by Sara King
Stuart went over to Tommy and hefted him over his shoulder. Then, together, he and Dallas made their way to the door.
“Keep to the upper floors until you reach the docks,” Ragnar said behind them. “The Utopis are inspecting the island a few floors at a time. Today they’re doing the first three.”
“Good to know,” Dallas said. Then she pulled open the door and led Stuart out into the hall.
“Are we really going to shoot anyone?” she whispered once they were out of earshot.
“I’m not sure,” Stuart whispered back. “If we do, I don’t wanna do it.”
“That’s not fair,” Dallas said. “You’re bigger than me. You should do it.”
“What does that matter?” Stuart demanded. “Anybody can shoot a gun.”
“It won’t hurt you as much for you to shoot somebody,” Dallas reasoned.
“I’m still adjusting to this host. My coordination is still fuzzy. I might miss.”
“Bull,” Dallas said. “You take it.” She shoved the gun at Stuart.
“Fine,” Stuart said. He shoved Tommy’s two-hundred-pound body at her. “You take this.”
Dallas grimaced at Tommy, who was currently leaking drool down Stuart’s chest. “I guess I can carry the gun.”
“Good.” Stuart started moving again.
“Can I just shoot to injure instead of to kill?” Dallas asked. “Like maybe in the leg? What if I know one of them? I worked in the Space Corps for fifteen years. I captained eight different ships. What if they know me?”
“All the more reason to shoot them in the head,” Stuart said.
Dallas grimaced down the barrel of the combustion pistol. “I’m not cut out for this. I went to the Space Academy. I fly ships—I don’t stomp around dragging my arms in the dirt shooting people.”
“Well, I really don’t care if you shoot them or not,” Stuart said, “as long as we get on Retribution without dragging the whole Utopia down on us.” They reached the third floor from the roof and started walking down the hall. Looking out the window, they could see that the docks had been attacked, with huge laser burns in the concrete and chunks of debris fallen down onto the landing pads.
“Look at that,” Dallas whispered, pointing. The entire inner core of the island was covered with ships. Anywhere there was free space, a sleek Utopian warship squatted over it. Beneath the ships, huge ranks of armed men marched from the hulls of several troopships, and snipers with laser rifles stood along the top of the wall, watching the ships below.
“I’m liking the idea of shooting someone less and less,” Stuart muttered. “Those old guns are loud. I wonder if Athenais knows about this.”
“She probably does. That’s why they’re going to negotiate.”
“That’s what bothers me,” Stuart said. “We don’t have anything to negotiate with.”
“We have Retribution,” Dallas said immediately. “I could offer to come back to work for them as an independent.”
Stuart gave her a look that said he clearly thought she was crazy, but was going to be polite. “I…thought you said they were the bad guys.”
“I didn’t say I would do it. I’d just offer.”
“Maybe they lost Juno in the fight,” Stuart said. “If Ragnar found her somehow, then maybe they’re going to try and trade.”
“You can’t make a trade with the Utopia,” Dallas said, worrying. “It’s against policy to negotiate. They’ll just say they’re hiding Juno and brand us all traitors. They’ll execute us.”
They walked until they were standing over the docks, looking down. Retribution stood there like a sleek black raptor amidst puffed-up swans.
“There she is,” Dallas breathed. “Beautiful.”
“Only one guard,” Stuart noted. “It’s like they’re not even worried about it.”
“Take a good look out there,” Dallas said, pointing at the grounds. “Would you be worried?”
“Now that I think about it, Retribution looks kind of puny,” Stuart said, his eyes stopping on the masses of humans covering the ground in dark swaths. “I’m starting to lose my nerve.”
“Don’t,” Dallas said, energized by the proximity of her ship. “We’ll be fine.”
Stuart stepped close to the window and looked straight down. “Okay. Then I’ve got just one question.”
“What’s that?”
“How are we going to get past the three hundred soldiers barring the entrance to the docks?”
Frowning, Dallas leaned out the window. Below, a platoon of ground troops blocked the entrance, lazing about with bored expressions on their faces. Each had laser rifles and full Chameleon body armor, making them appear like 3-D lumps in the concrete with guns sticking out. A couple looked to be playing ping-pong, others reading magazines. Along the edges of the group, twenty bear-sized shredders stood amidst piles of equipment, waiting for their operators’ commands. Dallas pulled back and glanced at her gun. “I don’t think we’re gonna need this.”
“Stuff it under your shirt. Maybe we can still use it.”
“Against them?” Dallas cried. “They’ve got laser rifles, Stuart. And body armor. Chameleon body armor. Oh, and did I mention the shredders? They’ve got shredders.”
“So what are you going to do?”
Dallas’s mouth fell open. “What am I going to do?! You’re the alien. You do something!”
“So what if I’m the alien?” Stuart demanded. “You’re the hotshot pilot with a bug up her ass to get back to her ship.”
Dallas did have a bug up her ass to get back to her ship. “And I’ll tell you why, too,” she growled. “I get back to her—” she pointed at Retribution, “—and they—” she pointed to the ground troops, “—are sitting ducks.”
Stuart shrugged. “Well, if you want to go by my alien instincts, they’re screaming at me to get as far away from the big men with guns as physically possible. I think we should just sit back and wait for Athenais to get us some sort of clearance. Besides, I don’t know anything about the Utopia.” He jabbed a finger between her breasts. “You do.”
“Ow,” Dallas growled. “What is there to know?! The whole Utopia’s filled with greedy, power-hungry bastards who like to mess in other people’s shit—” Dallas paused. “Wait a minute.” She leaned back out the window, eying the ranks. When she pulled back, she was grinning. “You’re brilliant!” She reached out, grabbed him by the head, and brought him down for a kiss. Then, giggling, she released him and headed for the stairs.
“Wait a minute, Dallas!” Stuart called after her. “Shouldn’t we discuss your plan’s merit before you run off and get us both killed?!”
Dallas waved a dismissive hand at him and hit the steps at a jog.
“Now I just want to make sure we’re clear on this. We present ourselves as captured Utopian citizens and ask for safe passage back to T-9. We are obsequious, butt-kissing solar surveyors who were given the unfortunate task of determining whether or not Xenith’s star is a viable candidate for nuclear conversion. We were captured as soon as we entered the system and were shocked to find that the place was inhabited, let alone that it had a habitable planet.”
“Sounds good to me,” Athenais said.
“Then let’s get this over with.” Ragnar stepped out into the hallway and Athenais followed.
A minute later, only yards from their goal, two armed ground troops stopped them. “Utopis only,” one of them said.
“But we are Utopis,” Ragnar complained. Athenais turned to look at him, surprised at the genuine whine in his voice. “We want to go home. We’ve been prisoners on this planet for two years!”
“And you’re prisoners again. Shouldn’t have betrayed the Utopia. Now leave.”
“We didn’t betray the Utopia!” Ragnar cried. “We were captured. We’re solar surveyors. This star’s twelve million SIDUs from the nearest Utopian planet. We were told to determine whether or not it would be a viable fuel source for—”
“You heard the broa
dcast. Everyone will be evaluated on an individual basis. Come back tonight and you might be able to get to the front of the line. Until then, leave.” The man sounded like he had given a hundred such spiels in the last half hour.
“I don’t think you understand,” Athenais said, stepping forward. “We need to speak with your Colonel. Now. We’re not just surveyors, if you know what I mean.”
Ragnar flashed her a panicked look before returning his attention to the Utopis. “Please, we don’t want any bloodshed. We just want to speak with…”
“End the act, Ragnar. The game’s over. Time to tell the truth.”
Ragnar straightened, but he gave her a frustrated look.
The two Utopis stiffened, grasping their weapons tightly in their hands. “The…truth?”
“You really believe the Utopia never knew about this place?” Athenais said. “Thousands of years to build up their own fleet and they never knew?”
The Utopis looked confused. “It was dead space.”
“We’re agents, you moron. We’ve been monitoring Xenith for twenty years.”
“That doesn’t make sense. They would have come in sooner, as soon as they knew they had a fleet.”
Athenais scoffed. “You think they were worried about Xenith’s fleet? They were worried about its natives. The whole planet is colonized by water-dwelling aliens. Some grow to the size of a gunship. I’m sure you picked them up on your scanners.”
The Utopis looked at each other. “We heard rumors, but we didn’t—”
“And they’re all telepathic,” Athenais stated. “They’ve got their own armies of sharks under the water. Mind control, man! Do you realize how valuable that is to the Utopia?!”
The soldiers began to fidget.
“Just let us speak with your Colonel!” Ragnar barked, his attitude completely changed.
The two men jumped, then stepped aside. Ragnar brushed past, almost knocking one of the soldiers over. Athenais followed without pause, and fell in behind him as he yanked the Colonel’s door open.
The Colonel had the pale, sickly face of a lifelong spacer. She had all the windows of the room shuttered against the sun and was reading a report on her handheld when they barged in.
Immediately, she stood. “Who in the hell are you?!”
“Shut up and listen,” Athenais snapped. “This whole planet is about to explode.”
The Colonel stared at her. “It is?”
“Yes,” Athenais said. “As soon as the DNA data starts getting back to the Admiral.”
“What are you talking about!? We haven’t even begun testing yet!”
“Don’t,” Athenais ordered. “Not unless you want to get yourself and every Utopi on this planet killed.”
“But…why?” The Colonel was baffled. “Who are you?”
“Agents,” Athenais said. “That’s all you need to know.”
“What kind of agents? Why shouldn’t I conduct DNA testing? It was an order from Admiral Redstone himself.”
“You can’t do DNA testing because as soon as you do, you’re going to realize that every land-dwelling native on this planet is a shifter.”
The Colonel’s eyes widened. “What?”
“Don’t you wonder how they stayed off radar for so long, with only a little trickle here and there?” Athenais made a disgusted sound. “Headquarters had its suspicions, and they pinpointed the leakage to this planet. They sent us here to investigate.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Ragnar, show her.”
In an instant, Ragnar shifted into a bulky, muscular woman in her thirties.
“Double agents,” Athenais said, grinning at the Colonel’s horror. She wiggled her newly-grown fingers for effect.
The Colonel’s mouth was open as she stared at them. “Shifters? The whole planet?”
“Yes. Even now, they’re probably infiltrating your ships, getting ready to launch an offensive. How many ships do you have up there? What percentage of the Utopian fleet is in orbit? How vulnerable is the Utopia without it? Because we’re about to lose it all.”
The Colonel stared. “I have to warn the Admiral.”
“As soon as you tell him, the Admiral is going to message headquarters and they’re going to tell him to blow the planet. If there’s anyone you want to get out alive, we need to do it now. I have a ship ready.”
“How can you be sure they’re not shifters? How can you be sure I’m not a shifter?”
“You’re not a shifter because they haven’t had a chance to regroup. You captured their leaders. Shifters are useless without a leader. Most are just mindless drones.” Athenais glanced at Ragnar, who was giving her an irritated look. “As for my ship, we have a codeword—nobody’s getting past the airlock without using it. My question to you is who do you want us to save? Is there anyone with important knowledge, anyone who isn’t expendable?”
The Colonel glanced at the door. “My secretary routinely handles some classified documents…”
“We’re not rescuing a secretary,” Ragnar snapped.
The Colonel straightened. “Aside from myself, I can think of no one.”
“Then let’s go. Grab your things. We need to hurry.”
“Are you sure this will work?” Stuart muttered.
“No, but I’m going to find out.” Dallas flipped the collars of the lab coat out and grabbed the medical handheld. “Thanks, by the way.”
The mousy technician smiled shyly and nodded.
“So what do you want me to do again?” Stuart asked, looking down at the white coat he wore. He had stripped off his Warrior guise and was now clean and shaven, the pile of his facial hair still lying on the floor of the regen lab.
“Grab a handheld,” Dallas said. “Look professional. The key to this is not to take any shit from anybody. They might have rank, but you are the law.” She slapped his chest with the clipboard. “This right here is your power. Anybody so much as looks at you funny, you write their names down on your little sheet of paper.”
Stuart stared at her for a long time. “Oh…kaaay,” he said, glancing down at his clipboard. “And that’s to do what, exactly?”
“Scare the holy living crap out of them, that’s what,” Dallas said, gleeful. “You have no idea how many times I’ve wanted to be on this side of the Clipboard. And that’s with a capital C.”
“The Clipboard,” Stuart repeated, looking at her as if she’d lost her mind. “What are we supposed to be, exactly?”
“Utopian auditors,” she said cheerfully. “They accompany every Corps ship and are constantly putting their noses where they don’t belong. They always travel in threes, but we’ll just have to make do.”
“Don’t they have uniforms?” Stuart said, leerily plucking at his lab coat.
“They do, but they don’t always wear them. Easier to catch people goofing that way.” Dallas looked up at the technician. “Thanks again.”
“You’re welcome,” the woman said, giving her a genuine smile. “I hope you get home safe, star-traveller.”
Meeting the woman’s sad brown eyes, Dallas felt like she should say more, but Stuart had already grabbed her arm and started dragging her out of the lab.
They left the regen room and were several minutes down the hall before Dallas stopped and said, “You know, I don’t even remember her name.”
Stuart impatiently stopped and glanced back. “I don’t think we asked.”
“She was really nice,” Dallas said, biting her lip. “I should at least know her name.”
Stuart glanced outside. “Dallas, if we’re going to get this done, we’ve gotta hurry. Athenais and Ragnar should be done by now.”
“But she told me how to fight the shark.” She glanced down at her lab coat. “And we’re just using her. If anybody finds out she helped us, she’s dead. We don’t even know her name, Stuart.” That was too close to what Athenais did to people for her comfort.
“It’s not like you’re going to write a memoir, Dallas.”<
br />
Dallas narrowed her eyes. “How do you know?”
Stuart reddened. “I mean right now,” he babbled. “It’s not like you’re gonna write a memoir right now, when we’re trying to get onboard the only ship that has a chance of getting us back home alive.”
Dallas turned on heel.
“Dallas!” Stuart cried. “Where are you going?”
“To find out her name!” Dallas shouted back.
Behind her, she heard Stuart curse, but he jogged to catch up. They threw open the door to the regen chamber and the woman glanced up. Her hair was loose around her face, her eyes red. In her hand, she held the vial of blue liquid. As soon as Dallas entered, she hid the vial behind her back, blushing.
“Hi,” Dallas said, striding up to her. “My name is Dallas York. I’m the captain of Retribution. Who are you?” She held out her hand.
The startled woman transferred the vial to her left hand and brought her right arm forward to grip Dallas’s palm. “Ma’ri.”
“Mari?” Dallas asked. “That’s your name?”
The woman nodded. “Ma’ri.”
Over the intercom, a curt female voice said, Sweep of Decks One through Fifteen complete. All units proceed to Deck Sixteen. Inhabitants of Decks One through Fifteen, proceed to the cafeteria for processing.
“They’re starting the processing!” Stuart cried. “Oh gods, Dallas, we don’t have time for this…”
“What are you doing with that, Mari?” Dallas asked, nodding at the way the woman’s hand was still tucked behind her back.
Mari reddened. “You heard the broadcast this morning. They’re imprisoning all military.” She motioned at the bloody floor. “I was treating wounded when they found me. The doctor took my DNA and other vitals this morning. Told me to be here tomorrow for deportation. They’re sending me to a work-camp.”
“What’s that got to do with—” Dallas’s eyes widened. “You were gonna kill yourself?”
Miserable, wet-eyed, Mari nodded.
Dallas glanced at Stuart, then back at Mari. “You wanna come with us, Mari? Auditors work in threes. And we could always use another surgeon.”
