Wings of Retribution (85 page)

“Ignorant destruction of government property, brazen neglect of soldiers’ safety, and casual and insidious negligence.  People could have
died
for this, corporal!  Who’s your medical officer?!  Do they know about this?”

The corporal stared at her.

“Answer her!” Dallas barked.

“The medical officers are back on the ship,” the corporal sputtered.

Stuart joined them, his voice ominous.  “You left the medical officers of an entire
platoon
back on the ship?  What if you had met with enemy fire?”

“Who authorized this?” Dallas demanded.

“I want names and identification numbers,” Stuart said.

“Someone is getting flogged for this incompetence,” Mari added.

The corporal straightened.  “I’ll get the list of names for you.  If you’ll please follow me back to the ship.”

“Retrieve the data yourself,” Dallas snapped, moving over to the supplies that the troops had piled against the wall.  “And get these troops to their domiciles.  We’re filing a Section Eight on the whole unit.”

The corporal reddened.  “We don’t
have
domiciles for them yet,” he gritted.  “We just
got
here.”  There was a missing, ‘moron,’ at the end of his sentence.

“Then get them back on the ship,” Stuart said.

“Without their gear?” the corporal demanded, growing heated.

“They can take their personal equipment,” Dallas said.  “Leave everything else.  I intend to catalogue every single item that is missing from your unit’s database, right down to the cotton swabs.”

The corporal gave her a long, cold look, then turned to the men lazing about the bay.  “You heard her!  Get up.  We’re going back to the ship.  Grab your gear and move!”

In five minutes, the docks were eerily silent.  Even the shredders and their operators had returned to the ship.

Mari collapsed against the wall, shaking.  “That was horrible!  I probably got that young man fired!”

“It’d be better for him if he was,” Dallas muttered, watching Stuart run off toward the door to retrieve Howlen.  “The Space Corps is a shitty place to work.  Now let’s
go
.”  She hurried to
Retribution
and walked around it once, quickly, to make sure it was undamaged. 

Dallas was opening the airlock when Stuart jogged up to them with Tommy slung over his shoulder.

“Anyone see you?” Dallas asked.

“Don’t think so,” Stuart said.  “But Tommy’s not any better.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Mari asked, peering into Tommy’s slack face.

“We’re not sure.  He was like this when we came to get him.  We think Juno did something to him.  Maybe poison.”

Mari’s eyes widened suddenly.  “I know what this is.  It’s wash.”

“That a disease?” Dallas asked.  She fumbled the code to the airlock and cursed, starting over.

“It’s a drug.  The same drug I gave you when…  Oh, Spirits, this is…  This is…”  She held her hand to her mouth, wide-eyed, shaking her head.

“Bad?” Stuart suggested.

“Horrible,” Mari whispered.  “We can’t take him with us.”

“Well we’re not leaving him here,” Dallas said firmly.

Suddenly, the corporal came walking around the leg of the ship, saying, “Now I remember where I saw you from.  You’re captain Dallas York, right?  The one they fired for reckless endangerment and insubordination?  A fairy, right?  It was all over the news—”

He stopped short when he saw Stuart.  His eyes caught on Tommy, slung limply from Stuart’s shoulder.  “Wait a minute.”

Dallas pulled her gun and aimed it at the corporal’s face.  “Listen to me, Corporal Jin.  I don’t want to shoot you, but I will if I have to.”

Corporal Jin’s hand strayed toward his own weapon.  In an instant, he had it up and aimed at her.  Dallas found herself staring down the point of a laser pistol, knowing that one tug with his finger could put another hole in her brain. 

“Put the gun down, Captain.”

The gun began to shake in Dallas’s hands, but she refused to lower it.  “Listen, Corporal, go back to your ship. 
Retribution
is my property.  We’re not hurting anyone.  We just want to go home.”

“That ship was here when we took the island,” Jin said.

“Yes,” Dallas said, “We’ve been stranded here awhile now.  We wandered into the wrong section of space and they caught us.”

“I heard you signed on with a pirate,” Jin said, narrowing his eyes on her.

Dallas took a deep breath.  “I was
kidnapped
by a pirate.  Please.  I don’t want to shoot you.”

“I don’t want to shoot you, either.  I served on your ship. 
Bloody Mary.
  Had a blast even though it was haunted.”

“Then
please
,” Dallas said.

Jin glanced at Stuart, then back at her.  “You had me fooled, right up until I realized where I’d seen you.  After that, I let you play your game.  Figured you wanted the bay cleared for some reason, so I let you do that, too.”  He grinned and lowered his gun.  “Just wanted to shake your hand, Captain.  I’ve never seen better flying.  Before or since.  You saved our lives more than once.”  Jin walked up, held out his arm.

Dallas lowered her gun with a gasp of relief and shook his hand.  “Thank you.”

“Heard about Erriat,” Jin said.  “They did all sorts of calculations on that fight, got reaaaaal nervous.  You know you’re the only stick-fairy alive today, right?  Like, the last one died a decade ago in a weed overdose.” 

“I hadn’t known that,” Dallas said, still a little stunned that he wasn’t shooting her.

Corporal Jin grinned at her.  “Those Utopian pisswads didn’t know what they were losing.”

Dallas glanced up at the ship, then back at him, an evil smile forming on her lips.  “Well, if they haven’t figured it out already, they’re about to.”

Jin’s eyes widened.  “You’re taking her
up
?  Without authorization?”

“Oh no,” Dallas said, grinning evilly.  “I’ll get my authorization.”  She patted the rear cannon near her head and smiled.

Jin looked over the ship, then back to her.  “After
Bloody Mary,
I’m not going to say anything’s impossible, but—”

“Then don’t,” Dallas said.

Jin looked like he wanted to say more, but then nodded.  “Pleasure meeting you.  If you ever stop by Roth and you’re in need of a drink, look me up.  I could scrounge up a few other veterans of
Mary
and we could tell ghost stories.”  He pulled an ID tag from his pocket and handed it to her.

“Thanks,” Dallas said, tucking the tag in her pocket, her grin widening.  “I’ll do that.”

“‘Night, Captain.”  Jin nodded to Stuart and Mari and turned and walked away.

“I’ll be damned,” Stuart said, staring at her.

“What?” Dallas asked, opening the airlock.

“You mean there really was a
Bloody Mary?”

“Of course there was.  Why?”

“You really piloted a ghost ship?  All this time, I thought you were joking.”

“
You didn’t believe me
?!”

“All that stuff about spinning heads and floating tables…  That was
real
?”

“Get aboard,” Dallas muttered.  “We’ll talk about this later.”

“Dallas?”

“Just get on the ship!”

Stuart stumbled inside and she followed, locking the door behind her.

“Put Tommy in his room,” she said.  “And find me something to use to tie your hands behind your back.”

Stuart blinked.  “Dallas, I didn’t mean to be—”

“So we can do the
transfer,
Stuart.  I want you with me when I fly.  Like hell I’m doing this solo.” 

“Oh.”  He stood there, staring at her.

She went to the helm and began checking the systems.

He was still standing at the air-lock three minutes later, when Dallas was finished running diagnostics and went looking for him.  Seeing him still standing where she’d left him, Dallas walked up and peered at the
suzait
.  “Are you taking a dump in there or something?”  She waved her hand in front of his face concernedly.  “Why are you just standing around?”

Flushing crimson, Stuart turned towards Howlen’s room with the comatose colonel still slung over his shoulder.  A few minutes later, he returned with a shredded sheet.

“That’s all you could find?!” Dallas cried.  “You think it will
hold
him?”

“It just has to be long enough to lock him in one of the rooms,” Stuart replied. 

“No,” Dallas said immediately.  “We’re leaving him here.  I don’t intend to have you out of my head again.  Come on.  Let’s get this over with.”  She took the sheet and started tying his hands behind his back. 

When she finished, Stuart was staring at her again.  Mouth open, this time.

“Stuart,” Dallas said dangerously, “Do
not
tell me that you’re sick or something.  Did that last transfer mess you up?  You get hurt when Athenais flung you around?  Internal bleeding?  Infection?  What?”

Stuart shook himself and managed, “No, not sick.  You’re
sure
, Dallas?  You mean you want me in there…forever?”

She frowned at him.  “Duh.”

His mouth fell open again.  “You would willingly be my host—”

“Stuart, we don’t have
time
for this,” Dallas growled, grabbing him by the ear and yanking him towards the floor.  “We have a
schedule
, remember?”

Mari watched Dallas position Stuart over her with increasing horror.

“Don’t worry, Mari,” Dallas said.  “I’ll be fine.  If you don’t want to watch, you can go check out the regen room.  See if it’s got everything you need.”

“No,” Mari said, “I can stay.”

“Uh, that’s not really what I meant,” Dallas said, wincing.  “I meant this is kind of personal, Mari.  I’d feel more comfortable if it was just Stuart and I.”

“Oh.  Of course.”  Mari nodded and hurried from the room, her relief clear on her face.

“You ready for this?” Dallas leaned back on the carpet, nostrils-up.

“Ready.”  Stuart laid his nose over hers.

“Go.”

Dallas closed her eyes as Stuart sprang from the host’s nose and slid into her own.  The nose, Stuart had informed her, was the most painless way to do things.  Dallas still thought it was gross, but, remembering the agonizing headache from last time, she was willing to try.

At first, it was an uncomfortable warm, squishy wetness that made her want to sneeze.  Quickly, though, it turned into that boring, nerve-wracking agony.  She squeezed her fists together, grinding her teeth against the pain, but started screaming anyway.  Her body shook and she pounded the floor with her fists, stubbornly fighting the instinct to reach up and try to tear him out.

Then it was over.  Like last time, he shut off the pain receptors of his entry point, leaving her with only a minor tingle from the adrenaline.