by Sara King
“Knew about Stuart, too,” Tommy muttered.
Dallas glanced at the former colonel, a bit shocked. It was the first time he had used Stuart’s name that she could remember. Turning back to the others, she asked, “What about me? He know I was fakin’ it?”
“Probably the only thing he didn’t know,” Rabbit muttered.
“Rabbit throwing up in the airlock prolly had something to do with that,” Stuart said. “He offered to give us a better pilot for the ride back.”
Rabbit sighed and leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. “Now we’ve gotta wonder if all that stuff he said about Athenais being in Orplex was a lie.”
“Even if she is there, we’ve got no chance of getting her out without a free pass through the gates,” Darley said. “The place is a fortress.”
“What bugs me is how he could have known about Stuart,” Rabbit said. “He said Athenais told him, but only Stuart and I knew about Stuart until we launched. Pete knew, but Governor Black killed him when he destroyed Beetle.”
“Maybe Pete told Athenais,” Dallas suggested. “They spent a lot of time together at the commands.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Rabbit said. “She treated Stuart same as always when she came to visit The Shop. Shook his hand, even.”
“So?” Dallas asked.
Both Rabbit and the colonel frowned at her. “They shock you through the hands,” Tommy reminded her.
“No,” Dallas said sweetly, “He only shocked you through the hands. And you deserved it.”
Thomas narrowed his eyes. He looked like he wanted to say more, but, muttering, turned to his controls. “Doesn’t really matter,” Thomas said. “That rich prick told us to leave, and he’ll have every ship within range watching us to make sure we leave. We’re not rescuing anybody today.” He started plotting out the course back home.
Rabbit’s cleared the colonel’s screen, stopping him. “Dallas, I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this, but it’s gonna be your show from here on in.” When he turned to Dallas, there was soberness in his eyes. “The rest of us are going planetside, else we’ll be too sick to move.”
Dallas squinted at Rabbit. “What exactly do you want me to do?”
“I paid top dollar for the finest gunship I could get my hands on,” Rabbit said. “It’s faster than anything Angus’s got here, with more stopping power. I want you to wipe out his fleet.”
The command room went silent.
“You’re…serious?” Dallas peered at him, looking for the catch. Her heart was beginning to pound like a piston against her ribcage.
“Plan A was to sneak in, rescue her, and sneak out. This is Plan B.”
“Is there a plan C?” Howlen demanded. “This runt clearly isn’t capable of—”
“This is the plan,” Rabbit said, his eyes on Dallas. “Think you can handle that?”
“So if she doesn’t wipe out the whole Planetary Guard, Athenais, you, me, and everybody else is stuck on Erriat?” Howlen snapped.
“Correct.”
Colonel Howlen stared at Rabbit, looking completely at a loss for words. Finally, he managed, “You’ve gone mad.”
“Probably,” Rabbit agreed. “It was years ago, though.” Rabbit pulled out his sunglasses and slipped them on with a smile. “I’ve had time to adjust.”
“You are not paying me to die on Erriat!” Howlen snarled.
“Of course not,” Rabbit said. “If I were, I would’ve paid you at least twice, and given you time to spend it before we left.”
Dallas thought it was almost comical the way the colonel looked like he was going to explode. Very evenly, he said, “And what will the four of us be doing while our ‘captain’ is spinning cartwheels over our heads?”
“We’re going to infiltrate Orplex,” Rabbit said. He went over to a depression in the wall and hit a button that Dallas hadn’t noticed. Immediately, an alcove popped out, opening up into four racks of desert-colored weaponry. Grabbing one seemingly at random, Rabbit hit the charger, filling the room with that unmistakable hum of energized death, and said, “Who here knows anything about guns?”
They stared at him. Dallas found herself wondering why she hadn’t pushed that button yet, and what the rest of the buttons scattered all over the ship were hiding. Then, considering the way Rabbit had pinned Rob’s hand to the table in the restaurant with the ease of someone spearing a steak, she decided she probably didn’t want to find out.
“Guns?” Howlen asked. His outrage had faded a bit, replaced with what looked like interest.
“Or explosives.” Rabbit shrugged. “The cargo hold is filled with both. I even packed some land-skimming ATVs because I didn’t feel like walking. They’re each fitted with body armor and flesh-seeking machine guns, as well as cargo compartments with two laser rifles, two laser pistols, and an array of grenades and gas canisters. Plus whatever you can take with you.” He nodded at the shelves and grabbed another pistol to heft it.
Utter silence descended upon the cockpit as the crew stared at their benefactor.
At that moment, the com crackled. Rabbit, why hasn’t your ship lifted off yet? Your pilot can’t find the controls? Broken from her stupor, Dallas hastily reached for the com.
“Ignore him,” Rabbit said. To the others, he said, “Orplex is twenty miles from here as the crow flies. I pre-calibrated the piloting systems on the ATVs. All we need to do is sit back and shoot anyone who comes after us. Dallas will be keeping the Home Guard busy overhead, so we won’t require our anti-aircraft missiles, but each ATV comes with two, just in case. Your body-armor is straight from the Space Corps personal stock. Don’t ask me how I got it. Anyway, we will keep in radio contact at all times. I had a private line installed on Retribution that the ATVs share. Visibility’s gonna be shitty, but if one of us gets into trouble, the others will know about it.”
Rabbit looked at each of them in turn, stopping on Dallas. “Any questions?”
Darley’s hand went up.
“Yes?”
“Do I get to keep the ATV when I’m done with it?”
“We’ll discuss that after you get it back to the ship in one piece,” Rabbit said. “Any other questions?”
Darley’s hand went up again. “Does this mean I get a bonus in addition to what you’re already paying me?”
“You get to shoot up Erriat. That’s bonus enough.”
“I…guess.”
“No other questions? Good. Dallas, stall for time until we can get off the ship.”
At that, Rabbit turned and left the control room, the open rack of guns behind him. The others cast each other nervous glances before each grabbing something dangerous-looking and following him, leaving Dallas alone.
Alone…and about to fly against the Erriat Home Guard. How cool. They’d never let her do anything like this in the Corps. Even with her off-the-charts flight ratings from the Academy, she’d always been stuck with routine stuff like freight or patrols. So boring. There wasn’t an official rating of ‘stick-fairy’ in the Corps, so they’d given her jobs based solely on her rank, and none of her superiors had ever actually given her anything fun to do. Well, until they had her fly against Athenais Owlbourne because she had an ASP, which had prematurely ended Dallas’s career. She’d gone full-manual and had been winning and then they cheated. Stupid Squirrel and her stupid hacking bullshit. Totally unfair. Dallas had made sure to get some good pictures for that one.
You listening, Rabbit? I told you to get off my planet.
Dallas picked up the com set with fingers that were shaking from sheer adrenaline. “Sorry, sir, but we’re having engine troubles. The landing jarred loose an energy coil. It’ll be awhile.”
Who the hell are you?
“I’m the pilot.”
The com set crackled with laughter. I should have known.
“Should have known what, sir?”
Such a shoddy landing job could only have been done by a woman. Tell Rabbit to take his time. He’s gonna
need all the luck he can get to get back to T-9 alive.
Dallas narrowed her eyes, but did not respond. She waited long minutes, trying not to think about what was going to happen if she mis-corrected or accidentally took a bit too much of a corner, gripping the controls to keep her nerves under control. As the minutes ticked into hours, she began to wonder how long it was going to take Rabbit to open up the cargo bay. She was considering going down to the cargo bay to check when the com crackled again.
It’s been two hours. Tell that moron to open his airlock. I’ve got a real mechanic on the other side.
“Negative,” Dallas replied. “We’re almost done, sir.”
Get me Rabbit. I’m tired of dealing with his underlings.
“Negative, sir. Rabbit doesn’t want to talk to you.”
Remind Rabbit that he’s on my planet and all I have to do is wiggle my pinkie and he’ll never see T-9 again. I’ll have so many warplanes down on you that Retribution will look like a wiffle ball.
Just then, Dallas felt the cargo bay doors clang shut. She hadn’t realized they’d been opened. She glanced at the outside vidscreen and grinned as she watched four tan hovercraft disappear into the billowing sand.
Dallas retrieved the com handset and said, “Go ahead and try it, sir.” Then, throwing all the ship’s power into upward thrust, she shot into the atmosphere, shattering windows of the compound with the sonic boom that followed.
The first sound she heard after the rumble of atmosphere on her ship’s nose was, Retribution fired on the compound! Get a lock on it now!
Just like flight school, Dallas told herself as blinking dots on her viewscreen started moving towards her like an army of red ants. Forcing herself not to think about the numbers, Dallas switched off autopilot corrections, going full-manual. It was something only done in absolute emergencies…
…or by stick-fairies. Those who had the magic touch, when it came to flying machines. Dallas just hoped she still had the touch. Athenais hadn’t let her go full-manual after kidnapping her. Ever. The bitch.
Within the first ten seconds of being on manual, feeling the ship vibrate through the controls, the elegant machine responding to her whims like a lover, Dallas knew that she hadn’t lost her touch. Retribution felt right. Like it, and all the space within a full ten kilometers, was part of her. Taking a deep breath, she settled the comset over her head and said, “Attention Erriat Fleet. This is Dallas York of Retribution. Stand down, or you’re all gonna be flying home to Erriat in life-pods.” They deserved a warning, after all. It was only fair.
She heard a crackle, then a laugh. Someone said, “Is she freakin’ serious?”
“Must be weedin’,” another answered.
Dallas shrugged. Warning given.
She reached out and tenderly patted the ship’s controls. “All right, kitten. Let’s show ‘em your claws.” She centered herself, located the nearest red blip on the screen, and, with a prayer to whoever was listening, threw Retribution forward, cannons blazing.
A moment later, the first Erriatian ship lost an engine and started spinning out of control, headed for deep space. Dallas had been careful not to hit the cockpit. That was just rude.
“Holy shit, that thing’s a gunship!” someone screamed into the com. “Take it out, take it out!”
“Wouldn’t you love that, buster?” Dallas muttered to herself, concentrating on tapping the controls just right to avoid slamming into the ship ahead of her. A Dragonspawn, she thought, recognizing the sleeker structure. Shoot for the tail, that automatic part of her thought. Power’s in the tail. She pummeled the core as she went by, sending flares of plasma and fluid jetting out into space to get swept up in her backwash. Behind her, the enemy ship went dead in the water.
“Get it!” someone was screaming. “It was right there!”
Then another, “Jesus, I think she’s on manual.”
And a third, “That’s impossible.”
Dallas decided now was a good time to get back on com. Triggering the receiver absently, she touched off another volley of shots as she simultaneously rolled out of the way of a guy whose crash-protection-system engaged at the last minute and swept him up and back, instead of in and around, which he would have needed to get a good shot. “Not really impossible,” she said, distractedly, “just kinda hard.” She blasted another Dragonspawn in the tail, disabling its core before slamming past, coming only meters from pasting herself across his flank. Mentally, she crossed off another one of the little red dots on her screen.
“My system’s overriding me!” someone shouted. “She’s too close to get a clear shot!”
“She’s a stick-fairy!” another guy shouted. “Holy crap, we’re dealing with a fairy.”
“She ain’t a goddamned fairy,” someone else snapped back. “That ship just got a better course-corrector.”
“Wait a minute,” a man’s voice said, going quiet. “What did she say her name was?”
“Does it matter?” an eighth voice demanded.
“There was a fairy, a couple years back. Got kicked out of the Corps for something.”
“Oh shut up and bring her down. She ain’t a damned fairy. Next one I hear say that is grounded for a term.”
Dallas, meanwhile, kept picking them out of the sky. She tried to be nice about it, too, knowing that they were probably all regular Joes that just needed a job that wasn’t bussing tables at a hotel restaurant, but after charging the eighth ship ahead of her until its internal course-corrector chickened out and banked left instead of right, she miscalculated and left it full of holes much closer to the live-space than she liked.
“Sorry,” Dallas said quickly, feeling a little guilty. She tapped lightly on the interstellar throttle, leaving the others in the dust, then swept around to come in behind Erriat. “You all okay in there?”
“Wasn’t anyone on board but me,” the pilot said, sounding a bit deflated. While his com still worked, his drive engines certainly did not.
“You mean she’s not even aiming for the cockpits?!”
“I said escape-pods, not body-bags,” Dallas reminded them, feeling her face scrunching with concentration. She pushed her throttle ever-so-slightly forward, darting towards the central ship. “It took a few minutes, but I’m getting back into the hang of things. Is easier than I remembered, actually. I’ll let as many of you live as I can.”
“To hell with this shit. I’m out.”
“Get your ass back in the fight! She’s bluffing, you moron. You turn back around or I’ll have your—” His transmission ended in a fluff of static as Dallas took out the commander’s com system.
“Think he can do without his ranting, whaddaya say, fellahs?” Dallas said, weaving between the rest of the fleet, whose crash-guards immediately sent them scattering like mice.
There was a long silence. Then someone said, “You really a stick-fairy?”
“Yeah,” Dallas said absently. “Why?” She tapped her portside thrusters to execute a quick turn. The command ship was still firing at her, so she had to sweep in to put a round through his engine room, sending a silent prayer that the captain had followed standard dogfight procedure and had the crew sealed in the cockpit, where they had easy access to lifepods.
“Maaan,” someone groaned. “The next few hours are really going to suck.”
“I call dibs on a date, if she lives.”
Dallas grinned at the controls. “Gotta catch me, first, hotshot.” She shoved the throttle forward and settled into the rhythm of marking off little red dots in her mind.
Dallas disabled the last Home Guard battleship after seven excruciating hours of dodging the Guard’s and the Planetary Weapons System’s combined efforts to shoot her down. It had been forty-one ships in all. Not the massive fleet she had been fearing, but still enough for several close calls.
Dallas breathed a huge sigh of relief as she watched the last ship’s evacuation pod shoot out toward Erriat. Then she picked up the com set.
“Err
iat Weapons Control, this is Retribution. Halt all land-to-air missiles and other hostile fire or I will start destroying your arrays. Over.”
Her entire body was shaking. It was the biggest adrenaline rush she had ever had, and now that it was over, exhaustion was overtaking her. It was all she could do to sit up straight.
Affirmative, Retribution. Weapons Control is backing down.
Dallas hovered on the edge of the atmospheric haze, waiting for news from the rest of her crew. She was drifting asleep when it came.
Dallas, rendezvous at 652.91 South, 232.03 West. Have the regen room ready.
Dallas snapped awake and checked her coordinates. She tilted Retribution downward and began her descent. She picked up the com gear, switched to the private frequency, and said, “Who’s hurt?”
Just get here fast.
She did. When she landed, four people rushed aboard the ship and Rabbit slammed the airlock shut. Then her mind twitched. Four?
“Go!” Rabbit shouted.
Stunned, Dallas lifted off. She did a few halfhearted aerial maneuvers to dupe ground-to-air missiles, but the weapons arrays remained quiet.
Just get the hell off my planet, a man muttered over the com. And tell Rabbit he just made my shit list. She heard a click, then the buzz of static as the voice added, Again.
Worried, Dallas switched on the shipwide intercom. “Rabbit? What’s going on?”
“Just fly, Dallas,” was all Rabbit said.
Hands shaking on the same controls she had just manipulated with more finite delicacy than a hypercomputer, Dallas did. “Rabbit?” she asked again, after a few minutes jetting into the starlane. “You guys okay back there?”
She got no answer.
As soon as they were out of range of Erriat, Dallas put the ship in autopilot and lurched out of her seat. Heart in her throat, she jogged to the regen room.
Athenais and Tommy were standing outside.
One look at Athenais’s face and Dallas realized that Darley had been right. The captain was haggard, her shaved head showing a prison barcode across her scalp. There were new lines in her face and she didn’t even meet Dallas’s eyes for more than a moment. She looked like a totally different woman. Almost…pathetic.
