by Sara King
“Not gonna happen.”
Dune shrugged and left.
Some time later—Dallas wasn’t sure how long because she kept her eyes firmly shut and slid in and out of sleep—Goat came in with a plate of food. The scent of roast beef mingled with his overpowering body odor and she vomited again.
“We just finished dinner,” he told her, eyes on her bowl. “Guess you’re not ready, huh?”
“No,” she managed. “Please…go.”
Goat put the plate down and started to walk out.
“We’re bound for Penoi?”
Goat paused. “Yeah. Capt’in took ‘em up on it. Everybody’s grumblin, though. The colonists ain’t pledged a dime for our help. Dune and Squirrel tried to mutiny when Capt’in told ‘em.”
“Squirrel tried to mutiny?” Squirrel was the last one Dallas would have pegged as a mutineer.
“Yeah,” Goat said. He sat at the end of her bed. “Squirrel found out Capt’in really means to destroy the Potion. She’s only got a few years ‘till she’s due for another dose.”
Dallas blinked. She hadn’t really thought the Captain could be serious about destroying the Millennium Potion. “You’re sure?”
Goat gave her a frown. “‘Course. Why else would she say it?”
Dallas sat up and made her eyes focus through the dizziness. “You mean you knew she really wanted to destroy the Potion?”
“‘Course,” Goat said.
Dallas squinted at him. “You do realize that means you won’t be able to live for more than another hundred years, right?”
Goat shrugged. “I had my fun. ‘Sides, I don’t wanna take the Potion no more if they gotta kill colonists for it.”
“What do you mean?” Dallas asked. Her stomach was doing flips and she had to lie back down. She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed that she could keep herself from vomiting again.
“Capt’in got us all together’n had the colonists tell us how they make the Potion. Come find out, they gotta kill the colonists to get it. Infect ‘em and strain it back out of their bodies like pullin’ ants from an anthill. Paul said they’d been doin’ it all this time.” Goat looked down. “Even if we don’t get the Potion, I ain’t gonna take another dose. Reckon enough of ‘em died for me already.”
Dallas was so stunned by this revelation that the memory hit her like a wrecking ball. She jerked, remembering overhearing the captain’s conversation with Ragnar.
“Yeah,” Goat said, mistaking her reaction, “Was hard on me, too. Hard on everybody. Squirrel ‘n Dune don’t want it no more, neither, not after hearin that.”
“What about Smallfoot?” Dallas asked.
“Same, I guess. Kept to ‘imself all day. He’s still cranky from when Capt’in woke ‘im to patch her up after ‘nother fight with Ragnar.”
“I’ll bet,” Dallas said. “He was lookin forward to the day off.” She grimaced. “Thanks. Tell the captain I’ll take over in a few hours.”
“Yeah,” Goat said, standing. “Seeya then.” At that, he left her chamber, his heavy, booted steps reverberating down the hall as he went.
Dallas got up a couple hours later and stumbled to the helm. The command room was quiet, with only Ragnar and Athenais at their posts. Ragnar gave Dallas a passing glance as she walked in, but Athenais swung around to face her.
“So,” the Captain said, “Finally up?”
Dallas swallowed and nodded.
“I’ve deducted two days’ worth of pay from your salary,” Athenais said. “While you were puking and feeling sorry for yourself, I was having to do your job and mine.”
Dallas refrained from saying that Athenais’s job seemed to be nothing more than walking around and cursing at people and instead tried to put on her best ‘subdued and sorry’ look. It wasn’t difficult. She didn’t think she could handle eating again, ever, and she was seeing two Captains where there should have been one.
“So,” the two Athenaises continued, “You’re feeling up to this? You won’t smash us into any debris-belts if my First Mate and I go off and take a nap?”
“I’m feeling fine,” Dallas lied. The old broad certainly didn’t need to know about her body-double. And besides, Dallas always felt good enough to drive. Driving was easy. It was standing that was killing her.
Athenais got up and gave Dallas her seat. She hovered nearby as Dallas went through the routine of checking gauges and engine output. When Dallas looked up, the Captain was giving her a hard look. “Still hungover? Still drunk? You need more time?” The look in Athenais’s eyes added, And another day’s worth of pay?
“I learned my lesson, Captain,” Dallas said, as meekly as she could manage.
Athenais snorted. “You feel like vomiting, you come get me. I don’t want you ruining my floor. I worked hard to steal that floor.”
“Yes, Captain,” Dallas said, in that submissive whine she had learned from fifteen years of kowtowing to Utopian admirals. “I won’t vomit on your Biamachis, Captain.”
“You do, you’ll be licking it up.” Athenais gestured brusquely at Ragnar, then turned on heel and strode from the command room.
Pompous bitch, Dallas thought, as the First Mate got up and followed the Captain out. She doesn’t deserve Biamachis. For the thousandth time, Dallas considered the varied and tantalizing ways the rugs could disappear or spontaneously combust while the Captain was sleeping. Not for the first time, Dallas decided she didn’t want to end up space debris. Instead, once she was sure Athenais was gone, she ducked down, snagged a thread from underneath Ragnar’s chair with her pen, and pulled it free of the rug. Glancing over her shoulder, she added it to the cluster of such snagged and torn threads that had slowly been building under the captain’s console over the last two years. Dallas took a warm-and-fuzzy moment to gaze down at the palm-sized wad of magnificently shredded rug fibers that she had accumulated, then nudged the wad back under the captain’s console with her toe and began scanning the digital horizon for space-rock or other debris. This was a well-used trade path, so the space in between was relatively clear. Dallas fell into a familiar trance, shutting down her brain to everything except the controls. She could pass whole days in a trance like this, with time passing just as quickly as the space outside.
She was jolted alert when the bright red PROXIMITY warning suddenly blared. Seconds later, Beetle lurched and started to slow. The roar that followed reminded her of ripping through atmosphere with a porthole open. Even as she began evasive maneuvers, Dallas wondered who was shooting.
Behind her, the security doors flew open and someone came running inside.
“I don’t know who it is!” Dallas cried, pulling Beetle out of the trade lane. “They were following us!”
A hairy hand slipped past her and locked the helm doors. Even as Dallas was trying to comprehend that, something cold and hard pushed against the back of her skull.
“Drop the stick, Fairy.”
Dallas’s hands tightened stubbornly around the controls. She was gaining ground. In minutes, she would have so confused her pursuers that they would have to spend the next three hours trying to figure out where they were. She looped a few more times, backtracked, and did a ninety-degree turn that threatened her stomach despite the Beetle’s artificial gravity.
“Come on, now. Don’t make me use this.” The cold metal tapped her skull insistently.
Dallas released the controls and turned to look at Smallfoot, pointedly ignoring the weapon resting between her eyes. “You’re an agent?”
He grinned, displaying perfect teeth. “I’m a pirate, just like you. Now stop the ship and let ‘em board.”
Someone started pounding on the other side of the security door.
Keeping his eyes on her, Smallfoot walked over to the emergency control panel and brought out the small key that Athenais kept with her at all times. With it, he unlocked the glass panel and flipped the switch that would fill the outside living compartments with sleeping gas.
Outside, the pounding st
opped, followed by a thud as something hit the ground.
“I said, let ‘em board.”
Dallas turned back to the controls and considered punching the security-door lock and letting the sleeping gas pour into the helm.
“Don’t even think about it,” Smallfoot said.
Frustrated, Dallas launched the sequence to initiate in-space boarding.
“Good girl. Now go stand over there while I chat wi’ my friends.” Smallfoot gestured towards the corner of the cockpit with the muzzle of his—or, rather, Athenais’s—gun.
Bristling, Dallas stood and walked over to the side wall, where she waited. Her hangover was gone, replaced with adrenaline and fury.
Smallfoot sat down and opened a frequency between the Beetle and its attacker. He put the earphone against his head and laughed. “Why hello, fellahs. Yeah, they’re here. I recommen’ bio-suits for boardin, though. Might be a lil’ gas left over. What? No, that wasn’t me. A copilot. Naw, I din’ kill her.”
Smallfoot frowned at the console, then glanced at Dallas. “They wanna hire ya.”
“Tell ‘em they already fired me once.” She crossed her arms and scowled at the emergency airlock.
Smallfoot relayed her message and laughed at the reply. “We’re taking the energy charge from the main engine block,” he said, turning to her. “Ya can either come with us or die on Beetle.”
The little hairs on Dallas’s neck lifted. “You’re gonna scuttle her? What about the others?”
Smallfoot scoffed. “Goat’s a weeder, Squirrel is a uppity bitch, Dune would screw his machines if he could, and the Cap’in is dead. Not much left here to save, way I see things.”
Dallas’s heart spasmed. “You killed her?”
“Couldn’t very well leave that one alive, now could I?” Smallfoot laughed. “After all, I’m selling her precious shifter for three million credits. She wouldn’t take that very well, and we know how our Cap’in liked to hold a grudge.” He frowned at her. “So? Ya wanna come or stay?”
Dallas flinched at the way he said ‘liked.’ If Athenais was dead, there was no one to fly the ship other than Dallas. Goat knew where to fly the ship, but not the how of it. If they were stranded, Squirrel could radio the Devil and get a response, but she didn’t know the first thing about flying. Dune could keep the engine running if the core itself failed, but he’d never touched any controls other than the steering-wheel of a dunebuggy.
That left Dallas.
But without the energy charge, Beetle wasn’t going anywhere. Ever. Squirrel had a better chance of radioing Hell to alert them that they were on their way.
Dallas bit her lip. She didn’t want to die, but she didn’t want to leave her friends, either.
Well, as close to friends as she had, considering the lot of them had abducted her to work for Beetle when the Space Force had fired her. She’d always gotten the idea they all hated her.
Outside, the Beetle jolted as the Utopian ship joined with it and closed the seal.
“Come on,” Smallfoot said. “It’s not a tough decision.”
“I’m staying.”
Smallfoot stared at her. “You’re as crazy as that bitch Cap’in.” He opened an emergency cubby and took out two flashlights. He tossed one at her. “Come on, then. Maybe yule change yer mind.”
“I won’t,” Dallas said.
“Maybe,” Smallfoot said, releasing the security-lock. “Butcha helped me earn six million credits, so I owe ya somethin.
Dallas’s jaw fell open as she suddenly realized what she had done. “You’re here for the shifters.”
“Yer a bright one,” Smallfoot snorted. “Bring yer light. We’re going ta engineering.”
“Go yourself,” Dallas retorted.
Smallfoot waved the gun in front of him. “See this? This says yer comin. If ya don’t, I’m shootin off a foot. Maybe a hand, too, ta keep ya busy. I’m sure as hell not leavin’ you ‘lone at the controls.”
Dallas scowled and opened her mouth to tell him to take her foot. Then, at his raised eyebrow, she closed her mouth, snatched the proffered flashlight with a glare, and followed him.
Dune was crumpled on the floor immediately outside the entry. They had to step over him to enter the hall. It didn’t appear to Dallas that he was breathing.
“He gonna be okay?” she asked, pausing over the mechanic.
“He’s fine,” Smallfoot told her, glancing down as he passed. “For now.”
Dallas bit her lip, but a sound from the air-lock caught her attention. Blue-uniformed Utopian agents were pouring onto the ship, tasers in hand. They stopped and ordered Smallfoot to drop his weapon, but he laughed at them and pointed down the hall at the sleeping chambers with the muzzle of his pistol. “They’re in there,” he said, and motioned for Dallas to follow him down the stairs toward the mechanic’s haven.
Despite its super-efficient drive system, the engine-room was warmer than the rest of the ship. Most people thought it was cozy, but Dallas always had that nagging feeling that maybe the extra heat was actually radiation that was wreaking havoc on her body’s cells as she sat there enjoying the warmth.
Because of this, she hated going to visit Dune. She only did so now because she was pretty sure Smallfoot wouldn’t hesitate to blow off that foot, to keep her occupied.
Dune had set up a new buggy in the center of the room, surrounded by tables filled with odds and ends that looked like junk to Dallas. Dune’s chair sat empty in one corner, the cushion worn and mashed flat with repeated applications of a grease-stained butt. An instruction manual of some sort was laying open on the seat, no doubt on some fancy new engine part.
“In here,” Smallfoot said, walking past Dune’s personal alcove and into the main engine area. It was even warmer in here, with huge black pistons and rotors churning in the center of the room, powering everything from life-support to the kitchen oven. A bone-deep hum made her ear-drums hurt.
“Turn on your light,” Smallfoot instructed as he pulled on a lead-reinforced glove. He stepped up to the engine block and pried up a lever from the looming mass of metal. He gripped the lever with his gloved fist and pulled.
The lights went out.
Dallas flipped on her flashlight in a panic.
Dangling from Smallfoot’s gloved fist was a glowing blue ceramic cylinder. “Got it,” he said. He hefted his prize cheerfully and headed back toward the stairs.
Dallas followed at a subdued distance, her mind reeling. Without a power supply, Beetle was crippled. There was no going back. She had pulled off the main travel-route in her attempt to thwart their attackers. They would drift for years, maybe even centuries, before someone came and discovered them all frozen like Halloween popsicles.
Back on the upper level, Smallfoot handed the ceramic cylinder to one of the Utopian agents who was waiting for it at the air-lock. The man hefted it, grinned at Smallfoot, and disappeared into the other ship.
“Last chance,” Smallfoot said, pausing in the air-lock to look back at her.
Dallas swung her light into the Beetle’s deserted hallway. Little specks of dust drifted in front of her flashlight’s beam. The place reminded her of a tomb.
“I’m staying,” she said with more resolve than she felt.
Smallfoot shrugged. “Your choice.” He started to turn, then paused, handing her the second flashlight. “You’ll need this,” he said, and stepped into the other ship. In moments, the two doors had shut and the air-lock sealed itself once more. The Beetle jolted as the Utopian vessel released it. There was a momentary rumble as the other ship’s engine powered up, and then nothing.
Dallas sprinted back to where Dune was collapsed on the floor outside the command room. He was still in the exact same position she had left him.
Dallas knelt beside him and touched his shoulder. Dune was breathing, albeit shallowly. She shook him, hard.
The mechanic grunted, sucked in a huge breath, and rolled onto his back, gasping. The first thing out of his mouth was, �
�Differentials’ll need work.”
Dallas frowned at him and shone the flashlight into his eyes. “What are differentials?”
Dune threw a grease-marked arm over his face and groaned. “What the hell’s going on? Who’s there? Get that blasted thing out of my face. Why’s it so dark?”
“Smallfoot took the energy-core,” Dallas said. “Turned the colonists in to the Utopis.”
Dune grunted and sat up. “Fairy?”
Dallas nodded.
“Where’s the Capt’in?”
Dallas hesitated. “He said he killed her.”
Dune scoffed. “That’d be the day. Help me up.”
She pulled him to his feet and held him steady while he got his bearings. “He had her gun. I think he shot her.”
“Prolly did,” Dune said. He took Dallas’s spare flashlight. “You go find the others. I’m gonna check the engine.” At that, he jogged off toward the stairs, leaving Dallas alone in the hall.
Dallas turned toward the sleeping chambers with trepidation. Though she had worked for Athenais for two years and the Utopia for fifteen years before that, she had never actually seen a dead person before. She was not looking forward to the experience, since she was terrified of ghosts.
Her first command had been haunted. It was the only reason that she had been able to get the post at such a young age with so little time in service. They had actually given her the ship as a punishment because it had driven its previous two commanders batty.
Bloody Mary, as they had re-named it, had been absolutely and categorically haunted. For two horrible years, Dallas had endured apparitions, poltergeists, and strange whispering voices, all so she could continue to fly. Though she didn’t know exactly what had happened to the people who haunted the place, she was pretty sure that murder had been involved.
Now her boots felt heavy as she made her way to the Captain’s apartments. It was the first room on the right. The door was open.
Swallowing hard, Dallas peeked inside the entryway.
Immediately, her headache was back. Gray and red mush was splattered over half the wall. Though she couldn’t see a body, she knew what that meant.
