Wings of Retribution (84 page)

“It’s not like you’re going to write a memoir, Dallas.”

Dallas narrowed her eyes.  “How do
you
know?”

Stuart reddened.  “I mean right
now
,” he babbled.  “It’s not like you’re gonna write a memoir right
now
, when we’re trying to get onboard the only ship that has a chance of getting us back home alive.”

Dallas turned on heel.

“Dallas!” Stuart cried.  “Where are you going?”

“To find out her name!” Dallas shouted back.

Behind her, she heard Stuart curse, but he jogged to catch up.  They threw open the door to the regen chamber and the woman glanced up.  Her hair was loose around her face, her eyes red.  In her hand, she held the vial of blue liquid.  As soon as Dallas entered, she hid the vial behind her back, blushing.

“Hi,” Dallas said, striding up to her.  “My name is Dallas York.  I’m the captain of
Retribution
.  Who are you?”  She held out her hand.

The startled woman transferred the vial to her left hand and brought her right arm forward to grip Dallas’s palm.  “Ma’ri.”

“Mari?” Dallas asked.  “That’s your name?”

The woman nodded.  “Ma’ri.”

Over the intercom, a curt female voice said,
Sweep of Decks One through Fifteen complete.  All units proceed to Deck Sixteen.  Inhabitants of Decks One through Fifteen, proceed to the cafeteria for processing.

“They’re starting the processing!” Stuart cried.  “Oh gods, Dallas, we don’t have
time
for this…”

“What are you doing with that, Mari?” Dallas asked, nodding at the way the woman’s hand was still tucked behind her back.

Mari reddened.  “You heard the broadcast this morning.  They’re imprisoning all military.”  She motioned at the bloody floor.  “I was treating wounded when they found me.  The doctor took my DNA and other vitals this morning.  Told me to be here tomorrow for deportation.  They’re sending me to a work-camp.”

“What’s that got to do with—”  Dallas’s eyes widened.  “You were gonna
kill
yourself?”

Miserable, wet-eyed, Mari nodded.

Dallas glanced at Stuart, then back at Mari.  “You wanna come with us, Mari?  Auditors work in threes.  And we could always use another surgeon.”

“Dallas, I really don’t think it’s a good idea to…”  Stuart trailed off under Dallas’s glare, then shrugged.  “Whatever we do, let’s do it
fast
.”

“I don’t want to burden you,” Mari said, shaking her head.  “I want you to escape.”

“We
will
escape,” Dallas said, “And we’re bringing you with us.”  She reached behind the technician and yanked the blue vial out of her hand and threw it in the regen tank, to Mari’s horror.

Dallas grabbed another medical handheld from the shelf and thrust it into Mari’s hands.  “Auditors walk around in threes.  If you come with us, it actually increases our chances of getting out of here by a lot.”

Mari swallowed, staring down at the handheld.  “What do I do?”

“Be nosy, like you’ve got a right to look into anybody’s business.  Be authoritative—auditors don’t answer to anyone.  And bitchy.  You’ve got to be bitchy.”

“You want me to be like Our Guiding Light,” Mari said.

Dallas grinned.  “Exactly.”

Swallowing, Mari tucked the handheld under her arm.  “Your friend said we have to hurry.”

“He’s Stuart,” Dallas said.  “The parasite that put the hole in my head.”

Mari blinked and took an instinctive step away from Stuart.

“She
wanted
me to put the hole in her head,” Stuart said defensively.

“Yeah.  Don’t be afraid of him.  If he’s changing hosts, it’s gonna be with me, not you.  Trust me, okay?  He’s a friend.”

Mari bit her lip and held Dallas’s gaze.  She nodded.

“Okay,” Stuart said, ushering them both out the door, “Let’s
go.”

Mari stayed close to Dallas, letting Stuart lead.  She was wide-eyed, on the verge of tears.  Her hands were clasped in front of her, white-knuckled.  Even her walk was stiff.

“You can’t look like you’re about to start crying when we go out there,” Dallas warned.  “You’ve got a doctorate in How To Wreck Somebody’s World—look snooty.  Sneer.  Be rude.”

“I will,” Mari said.  “It’s just…hard.”

“Think of Juno,” Dallas said as they started down the stairs.  “You’ve got to loosen up.  Look more commanding.  Neat-freakish.  You look too soft and fluffy.”  She paused, frowning.  “Stuart, hold on a second.”  She reached forward and tugged Mari’s sleeves down, then buttoned them tight.  She buttoned the coat up to the top button and straightened the pockets on the front.  Then she pulled her hair away from Mari’s face and twisted it behind her head in a tight bun.  “Anyone got a pen?”

“Here,” Mari said, handing her a fishbone hairclip.  “Use this.”

Dallas did, then stood back and grinned.  “Wow.  You look positively anal.”

“Damn it, Dallas!” Stuart shouted.

“Fine!  We’re ready!”  She snatched up her handheld and trotted down the stairs ahead of him.  When they reached the bottom floor, Stuart stopped them.

“Are we prepared for this?” he asked.  “We all know what we’re doing?”

“Just follow my lead,” Dallas said.  “Walk fast, with a purpose.  Ignore them if they talk to you.  Show no fear, okay?”  She slapped the clipboard against Stuart’s chest.  “No. 
Fear
.”

Beside her, Mari was standing straighter, her chin lifted.

“Let’s go.”  Dallas stepped out into the hall.

Behind her, Stuart and Mari fell in step.  They strode fast through the hall, their shoes thudding on the stone.

A group of soldiers saw them in the hall and waved them down.  “You there!  Citizens of Xenith!  Stop.”

Dallas did not even look.  She turned left, into the docks.  Behind her, Stuart and Mari followed.  The soldiers rushed after them, shouting.

“Clipboards,” Dallas whispered, without losing the rigid scowl on her face.  She strode forward, completely ignoring the fact that two hundred rifles suddenly moved from where they were stuck in blobs of concrete.

She went to one of the men playing ping-pong, squinted closely at him despite the fact he was aiming his rifle at her, and said, “You’ve got a crack in the shoulder joint of your armor, soldier.”  Shaking her head, she jotted down a note on her handheld.  Then she went to the man behind him.  To her relief, Stuart and Mari were doing the same.

All around them, the ground troops were rustling, looking for some sort of signal.  When they received none, they reluctantly put their guns back against their shoulders and watched the proceedings, still lazing about the room.  Dallas grinned inwardly.  She knew from experience that they would have liked nothing more than to shoot all three of them.  The Space Corps
hated
auditors.

Dallas was working on her third inspection when a fuming corporal stormed up behind Stuart.

“Where are your uniforms?!  Where is your clearance?!  How did you get down here?!” 

Dallas turned on him before Stuart could begin stuttering.  “Are you questioning how we conduct our business, corporal?”

“We’re at
war
, you addlebrained pissheads!”

Dallas peered at his nametag.  “Corporal Jin.  I see.”  She wrote his name on her handheld and beside it put ‘Good Man.’

He was not intimidated.  “I want clearance badges from each one of you.  Right now.”

“You are in
no
position to make demands, corporal,” Dallas said.

“I can put you damn fools under arrest!” Jin snapped.  “You are mucking up our routine in a war zone.  That’s a capital offence.  You could be tried as traitors to the Utopia.”

Dallas scoffed.  “The war is over, corporal.  This planet has been pacified.  We are mucking up nothing.  Now go about your business before I include you in my report.”

The corporal scowled at her.  “It’s also Utopian law that you display your clearance badges at all times.”

Dallas smiled viciously.  “We like to be accurate.  How can we be sure you’re not fudging things if we don’t mingle?  Take a look at this, for instance.”  She turned and tapped a startled soldier on the helmet, making the concrete image flicker.  “Chameleon one point-oh-two.  Obsolete for thirty years now.  The Utopia has put out billions of credits to ensure that its ground forces have the most up-to-date equipment available, and yet I see a soldier wearing this piece of
crap
.  Thank god he wasn’t in any serious combat.  His helmet could have malfunctioned long enough for one of the natives to get a clean shot.”  She tapped his helmet again, making the image flicker to the tense face of a young soldier and then back to concrete.

“You’re the reason we don’t have the supplies we need,” the corporal snapped.  “You and your cronies over there get paid millions of credits to create datawork that requires millions more credits to analyze and file.  Then you make up orders for new headgear to replace perfectly functionable armor when we’re stuck eating seaweed and fish because we ran out of rations.”

“You’ll have to speak with supply about that,” Dallas said.  “We are not responsible for the mistakes of incompetent clerks.”  She turned her back on him and went back to her evaluations.  She grinned under her façade, knowing what he would say.

“
I
made those orders,” the corporal said in a strangled voice.  “They were not filled.  Headquarters did not give us enough funds to buy what we needed at our last point of harbor.”

“Listen, corporal.”  Dallas turned on him.  “We have
jobs
to do.  If you want to waste someone’s time, go complain to your sergeant.”

Instead of retorting, the corporal hesitated, peering at her intently.  “Where have I seen you before?”

Dallas flinched, and she was sure the corporal saw it.  “Back on the ship,” she said, trying to hide her flood of nerves.

“No,” the corporal said, “Somewhere else.  On a different mission.”

Suddenly, from the row of bags and instruments lining the wall, Mari shouted, “You call this a field medical bag?!  There’s nothing in here but a few
bandages
!  No medications, no instruments…not even proper sterilization equipment!  This is
garbage!
  You would lead these troops into combat action without real medical supplies?!”  She lobbed the bag across the docks and stormed up to the startled corporal.  “Who’s in command, here?  You?!  Because I’m going to report you to my superiors, you stupid bastard.”

Both Dallas and the corporal stared at her, stunned.

“
Look
at this,” Mari snapped, shoving a handful of plastic contraptions under his nose.  “Do you know what this is?!”

“No…” the corporal began.

“Of course not!” Mari spat.  “Because they’re missing their
tops
.  Someone twisted them off.  Round plastic spheres, commonly used as ping-pong balls when troops get bored!”  She jabbed her finger at the two men who were quickly hiding their ping-pong paddles.

“But I—”

Mari threw the plastic devices at him.  “They’re useless now.  Each could save a man’s life in the field, if they were intact.  Now they’re just meaningless pieces of plastic.  Who dismantled those devices, corporal? 
You
?!”

“No, I—”