mark in the breath-misted glass of the helmet. It squeaked when she pressed hard.
“Hello, Steffi.” A warm, melted-chocolaty greeting.
“Hi, Arne. How are you?”
“As well as can be expected without you.”
She wanted to curl up in his arms for a year, listen to him describing her in intimate detail. “I’m missing you too. Arne…” the sound of his name sent her heart aflutter, “…have you got something to tell me?”
“Yes, I love you.” An instant tonic for all the gruelling hours she’d survived without him.
“That’s so sweet.”
“Steffi? Do you have something you want to tell me?”
How typical of him—to turn the tables on her curiosity and remain innocent himself.
“No,” she insisted. “But I’m going nuts over here. I can’t stop thinking about a man I know nothing about. He’d never admit it, but I know he worries whenever I leave him.”
“He is admitting it now. He worries about the woman who turned his world upside down. He worries that she will risk her life for him. He wonders where all this will end.”
Steffi rested her brow on the helmet’s slick glass, waiting for him to tell her everything would be all right. “Arne?”
“Here.”
“I need you to promise me something. It’s important.”
“Oh?”
“Whatever happens, I need you to—”
The Albatross jerked, then rattled through a violent aftershock. Something had to have struck her. A second heavy impact knocked Steffi off her feet. The helmet bounced and clattered into the boot rack. The ship’s alarm sounded for the second time that day.
“Captain, we’re under attack!” The urgency in McKendrick’s voice flooded the ship with an apocalyptic air of dread. Ordinarily so calm at the helm, she had just sounded her equivalent of a war cry. Steffi raced through the mess room, wincing when her hip caught the table corner. Rex and Alex, half dressed, almost barged into her in A corridor.
The first thing she saw through the cockpit window was a convoy of sleek Royal ships unleashing a barrage of laser blasts directly at the Albatross. These were no warning shots. They were hell-bent on annihilation.
“Options?” she demanded.
McKendrick’s grimace seemed to contradict her gentle tugs at the wheel. She looked ready to rip the thing off and throw it through the window, but her pilot’s instincts proved unflappable. “A few more hits like that and we’re cooked. We’re sitting ducks, Cap.”
“What are you waiting for? Cut the tow cables,” Rex insisted, squeezing McKendrick’s seat back with his bear-like hands.
“Cap?” McKendrick’s finger hovered over the button for cable release.
It all flashed by in a horrid moment. Losing, dying alone, all her worst fears given laser cannons to blast her dreams apart. Without unfastening the cables, the Albatross would not have enough manoeuvrability to put up a fight. Steffi had no choice. But cutting Arne loose, even temporarily, felt like the severing of an umbilical between them. As of this moment, they would have to destroy all the enemy ships or else she’d never see him again. That last part felt unconscionable, but…she was the captain.
“Do it,” she said. “Cut them loose.”
Ghosting words.
A spurt of acceleration wrenched them all back. She crashed into an oxygen mask hung on the wall next to twin fire extinguishers. The uncoupling took place out of sight, in another place. She had, had to blank it from her mind.
Crunch!
Another hit started a staggering screech somewhere at the stern, as if metal was being rent apart one shimmy at a time. The Royal ships, swan-like bastards scything through space with impossible agility, circled overhead. They dive-bombed in perfect sequence. McKendrick lurched the Albatross over into a steep barrel roll, avoiding the entire barrage.
“Strap yourselves in!” she yelled, removing her sweater while holding the wheel between her thighs. “I hope none of you have just eaten.”
Crack!
McKendrick’s blood sprayed the window. Steffi spun round. That shot had come from behind them, from inside the cockpit.
“Chance! What the fuck are you doing?” Rex readied a fist. The pistol pointed at his chest was the only thing stopping him from tearing the newcomer apart.
“Open a comm channel—now.” Chance’s wild eyes shot back and forth between Rex and McKendrick.
“Chance, put that thing down,” ordered Steffi.
He spat at her. “Tell them we surrender. Do it! Tell them Corbin has control of the ship.”
Steffi couldn’t believe her ears. The man who’d helped them escape October, who’d shared their meals, their amazing discoveries, and even their beds, had been working for the other side all along? No chance. Not all this time! She spat back then ordered Rex to do as the traitor asked.
“But, Cap—”
Crunch!
Another blast shook the Albatross.
“Just fucking do it!” screamed Chance—no, Corbin. He wasn’t Chance anymore.
Rex pointed a threatening finger at him before opening a comm channel to the Royal ships. McKendrick flopped to the ground, the hole in her shoulder leaking profusely. Alex asked permission to see to her, but Corbin gave a grim laugh instead.
“That bitch can stay there and bleed,” he said. “She was a good fuck, I’ll give her that. But I’m sick of her whining. And no one in the galaxy will be sorry to see her go. No one.” He backed against the dashboard, still training his gun on Rex’s huge frame. “To the Royal ships, this is Corbin on the Albatross. Come in. Over.”
“Go ahead, Corbin.”
His desperate sigh and grin would have suited a French nobleman spared on the steps of the guillotine. “Hold your fire. I’ve taken the ship. Savannah is in my sights. Would you like me to execute her? Over.”
Fuming, Rex stepped across to shield his captain. Steffi peered past his massive arm. She tightened her fists. It had all happened so quickly, and right under their noses. On her ship. On her fucking ship.
“That’s a negative, Corbin. You’re to se
cure the prisoners in the cargo area ’til we board. Open the airlock a.s.a.p. Over.”
“Copy that. Make it quick. Over and out.” He kicked McKendrick in the stomach to make sure she was dead. She didn’t flinch. Her blood streamed across the cockpit floor, parting around Steffi’s boot.
“Everyone…move,” he said. “Anyone tries anything and I drill the princess first.”
Steffi heard Rex’s livid breaths all the way to the hangar. As if threatening his captain wasn’t bad enough, Corbin had now threatened the love of Rex’s life—his life-mate, in the lagoon folk’s parlance. Risky stuff, even if the traitor was armed. Steffi had seen Rex fight three men at once in a pool hall on St. Peter’s Island. None had lived longer than a minute into the struggle.
“Why are you doing this, Chance?” Alex’s head didn’t even reach as high as her husband’s chest. She hugged him around his ribs instead.
“Simple, princess. You guys hit the jackpot. Do you really think I’d let nature take its course with those billion-credit beauties all stabled up like that? We could have all been rich. If you’d have done the smart thing, I’d never have signalled these Royal assholes. They’ll take the lion’s share now. But at least I won’t be pissing into the wind on some jerkwater planet, watching the bluebells grow. Are you kidding me? You guys are stuck on nursery rhymes when there’s history waiting to be written. Fuck the myths. And fuck all you daydreamers.”
He flicked the safety catch off the airlock panel and pressed the release button with his thumb. A loud hiss denoted depressurization and free access to the Albatross.
Sitting on a metal bench, head in her hands, Steffi felt nauseous, lost. Somewhere out there, Arne would have to wait for her. And wait. She would never show. And he would never get to experience that freedom they’d dreamed of together. He would always be a prisoner to man’s insanity. They would keep him in a cell, in an enclosure, for observation or perhaps even voyeuristic pleasure. A perfect physical specimen the likes of which people had never seen outside comic books or virtual reality sex shows. Maybe rich women would pay vast sums of money to be pleasured by him, like they used to do in the days of Roman gladiators. All of this sunk her deeper into the dark bitter well inside her heart.
The door whooshed open and a well-spoken voice said, “Good work, Corbin. Take them into the mess while we bring the freezers across. We’re not taking any chances with the transfer. We’ll keep them locked in cryo-state ’til we reach October.”
“Yes, sir. Good idea, sir.”
As Corbin waved them into the mess room with his gun, Steffi lagged behind Rex and Alex. This might be her only chance to do something before more reinforcements arrived. Watching his gun arm from the corner of her eye, she tautened her shoulders and made ready to tackle him with a surprise duck and lunge at his legs.
Son of a bitch.
He shoved the cold point of his gun barrel against her cheek. “I saw that. You’re a slippery piece of tail, Savannah, I’ll give you that. But you’ve been slippery once too often, and now we expect it. So move.”
Two more guards arrived behind them to relieve Corbin, who hung back and waited at the cargo bay with the well-spoken officer. Steffi, Rex and Alex sat without speaking at the table for what seemed like hours, awaiting the strong, ironic smell of anti-freeze that accompanied cryo-capsules, and their last deep sleep of freedom.
The two guards kept checking their watches. One whispered something. The other nodded in agreement and went to see what was taking so long. Steffi glanced at Rex then at Alex. A clear, hyper-real vibe opened up the stagnant glumness of the mess room. It wasn’t visible but it was palpable all around. The remaining guard felt it too. He cocked his gun and backed away from the table, anticipating a revolt.
But Steffi had no intention of rushing him, and she didn’t think Rex had either. It would be futile, and the newfound clarity seemed to preclude any need for desperate measures. What was it exactly, this strange atmosphere? A change in the air mixture? A gas leak?
A low thump, thump, thump queered the situation further. What the hell was going on in the airlock, or outside, with the transfer?
The first guard raced back into the mess, his face white and glistening. “There’s someone out there!” Panic chopped his words into sharp fragments. “Someone attacking us.”
“Who? We’ve not been hit,” corrected the second guard.
“No. Our ships. Someone is attacking our ships!”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. It looks like…one of our own.”
“Bullshit. Let me see.”
Squeak!
The force of Rex’s backward thrust wrenched the bench from its screws. He struck like a trapdoor spider, snatching the second guard’s gun as he passed. In that same motion, he spun the gun around and blasted the man’s chest to pulp. Alex ducked under the table. A shot from the first guard missed Rex by millimetres. Rex’s reply was deadly accurate, right through the man’s ear, side-on.
Another two men stormed into the mess, guns blazing. One of them was Corbin. Incensed, Steffi ripped the bench up from its final screw and upended it in front of her. Two or three shots thumped and fizzed upon the metal shield, spewing sparks in all directions. Corbin darted toward the rolled-up yoga mats in an effort to flank her. She spun away from him and crashed into the table. Christ, that hurt. Another shot hit an inch below her fingers, ricocheting with scolding sparks up across her knuckles. She winced. Another hit like that and she wouldn’t be able to keep her grip. All hell had broken loose behind her in the kitchen and in A corridor—a full-on gunfight. She couldn’t escape that way. What then? Think.
The edge of a shadow slid across the floor between her and Corbin. He had to be moving, creeping toward her for a kill-shot. The shadow almost directly overlapped that of the bench. She glanced up. The height of the bench, if it fell, might reach him now that he’d advanced. Steffi clamped her boot on the bottom edge and leaned in with all her weight. The bench toppled and clattered. A random laser bolt hit the sink area. Fuming, Steffi dove at Corbin before he could regain his bearings. Her momentum knocked the gun from his hand and sent them both crashing through the cargo bay door. He got to his knees first and thumped her in the gut. It knocked the wind out of her—a wrecking blow she knew she’d never be able to compete with. Instead, she reached for a magnetic boot from the rack to her left, but the creasing pain in her abdomen doubled her up again. Corbin grabbed her by the collar and dragged her, groaning, across the steel gridiron. He tossed her upright, slamming her against the inner airlock door.
“What is it with you space bitches?” he snarled. “Playing at Buck Rogers when any man worth a shit could snap you in two. It makes me fucking sick.” He slugged her in the gut once more. Steffi was ready for it, but it still knocked her off her feet. Coughing, she clutched her side and grimaced, pretending like he’d cracked a couple of ribs. In fact, the bastard had only winded her again. But he seemed satisfied for the time being. He turned and pressed two buttons on the oily control panel: one to close the outer doors, then one to open the inner one. His plan was clear—to jettison Steffi into deep space.
Not while I’m still captain.
She launched a venomous double kick at his kneecaps. Crack. The impact crumpled him in a heap, and he let out a sickening cry. His white face began to shiver, his brow slick with sweat. Had she broken his legs? Probably. No time to make sure.
The inner airlock door scraped open, wheezing icy air into the Albatross. Steffi summoned an almighty effort, then dragged him by his legs into the airlock. He yelled through the pain, tried to grab her but she dodged. Holding her stomach, gasping for breath, she returned to the control panel and pressed both buttons again, this time in reverse order. The inner door squeaked shut. Steffi heard him pounding on the other side, but she couldn’t see him on the floor. The rhombus window was too high, too small. In moments, the outer doors drew apart. Corbin’s manic, scrabbling form flew out like a shred of newspaper in a gu
st.
She leant against the door, gathering her breath. “So much for Chance,” she muttered, wedging a crowbar through the two inner door handles. No one could get in now. The Albatross was hers again.
Yet, what had happened before the fight to panic the guards like that? There was no sign of the freezers on board. Had something transpired outside during the transfer?
Rex and Alex jogged into the cargo bay, out of breath.
“He’s gone?” Rex eyed the crowbar locking the doors.
“Yeah, the old-fashioned way,” Steffi quipped. “And yours?”
“Nailed mine in the old prayer room,” he boasted, before giving his wife a quick kiss.
“Come on, let’s go see what the hell’s going on.” Steffi started toward B corridor, nursing her side.
“You all right, Cap?” asked Alex.
Settling into a determined frown, Steffi replied, “I’ll let you know at the Amen.”
While the three of them made for the cockpit, Steffi noticed spots of blood near the suit hangers. More in B corridor. And a veritable trail leading from the floor outside the engine room to the cockpit itself.
“McKendrick?”
“It’s McKendrick!” Rex confirmed, pointing to the empty pool of blood beneath the pilot’s chair. “She sneaked out. Somehow. The crazy bitch! She must have got onto a Royal ship.” He made way for his captain to take the pilot’s seat. “It’s all yours, Cap. Please, get us the hell away from this.”
A ferocious dogfight was underway in the nothingness ahead of them. McKendrick had wreaked havoc in the Royal squadron. Broken wings and charred fuselages spun every which way. Fighters swooped here, pulled one-eighty reversals there, crisscrossed and collided with debris in vain attempts to double up on the crazy pilot in the centre of it all. It must have been a nightmare for the Royals. Who was who? From the Albatross, McKendrick’s ship was easy to spot. It jumped into formation cheekily, fired a few sly bolts—enough to cripple the vessel in front—then darted away for a sideways killing strike. Check. Repeat.
The Mythmakers: An Impulse Power Story Page 9
