Wings of Retribution (69 page)

“Don’t tell me you want to go back for that worm…”

“
Stop calling him a worm!
”  Dallas found herself standing, her entire body shaking.  Carefully, she said, “You call him a worm again and I’ll dump you in space, you specist bastard.”

Tommy stared at her.  Finally, he said, “Dallas, you really look bad.”

“I’m fine,” she snapped, steadying herself on the console.  Her fear was so thick, now, she could barely breathe.  Where the hell was it coming from?  She couldn’t even hear the next thing Tommy said, her heart was pounding so hard.  “Oh God,” she gasped, her fingers tightening on the console as her whole body began to shake uncontrollably.  She got a strange, sudden flash of darkness, of despair, of a ring of disgusted alien faces waiting for her to die.  With it came that gentle mental tingle that she’d come to associate with the
suzait
. 

Stuart.

“He’s in trouble,” she whimpered.  Then she
did
pee herself.  She had just enough time to see Tommy frown before her knees went out from under her.  She hit the cockpit floor in a burst of lights, then nothingness.

More terrified than he’d ever been before in his life, Stuart eased his way out of his host’s head.  The body had been rapidly losing warmth over the last minutes, but the cool blast of air on his moist skin was still a shock.  He flinched, staring wildly at the moving blobs around him.  He had no idea when the bullet would come, not even from which direction.  Panic tearing through his system, he released the tiny amount of electricity his body had stored, shocking the dead body beneath him.

With that last indignity, he slid from the ear canal and onto the hard, frigid stone underneath.  The roughness of the rock grated on his skin, poking him in a thousand places, threatening to tear holes in his delicate body. 

Somewhere beside him, he felt the stone rumble.  At first, he thought that the gun had been fired, but then he was inundated with the lukewarm, soapy water that his dead host had been using to wash the floor.

The soap burned his skin, the water washing away the blood that had been protecting him from the cold stone.  Now, totally unprotected, he wriggled helplessly, staring at the huge moving blobs, wondering why they were waiting.

Something poked him and he flinched away, terrified.  He knew he was going to die, but Stuart still felt fear.  He was
paralyzed
by fear.  It was like a leaden ball of rot poisoning his gut, spreading into his every fiber.  Why were they
waiting?

The same thing poked him again and he tried to crawl away.  Something dry and salty caught him and squeezed, creating a new and horrible sensation for Stuart—the feeling he was about to explode like a ripe grape.  Despite his terror, he couldn’t even summon up the equivalent of a static shock.  Too weak.  Too many discharges.

Now it would end.  His last thought, as the pressure became an overpowering, excruciating
tearing
, was of Dallas.

Athenais watched the
suzait
die with increasing fury.  Juno was taunting him, splashing water on him, squeezing him…  Like a spoiled child.

Yet, being the god of an entire planet for the last several thousand years, that’s exactly what she was.  A spoiled damn child.

Athenais had watched Stuart struggle to retain control of his dying host, had even saw the corpse jolt as he shocked it out of terror.  She wondered if Juno had noticed.  She hoped she hadn’t.  Juno seemed to be enjoying the entire experience, soaking it up with hungry eyes, monologuing to the gathering about parasites, goading the helpless little alien with sheer, petty vindictiveness.

Finally, Athenais could stand it no longer.  She twisted out of the grip of the Warrior holding her, who was staring in terror at the worm that had crawled out of the boy’s head.  She grabbed his rifle and, even as the other Warriors raised their weapons, she fired.

She missed Stuart.  Instead, she hit Juno, putting a hole through her neck.  Juno stiffened, and for a moment, Athenais thought she would squish the
suzait.

Unfortunately, he seemed to be more resilient than he appeared.  His body stopped bulging and he slid from Juno’s limp fingers, landing in the pool of blood beneath the dead boy. 

Juno landed on top of him.

For a hopeful moment, Athenais thought Stuart might slip into Juno’s ear canal, but the parasite could not see well enough to understand the prize he was presented.  He wriggled in the opposite direction, like a flat gray earthworm that had been run over by a tractor.  She glanced at the Warriors, wondering what was taking them so long to kill her.

They were staring at Juno’s body, wide-eyed.  Apparently, they hadn’t been aware that their goddess could bleed.  The Warriors, who had seen Athenais resurrect herself after slaughtering the shifters, were caught between staring at Athenais and Juno.

She knew it was going to cost all the observers their lives, but right now, she was in a bad mood.  “Don’t you morons understand a war of the gods when you see one?” Athenais snapped at them, brandishing her weapon.  “Get out of here!”

When they continued to stare, she added, “Before I smite you all like the sniveling wads of excrement you are.”  Like a dozen startled sheep, they bolted.

Grunting, Athenais shouldered her rifle, squatted, and grabbed the
suzait.
  He didn’t even flinch as she hefted him from the ground.  Dead, then?

Then she felt a static charge, like a tingle in her fingertips.

Alive.  Damn. 
Fine
.

“You listen to me, you little shit,” she shouted, flinging him back and forth to wake him up.  “You do anything…
anything
I don’t want you to, I’m gonna finish where they left off.  You understand me?!”

She got a weak twitch, like a worm trying to crawl back into its hole.

Of course he didn’t understand her.  He couldn’t even hear her.  The moment he got back inside a brain, he was gonna drive it like Fairy on full manual.

Frustrated, knowing her time was running out, Athenais dunked him in the remnants of the cleaning bucket to wash the grit off of him.  She glanced around, looking for another place—
any
other place—to put him.  Unfortunately, the sheep had fled, and Juno was dead.  If she had been alive, Athenais would have straddled her and shove the
suzait
into her head with all of her blessings.

But Juno was definitely dead, and Athenais knew from experience that it would take an hour or two for her heart to start beating again.

Standing in the hall, the parasite dangling limply between her fingers, Athenais knew she had to come up with some other alternative.  He had seconds to live, if he wasn’t already dead.

Making one of the more questionable decisions of her life, Athenais jammed the little worm face-first up her nose.

A Glimpse into the Mind of a Pirate

Tommy rolled the young woman onto her back.  She had collapsed in a spasm, hitting her spine on the captain’s chair hard enough to make the floor shake.  He knelt beside her, feeling for a pulse.

It was there, but weakening.

Dallas was sweaty and shivering, her lips blue.  Her skin was hot to the touch, but without any of the color that usually accompanied a fever.  As she lay there, her muscles began to spasm and contract until she was fighting a full-fledged seizure.

He put his hand under her head to keep it from banging the floor, and at first he thought she had salivated on him.  Then he saw the blood.  Frowning, he pushed her head to the side and glanced at her ear.  Immediately, he sucked in a breath.

She’d left the little worm’s entry hole gaping open, without even bothering to place a bandage over it.  The skin around it was now red and inflamed, and if a single microbe had made its way into her skull…

“You happy little fool,” he muttered.  “Hold on.”  He wedged his arms under her body and stood, lifting her with him.  He took her to the regen chamber and flooded the pool.  Then he fit the breathing apparatus over her face and lowered her into the liquid.  He wedged her under with an adjustable bar and then went back to the helm.

Retribution
had stopped amidst the debris field and was now floating in space, waiting for commands.  Tommy stared at the flightplan, which Dallas had left open.  He could enter anything he wanted.  He could
go
anywhere he wanted.

And yet, in the regen room, Dallas was dying. 
Retribution
wasn’t equipped to handle brain reconstruction.  He wasn’t sure the liquid could even get inside her ear, especially not all the way to the den the little maggot made in her head.  Who knew what sort of bacteria and microorganisms could be wreaking havoc in there, unchecked?

Grimly, he sat down in the captain’s chair and started entering commands.