by Michael Orr
There would be a brutal, bone-shattering thud in the end.
She held her breath against the coming impact as the roof raced up to greet her...
...slammed into her belly-first!
She crashed through, and the building did everything it could to flatten her into a patty. The hard, unnatural angles of a desk and chair smashed against her amidst the laughter of pirates.
“Anita...” a voice beckoned from some dark, foreboding place.
“Miss BANDOLIN!” the teacher called again sternly.
“Rat!” someone else shouted at the same time.
Anita flinched, jolting to the present as laughter crescendoed. She looked toward the unwelcome voice and met the perfectly eye-shadowed glee of the popular girl.
“That’s enough Lindsay, unless you’d like a trip t’the office,” Mr. Simms warned.
“Sorrr-RY.”
Anita’s soul sank into Hades as she sat in rigid mortification, channeling all her misery into her feet. They writhed together like dying weasels while Mr. Simms said things she couldn’t register.
Anita looked up at him helplessly, shame and panic colliding in a perfect storm of paralysis. Humiliation riveted her to her seat; no idea what to do.
Without any conscious decision, she bolted for the door and dashed across campus.
A bell sounded from some distant, unknown land and signaled the end of class, but Anita didn’t notice. Vacant eyes stared past the pencil spaghetti littering the jail-gray door of the bathroom stall, and in the dungeon of her mind a single word whipped her soul without mercy.
Like over-chewing one mouthful into an insipid paste, she’d long since leached the word of all meaning until it was nothing more than a cruel sound. But even so, it terrorized her.
Rigid arms clasped her knees over her heart like a drawbridge as she rocked and rocked and rocked.
Trish dangled in a purple-black nowhere, trying to move but making no headway. There was nothing to push against and she flailed like a fish in a net.
“What the fu–?”
She had no memory of the empty place; only a dim sense of familiarity. But the longer she dangled, the more details she noticed — vague things that didn’t want to resolve. There seemed to be stars glowing in the haze, but not normal ones. These glowed black like negatives; like she was in some anti-verse.
“What is this?”
There were no guides or voices here; just her own awareness — until she looked down.
A terrible noise scarred her throat as she gaped into the endless maw of Eternity.
Arms and legs exploded in a flurry of action as she scrambled to get free, but the ӕthers left her drifting like bait in blank nothingness. The emptiness around her was colossal beyond all reckoning.
“NONONONONOHHH!!!!!” she screamed. Kicked at it. “YOU CAN’T HAVE ME!!!”
The ӕthers faded as she fell into its mouth.
#Arctica Actual, this’z Shuttle Eight inbound on high Med-E.# Chapman announced over an open mic, letting all parties monitor his progress. #Passenger is unconscious and in severe distress. Clear all bay traffic ’n have an exposure team and I.C.U. standing by. I’m comin’ in extremely hot!#
#Med-E acknowledged, Shuttle Eight. Bay Five is being cleared and you have Alpha-One priority.#
Those were welcome instructions. Arctica’s belly bay wasn’t Chapman’s home base, but it was closest to the medbay.
“Holy Christ...” The tour guide squatted down on quivering knees, clutching her wretched gut. Behind her, the attendants and other guests breathed uncertain relief.
Guinsey sent the tortoise pilot his highest regards and reluctantly broke off, returning to the landing site to wait for the lucky ones who were still having a high time floating with the muluus. He wouldn’t find out who the runaway was until later, when only his prize passenger failed to board.
26
* * *
EFS ARCTICA – GRENADINES OF HEAVEN – MAY 20, 2371
Trish came-to in a recovery room surrounded by dozens of hologram fauxquets from friends and well-wishers. The green glow of her stats hovered above her and a clear tube ran down from the head of the bed to disappear into her right arm.
“W-What’s this?” she creaked through the rough leather of her dehydrated throat. There was a fauxquet nearby and she reached for the note, wincing with unexpected weakness.
“Hey!” a very large black medtech came through the curtain. “How you feelin’, Space Girl? Those ears hearin’ me alright?”
“Guess so,” she frogged. “I’m...sooo thirsty.”
“Uh-huh. I’ll get ya sump’m. Just glad yer back with us.”
“How long?” she asked.
“’Bout two days in the tank.” He couldn’t stop smiling.
Trish, on the other hand, was horrified.
“z’The Asherah still here?!” What about the Zodiac? Her guests? But then she remembered it was late in the cruise and nobody was dancing anymore.
“s’Alright,” he promised her. “Asherah’s still here, an’ you’re almost fixed up. Be back ta hottie real quick, just like ya oughtta. Ya just need a good meal. Lemme go get that water.”
He disappeared and another dark man took his place. The doctor, apparently. He smiled professionally before checking on her stats.
“We heard you were some kinda super-Houdini out there,” he said without looking.
“Super who?”
His smile warmed. “It takes a lot t’get outta those gloves. We had to replace a tooth along with some new skin and a set’a shiny new eardrums. But you’re sure a lot sturdier than ya look.”
She had no idea what he was going on about. “Wha’d I do?”
“Saved yourself as much as anyone else did. Made it kinda hard on the pilot, though.” He gave her a quick wink. “Pretty sure he sent...this one.”
He handed her the note from another fauxquet and withdrew when the tech came back with a suck-tube of fortified water.
CRUSADER NINE – ALLIANCE SPACE – MAY 20, 2371
Turns out, seniority meant bupkus on a crusader ship. About the only thing Loni was senior to was her microsweep. Cleaners were the bargain basement of the jihad — nameless, faceless go-fers to be ordered around by anybody and everybody.
The one thing that made her useful was her mastery of the ship’s layout. The guard she met at Nine’s gangway had virtually saved her life. The dreadnought was like a labyrinth in space, and she alone had spent a week getting to know its blind alleys and dead ends. Anyone who didn’t know where they were supposed to be came to her for directions. Sometimes even the captain.
Were it not for that — and the fact that she was too lowly for anyone to feel good about molesting — she’d have been as much a target for their violence as an enemy ship, because these were people without mercy...without humility...without humanity. As far as Loni was concerned, without souls.
They were arrogant, self-righteous, narcissistic pricks and tyrants who wanted to run the entire universe their way. She doubted even god would get his say in one of their ‘discussions’ — which all too often ended in a brawl. Their righteousness wasn’t a matter of religion, but of personality.
None of these idiots could claim to be godly in any conceivable way. They gravitated to the jihad because they were psychologically fucked up in just the right way to mesh with it. The Crusade was pathology, pure and simple. Especially where its leaders were concerned. It provided a handy outlet for their insanity.
The ‘zombies’, as she liked to call the robed minions who staffed the ship, were for the most part misguided believers who thought this was what god was calling them to do. And because Captain Harlowe had a skillset, they’d follow him straight to hell with psalms on their tongues. The man could fight...and win.
Right out of the gate, Nine took down an Earth frigate. And just two days later she crippled and claimed a corvette for the jihad. From the bits and pieces Loni overheard, Nine was becoming a legend. Or more
accurately, Captain Harlowe was.
“You...” called a gruff voice from down the corridor. It came from a Crusade official by the name of Surryah. Harlowe ran the ship, but Surryah ran the jihad culture aboard it. His word was law, like a tribal elder or chief priest, and he was terrifying. Loni wanted to sprint in the opposite direction. Instead, she turned and bowed her head the way a theta dog greets an alpha. It was her only defense.
“C’mere ’n mop this up.”
EFS ARCTICA – GRENADINES OF HEAVEN – MAY 21, 2371
SbLT Jaff Chapman was doing a walkaround of his tortoise when a “Hey...” from behind startled him. He looked back to see his recent damsel in distress making her way over with the slow, cautious movements of a retiree.
“Oh heyyyy...!” His pleasure lit the gray hangar like sunlight. “You’re up ’n around!”
“Largely thanks ta you.” Trish leaned against the hulking tortoise for support. There was something opaque about the girl’s smile that Jaff couldn’t read. Or maybe he’d just been away from Earth too long to figure it out.
“I didn’t do much.” He waved it off. “Just flyin’.”
“I’m told these things don’t respond ta that kinda precision very well,” Trish said.
“Yeah?” He inched a little closer. “And who’s been tellin’ ya that?”
“Reliable sources.” Her smile matured, lifting the veil a bit so he could peek in.
A few minutes later they were chatting over chilled drinks in a nearby officers lounge. The presence of a girl onboard was causing some commotion at other tables, but nothing Chapman was too worried about. Any serious move made here would be a career-ender.
“My skin wasn’t real bad. Some frostbite; a little radiation. But they hadta completely reconstruct my eardrums,” Trish moaned. “They’re still kinda sound-sensitive, but I can hear okay.”
She took a sip and Chapman was charmed. Her looks, her manner, her presence; they coalesced into a kind of witchcraft.
Straight across from him, Trish’s startling chest sheltered the far side of the table like an awning hung heavy with rain. He was losing the fight to not stare. Everything about her was exaggerated. But it was more than just the contrast of her kewpie-doll face and that mouthwatering figure. It was how she did things.
Desironamic, reckoned the pilot in him. He’d never thought of the human body as a design before, but Trish had clearly been created to impress.
“Y’know,” he changed topics, “when I first heard about you, I thought your name was T-H-E-O-R-Y.”
“Yeah,” Trish stirred her drink, wondering when or where he would’ve heard about her. “I changed it. It’s s’posed ta be ‘Tee-airy’, but I like it better this way.”
“Suits you,” he said. “So, what about life between cruises? Where’s home?”
“This is home.” She gestured around.
“Space as refuge, huh?” He sampled his drink, not sure how else to make himself her equal.
“No.” Trish shook her head. “Not at all. I just...I made a choice. This’z where my life is, now.”
“Just like that.” He guessed at her story with a smile.
“What about you?” She leaned in. “This who you are?”
Jaff took a sip to force his eyes off her cleavage and those glistening lips. “I got sick of Earth.”
“Earth, or the people there?”
“Same thing, really.” Now he wished he could take another drink without coming off lame.
“I think Earth got sick’a me.” Trish turned wistful, drifting on nostalgia. then it flipped. “Y’know, now that I’m all patched up, the thing that really sucks is I never got t’do the muluus.”
Jaff studied this girl who’d recently been half-past dead. You’d never know it.
“Next time.” He tossed it to the wind. “So, when you headin’ back?”
“Well, I kinda postponed my shuttle so I could meet my rescuer. I’m already s’posed ta be on my way.”
“Yeah, I was afraid’a that.” He stirred his drink and looked up. “Ever been to a shore leave?”
Trish spent the shuttle ride home mulling over the young lieutenant’s offer. If he could find a way to smuggle her in, she’d get to experience a weekend in a remote area of the Grenadines and see what an EarthFleet shore leave was all about. It’d surely spell trouble with a capital Q, but...
“Shore leave?!” Saia bellowed. “One little you and how many men?!?”
“You haven’t met these guys. They’re really respectful.”
“Yeah...” Saia rose to the challenge, “when they’re surrounded by rules ’n regulations. What is it that shore leave specifically doesn’t have?”
“I know...” Trish backed off. “Ya make a good point.”
“I’m making the only point, TT.”
Trish wasn’t happy about the resurrection of her school-days nickname. There were just so many objections, but it stuck and everyone was using it now. Caylee was the only holdout.
“I’ll...keep it in mind,” she mumbled. “I just...I came out here t’be Spacegurl, not Saf-T-Girl. Know what I mean?”
“Lotsa space,” Saia reminded her. “Doesn’t mean ya gotta set yerself up for...”
Trish shook her head. “I just can’t imagine these guys bein’ like that. It’s so far from everything I’ve seen. And no one tries anything here, where I’m mostly nay-ked.”
“Uh-huh!” Saia nodded emphatically. “Nobody here’s got E.I.D.”
27
* * *
ESS ASHERAH – GRENADINES OF HEAVEN – JUN 29, 2371
“Uh-ohh. Les crystal heels!” Amber was peering in from the doorway as Trish readied herself. “Must be somebody special.”
“He is,” Trish breezed. “That pilot who caught me in mid-air...?”
“Ohhh, yeahyeah. He’s coming here?”
“Well, I’m meeting ’im for shore leave. Him ’n two of his buddies.”
Amber shook her head. “Why do I not know these things?”
“Ya work the wrong shift,” Trish teased. “All the cool kids know.”
Amber ignored her. “So, where’s it at?”
“Onxx.”
“What’s an ‘ankhs’?”
“According ta him, it’s a fleet-only Grenadine they reserve for leave. I’m told anything goes. Including me.”
“And don’t tell me...that’s all you’re wearing t’night.”
“Oh, not just tonight.” Trish glowed. “Two days ’n three nights. But yeah, this’z all.”
“Three nights?!” Amber shrieked. “Oh Jeepzis! Trish...honey...you’re gonna get fleet-raped! It’s not gonna be just the four of you!”
She paused. “You did not hear that.” Shook it off. “The place’ll be swarming with lovesick sailors!”
Trish dismissed the echoes of Saia. “s’Not the impression he gave me.”
“I know you’ve got some kinda juju that lets ya get away with this here, but they’ll never let you on a shuttle in just heels an’ a...” she didn’t really know what Trish had on, “...a thing.”
Trish’s smugness shot up to eleven. “I’m not takin’ a shuttle. He’s pickin’ me up in a transport.”
Amber paused. “A whole military transport for one teensy Trish?”
“Pi-lot,” Trish duh’d.
“You go M.I.A. on me and I’m gonna–” Amber stopped herself thinking about last cruise’s muluu calamity just as Trish’s screem bleeped.
“Fuckeddy, he’s here!” Trish froze. “I gotta go!”
She raced down the hall and took a mover to landing bay 2, ignoring the mute fascination of the two staffers sharing it with her. Her custom outfit was a collection of fluffy, form-fitting pink boas encircling strategic areas with nothing in-between. It was like wearing a stag party while still managing to qualify as clothing. Mostly.
She never would’ve worn something so risqué before now, but Trisha Thierry had become a fixture onboard, and a certain amount of antics and eccent
ricities were expected. What was the harm?
She was alone by the time the mover dropped her off, and the usually hive-like landing bay was at low ebb. One massive tortoise transport dominated the scene about half a football field away — a solid three-story brick of flying armor with stubby little pointless wings.
“All that just for me, huh?” She worked her lips beneath the catcalls of idle techs. The tortoise had gained a fan club and she steadied herself for the crowd’s attention, coyly clip-clopping her way through the ring of onlookers.
The only way aboard seemed to be the rungs leading up the fuselage to the big circular hatch imprinted amidships like a royal seal. No ramp.
Tossing everyone a bright smile and delighting in the scandal, she picked her way up and reached the hatch’s gangway amidst a chorus of appreciation.
“Be back in a few days!” She did a small curtsy as her screem bleeped.
“Hey...” Saia’s holo materialized. “Have a good time, you little nympho whatsit.”
“Back atcha, Bitchy-pooh.” She grinned and stepped inside.
#Scheduled civilian embarked,# announced the neutral AI. #Launching. Please take a seat.#
“Hoh-kay...” She glanced around, wondering where her lieutenant was, then figured he had to be in the cockpit.
The sounds of nearby chatter set off her alarms and she peeked into the main cabin.
Panicked!
Scores of military guys lounged in various states of undress — mainly shorts and tanks — all strapped into rows of seating.
She yanked herself back into the boarding zone, eyes wide as the sun.
Holy HELL! Whaddo I do?! Oh my effing GOD, whaddo I DO?!
“Get off!” Crazed urgency galvanized her into action. “Gotta get off...”
She skittered back to the hatch and noticed a view panel monitoring their launch. They were already away!
“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod...” She crouched into a tiny ball in the service corridor with her friends’ prescience drowning out all other thoughts. Love-sick sailors. Fleet rape.
