Beauty and the Fleet (Intergalactic Fairy Tales Book 2) (20 page)

Torch scowled down at her, his face a strange mix between anger and confusion. The rest of them were just confused and waiting for Torch to sort her out. Woolly was unconscious at Gadget's feet.

When she was finally able to speak again, Beatrix said, "I can explain."

"You damn well better," said Torch. "Because I have no idea what the hell you just did."

Beatrix scooted against the wall of the ship and sighed. "I had to stop you from cutting off the leech."

"Why?" asked Torch, the anger draining from his expression, leaving only the confusion. "You said he was telling them to shoot us down."

"Two reasons," said Beatrix, only just then thinking up the second one. She decided to put it first because it was the more rational. "One, if you had killed him, they would have known and blown this ship out of the sky. And two, if you cut off the symbiont, it would have killed Arryn."

"Look, Sting," said Torch. "I know you feel bad about all the innocent people that have died, but if it comes down to us or them, I'm going to choose us every time."

"I'm with you on that, Cap, but as you can see, it wasn't necessary. They stopped shooting once he was unconscious." It was a very logical argument for her actions, even though they were entirely driven by emotion. She hadn't been thinking about them getting shot down. She'd only been worried about saving Arryn's life. "And like I said, we would probably all be dead right now if you had killed him."

Torch wiped a hand down his face and groaned. It was clear that he knew there was more she wasn't saying. Thankfully, he let it go and walked up to the cockpit of the ship. "Holy shit, nobody is flying this thing!" He stalked over to Woolly, grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. "Wake up you furry bastard. You need to make sure this thing doesn't fly us into the sun."

Woolly started to rouse, so Torch and Gadget heaved him to his feet. "Beatrix, find something to tie your pet up with," ordered Torch, nodding to Arryn. They dragged Woolly up into the cockpit and slumped him in one of the two chairs. Torch took the other. "Gadget, you slap him until he's fully awake, while I try to figure out how to fly this thing."

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Once Arryn was shackled to a chair and Torch got enough information out of Woolly to be confident that they weren't in imminent danger of crashing into the sun, the celebration began. They were free. Gadget and Pickle danced and twirled as best they could in the limited space, while Hands watched and clapped out a beat.

Beatrix let them go on for a while, enjoying the swell of emotion it brought out in her. They were free for the first time in months and it felt amazing to celebrate. A couple of tears even dampened her cheeks. Once the dancing stopped, all the talk about what they would do when they got home started up.

"What are you going to eat when you get back?" asked Gadget.

"So much chocolate," said Hands. "Life is too short not to eat all the chocolate."

"Agreed," said Gadget. "Though I'm more of a fruity candy guy myself."

"Who doesn't like chocolate?" asked Pickle, cocking an eyebrow at Gadget.

"I don't care what I eat, as long as it's with Madeleine," said Torch, earning a collective "awww" from the group. It was one of those rare moments of complete honesty that rarely happened unless the speaker was drunk. Typically in the Fleet, those moments were rewarded with a round of good-natured ribbing, but today was special. The conversation turned to talk of loved ones for a few minutes and then Torch pulled it back around to food before ducking into the cockpit. He was always attentive to his duties.

Unfortunately, she couldn't let it go on for long. There was something she had to discuss with Torch. She knew it wouldn't go over well. She squeezed past Gadget and Pickle and gave them a big smile. The cockpit was small, mostly taken up with the two pilot's chairs and the console between them. There was just enough room for her to stand behind the console and close the door.

Torch looked up at the sound of the door closing and then buried his face in his hands. "What is it now?"

"Am I that obvious?" she asked, her smile turning down into a frown.

"Whenever you have to bring up something you'd rather not, you look like you're constipated," he said. "Out with it."

Beatrix hesitated, looking over at Woolly. He was watching her with curiosity in his brown eyes. She had to phrase things just right or she could cause them a lot of trouble. There was no telling what would force Woolly's leech to reassert its control over him, but she had to make sure they could do what was needed without him. "Woolly, have you gotten Torch up to speed on the operation of this ship?"

Woolly nodded.

He was regressing, going back to being nonverbal. That was his coping method for keeping some control over his leech. They had to get him out of the cockpit before she talked to Torch. "I think you have an idea about what I have to say to Torch. It involves our destination. I need you to come to the back with me."

He nodded again, and Torch looked bewildered. Beatrix led Woolly past her friends and seated him across the aisle from Arryn. He held out his hands and closed his eyes while she shackled him to his chair. He leaned back and his breathing deepened as if he were already asleep. He looked surprisingly peaceful for an eight foot tall slab of muscle.

Beatrix returned to the cockpit, ignoring the strange looks cast her way by Hands and the others. She closed the door behind her and started talking before she lost her nerve. "We can't go home just yet."

Torch let out a long breath and stared into the distance until Beatrix thought about repeating herself. "I don't even know what to say to you, Beatrix. I can't pretend to know what you've been through since you tried to...you know," he said, waving at her scarred wrists. "But you got us out of that hell, so the least I can do is hear you out before I tell you to go to hell."

"That's all I ask," said Beatrix. She knew that if he listened to what she had to say with an open mind, he would agree with her.

Torch smiled. "You think you've already won. You smug asshole."

Beatrix shrugged. "I just know you, is all." They sat quietly for a while before Beatrix continued. "When I touched that Anthrak orb, I was fully integrated into their hive mind. Once I was out and I could think again, I realized there was a lot more information in my head. I know how they work. I know their one weakness."

"So you want to try and take them out," he said, drawing her statement to its natural conclusion. "So why did you pull Woolly out of the cockpit?"

"Because if I said that in front of him, his leech would lose its shit and he would do everything in his power to stop us."

Torch's brow scrunched up. "I don't get it. I thought he was on our side. Doesn't he want to be free?"

Beatrix pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a sigh. "It's not that simple. Staying in control of his body is a very delicate balance. If he keeps his independent actions very infrequent, or can rationalize them as for the greater good, he can work with us. That's why he let me chain him up. He had a good idea of what I was going to talk to you about. As long as he didn't think about it too closely, his leech didn't sense the danger. It helped him avoid a fight which was for the good."

"Fine, he's basically a big furry ostrich. As long as his head is in the sand, everything is just fine," said Torch, a grin stretching across his face.

"Exactly, except for the fact that ostriches don't really do that."

"Whatever. It was still a lot easier way to explain what you were saying. That's why I'm the commanding officer. Gotta make things short and sweet so the stupid grunts like you can understand it." Beatrix punched his arm playfully, and he rubbed it idly as he continued. "So, where is this big red button that we have to go push?"

"It's not exactly a big red button," started Beatrix and stopped at his glare. "It's on the Anthrak home world. It's not that far from here. Only about a day's ride if we push this thing to its limit."

Torch rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully. "You realize I should just tell you that we need to take this to command and let them take care of it from there, right?"

"I know, but you know as well as I do that if it ever gets done it would be months down the road. If we do it ourselves, we can end this war tomorrow."

"Or the key to winning the war could die with us," replied Torch, his frown deepening.

Beatrix allowed herself to speak the thoughts that she'd pushed down since the day they were captured. "Torch, you know there's no way that we're the only ones who got captured in the battle with the Hounds. There could be hundreds, or even thousands of our people stuck in Colarian prisons. They aren't likely to have been as lucky as we were. If you want to know what it's like, you could ask Hands."

Torch shuddered. "We talked about it more than I ever care to."

"So you'll do it? You'll take us to the Anthrak home world?" Beatrix asked, biting her lower lip.

"I think I already am. I haven't figured out half of this ship yet." He laughed and threw his hands up in the air. "I don't know why Woolly nodded when you asked if I knew what I was doing. I haven't changed the coordinates that he put in, but I know that we're not headed toward Nedran air space.

"How about I figure out how to fly this thing and you go do your 'explain it to the stupid grunts' thing, Captain?" She flopped down in the other pilot's chair and smiled innocently up at him. "Make sure that Woolly and Arryn don't hear."

"You just don't want to break up the party," said Torch.

"You're damn right, Captain. Also, I'm a much better pilot than you."

He reached over and ruffled up her hair before he sighed and stepped out of the cockpit. Beatrix noticed his lip curl up, his usual nervous tick, and it made her smile.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

It took Beatrix a couple of hours to work out the intricacies of the Anthrak ship. The autopilot was already programmed with the coordinates for the Anthrak home world. From what she could tell, it was a good thing too. The ship wasn't meant for long journeys like the one it would take to get back to Nedran air space. They would be lucky to have enough fuel to make it back to the Leothen's planet when they were done.

Alien spaceship or not, Beatrix was glad to be in a cockpit again. She hadn't realized how long it had been since she felt like herself until she grabbed the flight stick. Flying hadn't been part of her life for that long, but she felt like she had always been a pilot. Even when she wasn't flying, she was still Sting, just as she would always be Bumble Bea even if her father wasn't around any more to call her by the name. If there was a silver lining in the way the Anthrak consciousness had invaded her mind, it was feeling more secure in who she was.

They took shifts sitting in the cockpit, making sure that nothing caught them by surprise. Beatrix made sure each of them had a basic grasp of how to control the ship and assessed their moods while she was at it. Pickle was more cautious than the guys were, but she knew stopping the Anthrak was the right thing to do. Hands and Gadget were far more enthusiastic, as she'd expected them to be. Gadget was pissed about his torture, even if he couldn't remember it. He wanted to see them go down, hard. She decided not to tell him how much worse it would have been if his integration had been successful and his leech joined the Quorum. She'd talked it over with Hands. Even his experience hadn't been as bad as hers.

Beatrix frequently found herself flashing back to her time connected to the Quorum. If she hadn't experienced it for herself, she wasn't sure they would have been on a mission to wipe them out.

"Penny for your thoughts," said Torch, settling into the other pilot's chair.

"I was just wondering if it's really our choice to make. If we do this, we'll be committing genocide." Her voice was distant and sounded strange to her own ears.

"Well, we don't know exactly what's going to happen. You said so yourself. It might just give the Leothen the ability to break free and remove the leeches without dying."

"I also said that I wasn't sure if it would kill all the Leothen along with them. It could be double genocide or even more. I don't know how many other races they've done this to. Don't just try to make me feel better by saying we don't know exactly what's going to happen."

"From what I gather, it might be better for the Leothen to die than to continue living with the leeches in their brains," said Torch, ignoring her biting tone. He was good at it. That's what made it possible for him to be such a good friend to her.

"But who am I to make that decision for every being out there that is living with the Anthrak?" She heaved a sigh and pulled her knees up to her chest.

"You've got four other people on this ship who have had some part in the Anthrak experience, not counting yourself. You know they would all rather die than live that way."

Beatrix listened carefully to his words and the tone that they were said in. Somehow, they rang flat. "You're not sure either, are you?" she asked.

"No," he admitted. "I don't think I'd be human if I didn't second-guess our decision. I just can't come up with a better solution. We've been fighting them for a decade. They don't negotiate, even when we have the upper hand. The best we could ever hope for is that they decide we're not worth the trouble and move on to some other planet. I don't see how I could live with that either. Especially now that I know what they're really trying to do."

Beatrix felt the tears rolling down her cheeks before she even realized she'd come to the core of her problem. "I just don't know if I'll be able to live with myself if all of the Leothen die. They didn't do anything wrong."

"The way I figure it, they all died the day they had a leech stuck on their backs. We'll just be finally putting them to rest; stopping the leeches from using their bodies to do further harm." Torch reached over and squeezed her shoulder. "I thought you would be worried about the Anthrak. We're pretty certain they'll die when all is said and done."