Wings of Retribution (30 page)

Darley gave Dallas a hard look.  “You’re just a child.  You couldn’t imagine it.”

Poor Dallas took the bait.  “Is it worse than mopping floors for two months and having customers slap your ass when you walk by and getting fined when you punch ‘em for it?”

Stuart had to resist the urge to slap his forehead into his palm.

Hearing her response, Darley cackled and stood up.  They could still hear his peals of laughter well after he left the mess hall.

“An’ him?” Dallas said, nodding at Tommy.

“I’m Thomas,” he said stiffly.

“Well, you certainly got a stick up your butt about something, Tommy,” Dallas said.  “Think you know piloting better ‘n I do.”  She looked him up and down.  “Lemme guess.  Corps.  Officer.  Forcibly retired.  Maybe even had your own ship, for awhile.”

“I’d rather not talk about it,” Tommy said, jamming his fork back into his potatoes.

“Oh yeah?” Dallas blundered on.  “What rank didja get before you washed out?  Lieutenant?  Captain?”

“Colonel.”

Stuart wanted to bury his face in his hands.  The poor girl was clueless, and had as much tact as a perky blonde battlecruiser.

Dallas sniffed. 

“How about you, girl?” Tommy said, grinding his teacup on the tabletop as he stared down at it, twisting.  “I recognize your preflight procedures.  Academy-trained.  Probably made, what, captain, before you washed out?”

Turning from Tommy, Dallas jabbed a thumb at Stuart.  “What about
that
useless teat?”

Stuart flinched, feeling the sudden desire to crawl under the table. 

“You said you were getting the best, but he doesn’t know his ass from a com set.  Like he’s not even trained.”  She lowered her hand and gave Rabbit a disgusted look.  “You got all the money in the world but can’t even hire a decent com tech?  Why’d ya even bring him along?”

“What I want to know,” Tommy interrupted, jerking a thumb at Dallas, “is why
this
little twit got the captaincy, while
I’m
stuck with navigator.”

“She’s better than you,” Rabbit said absently, shutting down his tablet.  Then, to Dallas, he added, “Oh, and Stu’s a
suzait
.”

Both Dallas and Tommy jerked.  Stuart blushed, looking down at his host’s hands under their stares.

“Well, I’m off to bed,” Rabbit said cheerfully.  “Wake me when I need to take up shift.”  He got up and, tucking his belongings under an arm and taking his plate with the other, left the mess hall.

As he did, Dallas stared at Stuart, open-mouthed.  Across from her, Tommy’s face was a building thunderhead.

As soon as Rabbit was out of hearing, Colonel Howlen slammed a fist down on the table loud enough to make Stuart’s plate jump.  “So
you’re
the little worm that killed Corporal Koff?”

Shame hit Stuart like a filthy fist to the gut.  While he had not killed Pete directly, the corporal wouldn’t have died without Stuart’s intervention, and Stuart looked away.  Softly, he said, “He was alive when I released him.  Dallas can attest to that.  Athenais let him use her regen room.  Flew in her ship back to T-9.  Died with the rest of her crew.”

“
Pete?”
  Dallas looked ill.  “Pete had a…had you…and he…”  She lowered her voice to a hard whisper and leaned forward.  “…he was so
normal.”
  Then she cocked her head.  “Well, aside from the droopy face.  Thought that was just a stroke or something.”

“That does it,” Howlen snapped.  He stood up, throwing his chair backwards in a screech of metal.  “Listening to a pompous little airhead dictate orders she barely has the qualifications to understand is bad enough, but I
refuse
to be on the same ship with this…”  He paused, utter distaste filling his dark eyes.  Twisting his face in a sneer, he finished, “…maggot.” 

Stuart scowled up at him.  “For a former Species Operations officer, you aren’t very informed.”

Dallas whirled to stare at Tommy.  “You were
S.O.
?”  She laughed.  “Oh, that totally explains it.”

“This
worm
cost me my job,” Tommy snarled. 

Stuart snorted.  “Really?  If I hadn’t escaped, I would have been sold to the highest bidder like my friends.”

“If your
captain
hadn’t intervened, I would have gotten them all safely to Millennium.”

Stuart actually lost control of his host’s jaw muscles.  “S…
Safe
?” he sputtered.  “They would’ve tore me open under a microscope and stuck me in a jar of brine.”

Hate
filled Tommy’s features when he said, “Exactly where you belong, maggot.  You’re in the Quadrants illegally.  You gave up all your rights as soon as you left the Black.”

Stuart snorted.  “I was
born
in the Quadrants.  Never even
been
to the Black.  I bonded with my first harran host twenty years before humans ever landed on Mitaan.  Hell, my people were living here long before your kind even crashed on Millennium.  You ask me, we should throw
you
in a cage. 
You’re
the ones who don’t belong here.”

Tommy jabbed a thick finger at him.  “Don’t you
dare
get all self-righteous on me, parasite.  I’ve seen what your kind will do to the rest of us, given their ‘freedom.’”

Stuart clenched his fists under the table.  “You’re bigoted and ignorant.  If you knew even a fraction of my people’s history, you’d understand that—”

“Your
people?
  Don’t fool yourself.  You’re not a human.  You’re an insect.  A spineless, disgusting bug.  I could squish you with my thumb.”

Stuart was so angry he was shaking.  He stood up.  Before Howlen could react, he grabbed his arm and released his stored energy into him.  The Colonel froze, eyes wide, then collapsed into a twitching mass on the floor beside the table.  When Stuart released the man’s arm, he was shaking all over.  Never before had he wanted to take a host out of sheer
anger.
  He stared down at Howlen’s petrified face and considered it, knowing that it would be the greatest horror the S.O. officer could ever face, knowing he deserved every minute of it.

With an effort, he turned from the helpless man and slumped back into his chair.

Dallas was standing several paces away from the table and staring at Colonel with wide eyes.  “What did you do?”

“It’s just a little electricity,” Stuart said tiredly.  “He’ll be fine.”

She didn’t seem too convinced.  “So you’re an alien?”

“Well, I certainly don’t have tasers built into my palms.”  Stuart sighed and leaned his elbows against the table, putting his head in his hands.  He had known the rest of the crew would find out eventually, but he really wish Rabbit would’ve warned him. 

Beside him, Howlen twitched the first three fingers on his left hand. 

“Can I…see?”  Dallas had sidled closer to him.

Stuart lifted his head to look up at her suspiciously.  “See what?”

“Uh…”  His captain licked her lips.  “You?”

Stuart snorted and returned his gaze to the tabletop.

Seeing he wasn’t interested, she squatted beside him.  “Oh, come on,” she pleaded, sounding like a kid outside a sweets shop.  “This is prolly the only chance I’ll ever get to see a real live
suzait.”

“Maybe later.”

“Please?  I think it’s cool.”

Without lifting his head, Stuart gave her a sideways look.  “You won’t think it’s cool when I crawl out of his ear,” he muttered.

“Yes I will,” she insisted.  “Show me.  That’s an order?”

Stuart gave her a long look, bemused.  Then he glanced at Howlen, who had drooped into unconsciousness on the floor.  He winced, realizing he might have overdid it on the juice.  Getting out of his chair again, he squatted beside the former colonel.

Checking the man’s pulse with one hand, Stuart gestured at Tommy’s face with the other, “
He’s
seen my kind before.  Look at his reaction.”

Dallas’s face twisted.  “He’s a prude.”

Satisfied his heart hadn’t stopped, Stuart dropped Howlen’s arm and stood up.  He let his confusion show.  “You mean the idea of having something burrowing into your brain doesn’t really frighten or repulse you?”

She made a face at him.  “Well, you’re not in
my
brain, now are you?”  Then she snorted.  “And why would you want to be?  I’m five-foot and can’t do more than half a dozen pushups.”  Gesturing at Earl, she said, “The hunk you’re in right now is a monster.”

Stuart grinned despite himself.  “Hunk, huh?”  He glanced at Howlen, decided he was out for the night, then sighed.  “Okay, but just a quick peek.”

“Awesome!” Dallas cried, for all the world sounding like Stuart had offered to let her fly in the next Void Rally above Millennium.

A little mystified by her reaction, Stuart reluctantly lowered himself to the floor.  Dallas immediately squatted by his head, staring intensely at his ear canal.

“Do you mind?” Stuart said, turning to look up at her.  “I get kinda paranoid.”

“Oh, sorry,” Dallas said, blushing.  She hurriedly got up and backed up ten feet.  “Better?”

“Yeah.”  Stuart stretched himself and, while maintaining a firm grip on his host’s brain, slid halfway out into the light.  The dim shape across the room moved a little and Stuart realized she had moved closer, regardless.  He got the idea she was peering down at him like some new and interesting insect.  He gave her a few seconds, then burrowed back into his den.  He reconnected with his host’s brain and opened his eyes.

Dallas was squatting above him grinning.  “You’re kinda cute.”

Stuart sat up and shook off the momentary vertigo from reengagement.  “Cute?”  He started flexing his joints to make sure he had re-established all the proper connections.

“Yeah.  Like an inside-out sucker-fish, but with puppydog eyes.”

Stuart stopped flexing.  “You can’t be serious.”

“You’re not very big.” She continued, eyes bright with interest.  “How do you think straight?  Your brain must be the size of a pea.”  She was leaning forward and peering into one eyeball, now, almost like she was trying to see
him
back there, at the controls.

Stuart cleared his throat and backed up until he could see her clearly with both of his host’s eyes.  “I don’t have a brain.”

“You don’t?”  Now she was peering at the hole in his host’s ear canal.  Speaking to the hole, she said, “What do you have?”

Twisting so she was looking at his host’s face again, Stuart said, “I have no ‘ears,’ naturally, and you saw my eyes—they can perceive light and dark and little else—so it’s best to hold a discussion with me through my host’s senses, not try to yell at me through the hole I made on entry.”

“Oh.”  Dallas pursed her lips, squinting at the top of Earl’s forehead.  He could almost
see
her trying to envision him sitting in a tiny metal chair perched in the cerebral cleft, running arms and legs and facial patterns on levers and buttons and joysticks in the same way she flew
Retribution
.  “So you’re borrowing that guy’s brain to think, too?”

Stuart winced at the idea.  “No.  I can think quite clearly without his help, thank you.”

She raised an eyebrow.  “So you
do
have a brain.”

Stuart sighed.  Humans.  If it wasn’t developed, discovered, or mutated as a natural part of their evolution, they simply couldn’t comprehend it.  “Let me see if I can say this plainly.  I’m made up of nerves and fluid, and each drop of fluid can store more information than your entire human brain.”