Читать книгу Adventures of Space Cadets 101: Invasions - Darryl Wright - Страница 4

Fifteen hours later, Deana Kester was back on the bridge and she told her captain that she knew where the bad aliens were. Austen always thought she was amazing. He was going to ask how she knew the location, but that question went out the air lock when he realized who he was talking to. Of course she would know. She was empathic.

She said, “I’m only picking the ‘where’ up because of the lizard queen. Her thoughts and feelings of remorse are so intense it’s making my stomach hurt. She is hoping her god will grant her last request.” First officer Tim Johnson, Lita, and Captain Austen listened to her every word. Deana continued, “Sir, they were eating her eggs.” She started crying. “They stole the queen so they could feed off of her eggs! Their ship has other females, more lizards, one human, though not from Earth, and others that I do not know their species, and many more. They were all captured to give these … things … FOOD!” She was crying a river.

His experienced Communications Officer, Lita Scott, started to cry too, and Austen was getting a feeling in his gut. He wondered if Deana had been taking her medications, even though he had backed down on requiring them.

For all Austen knew, everyone, meaning females, on his ship was crying right then. He told Deana to snap out of it and that that was an order. Then he asked her if she still had her pill, the inhibiter, but she did not. She had taken it days before. She said that she had had to take it then because she had wanted his brother, Co-Captain Derek, so badly that she could taste him and had almost attacked him.

Austen got up, ran to the infirmary, and banged on the hatch because it was locked. He was tired of waiting, so he jumped the rest of the way to the end of the bridge to look at the other females on the lower bridge to see if they were crying too.

They all looked depressed and their eyes were glazed over. No tears yet, but Austen knew that wouldn’t last long. Deana was already losing control. He left the hatch open. That way when he could hear the other women crying, he would know Deana had lost it. He had been thinking that she had done so well up until then. He was glad Derek was sleeping right then, or rather, he hoped he was. If not, then the cat was out of the bag for him.

He started banging on the infirmary hatch again. He wasn’t going to stop. His big brother, JR, might and probably would hurt him, but it was an emergency. JR finally opened up. “What the hell do you want, or are you committing suicide?”

Austen told him that it was an emergency. He needed one of Deana’s inhibitors and a needle full strength of something to knock her out A.S.A.P. JR looked over at Deana who was crying, and he asked Austen why she wasn’t asleep like everybody else on her shift. Austen didn't answer that, he just insisted that JR hurry. They were in space, and Austen could not afford for Deana to have one of her waves right then … or ever. JR ran back into the infirmary, which he considered his room, to grab her meds. He decided he would deal with Austen later. He couldn’t let his brothers order him around and get away with it.

Austen went back to Deana and asked her, “Deana, we don’t have the means to know what this solar system looks like. I need you to tell me where, in terms that I can tell Qworn’s father, where the aliens' ship is. Can you do that for me, Commander?” He was using her rank to pull her back into the here and now. It was working; she was shaking her head yes. The rest of her body was shaking too, poor girl.

Lita was sniveling, so Austen knew he was running out of time. He had to hurry. “Yes, OK, Commander, tell me where she’s being held,” Austen ordered her. He said, “I assume she is on a ship and not in some other dimension?” Deana was shaking her head yes again, but she knew when she told him the "what," no powers in the universe could stop the wave she had been holding in with all of her strength and control. It was a wave from mothers who were watching their babies being digested.

Austen said, “Good, good; she is on a ship. Where, Deana? Where is she? It is very important, but keep it simple so I can tell SSSaa, and leave you out of the explanation - lefts and rights, in front of, or behind us - kind of simple.”

She said it was in back of them, and Austen asked, "A little or a lot?"

JR gave her a pill and a glass of water. Then as he was giving her a shot she said, “Captain SSSaa couldn’t see the ship. I tried to enter the location into his mind, but his ship stopped me. There is no doubt about it; his ship is stronger than I am, Sir. It wore me down until I started to lose control, so I came here to tell you, Austen. I’m sorry!”

“It’s OK, Commander, just tell me where this bad ship is,” Austen told her as he noticed the shot was kicking in. She had a hard time holding her head up. Austen was worried because SSSaa’s ship could kick his commander’s ass, and he mentally noted it. He didn’t want to hear that. The lizard’s tech was very alien to him.

She said, “I even begged the ship to tell its captain, but it said that it was too dangerous, and then it threw me hard and hurt me.” Sniff. “It hurt me, Hermano!” Austen pulled her into a hug.

JR said, “Great, now ships are talking and throwing girls around. What next?”

Austen grabbed her tighter by the shoulders and said, “Where is that bad ship, Commander?”

Deana looked him in his eyes, the same eyes she had been avoiding or she would have lost all control, and said to him in a whimpering voice, “Behind us, 209 kilometers and to the right about 2287 kilometers. It’s behind a rogue moon and …” Austen snapped his fingers at Lita for her to go and get Qworn and Kirk to the bridge A.S.A.P. He didn’t want to talk for fear the interruption might distract Deana. Lita knew what he needed because she got out of her chair and left the bridge without a word.

Deana kept talking during their exchange, “Captain … Captain … When the lizard queen saw one of those things eat one of her eggs, and because they are blurry and see-through creatures, she saw the remains inside the demon …”

Austen was undoing the strap that he had put on her earlier just before the breakdown. He knew what was about to happen. He just knew, and dreaded the near future. That was why he worried about her empathic abilities in space.

Deana said, “The alien ate another egg and …” She was crying hard.

Lita was hysterical then too. She wasn’t going to recover from it for a while. She was on her knees bent over with her hair touching the deck, and her face was hidden by both of her hands. The guys on the bridge could hear all of the women on the lower bridge crying and screaming. JR said, “I hope Bubba Derek is sleeping alone today.”

Deana was shaking her head "No" at JR’s statement.

Austen exclaimed, “Cosmos!” He brought Deana in for a hug and assurance, but it wasn’t doing any good. She held her face in her hands.

She slowly said to him through tears, “The queen killed herself, Captain! They were eating her babies, all of them right in front of her, and now she is dead, and we couldn’t help her; she … killed her …”

She was talking slowly due to the tranquilizer, and then she was out cold! She had slumped over and JR helped Austen get a hold on her to take her into the infirmary to lay her down in one of the beds there.

Cadets Kirk, Will and Qworn were on the bridge by that time, and Kirk said, “Uncle, I mean, Captain …,” but Austen told him to wait a moment and not to go anywhere. The three kids took seats, with Kirk in the captain’s chair. After JR and Austen had laid Deana down, JR broke out a lot of med patches that were caffeine because he didn’t know what else to do.

JR showed them to Austen. Austen agreed that the patches were a good idea, and that JR should go for a walk. JR grabbed a whole box, and a trash bag, and he took off to slap patches on all the girls awake and affected. He thought, It’s an ugly job but somebody has to do it. The first one he came to was Lita at the comm. He slapped one on her neck and moved onto the lower deck where none of the women argued with him as he put patches on all their necks. They were slow to get up, but most of them were trying to get back in their chairs. It was a strong wave, but Deana was knocked out. Surely the wave would taper off, Austen hoped.

Derek was sound asleep when a terrible screech went off, but by the time he opened his eyes to see what could be happening, all he saw was the light coming in his door from the hallway as the door closed quickly. For a second, it felt like someone was in the room with him. He dismissed it and fell back to sleep. Normally nothing could wake him up, but the harsh sound was loud.

Pretty young Kim had screamed as she ran from Derek’s room. She was only in her panties carrying her spacesuit in her arms. She didn’t have far to go to her room, but she never made it. She was in the hallway down on her knees crying. As JR ran by her to check the bathroom for female cadets crying, he slapped a patch on Kim’s back, and he said she was the better choice for Derek than Deana was. She started to regain her composure with that statement, but she was still crying because she thought it was her babies the aliens were eating.

Austen told Kirk to stay in his chair as he helped Lita back into hers. She wrapped her arms around Austen and whispered, “They killed my babies, Captain.”

Austen said, “I know, Sweetheart, but it’s going to be OK. Will, take Lita’s position!” Then he pulled out of the hug and carried her to the infirmary. When he came out, he took a peek at the lower deck. Instead of nice butts in chairs, there were only elbows and faces of female cadets occupying the seats, and it was not a pretty sight! All of the men were going about their business save for Commander Hawkins who was checking on all the women one by one. Austen thought it was a shame that this was the norm sometimes. He thought that this episode would be funny if only it was happening on someone else’s ship.

He couldn’t hold this against Deana, not really. She had carried that one inhibitor around with her every day probably in the pocket with Derek’s wedding ring jewels for a long time. They both kind of go together considering, he thought. Still, Austen was proud of Deana. It couldn’t be easy for her. She had carried that pill for a long time, and only took it recently when she thought she needed it. It was probably one night when she had had the urge to break down her old door, Derek’s door, and ravage him. Like most of the Houston family, Derek was part Mexican and all American. Both he and his brother were born in Texas. He had long brown hair just starting to gray. He had been a pretty boy all his life, and those that knew him loved him for his sense of humor - and his perfect hair.

Deana had been behaving for a while, but it wasn’t good enough for Austen to forgive, or forget, that she had almost caused the death of his brother more than once. Derek had nearly died three times since leaving Earth. The first was hard to explain, but let's just say it had to do with Derek and Deana's relationship. The second time was due to a missile that hit the captain, and the last time it was aliens, but because Deana was the only one with Derek during the incident, she was blamed.

Even after it was proven Deana didn't hurt him, because it was the second time that involved her, Austen forbade her being around Derek until everything settled back down. She had been through that before, and she would hold her breath until she was in his loving arms again. The two lovebirds were engaged, but during Derek's missile accident, all short term memory had eluded him.

She couldn’t help herself with what she empathically saw on that alien ship, and who could blame her this time? Austen knew that she saw the lizard queen take her own life. Austen couldn’t blame her, and blame wasn’t a priority right then.

At least Derek had been asleep when Deana told Austen what happened to the queen. The only thing Austen could gripe about was that Deana had never replaced her last pill. She should constantly carry one with her at all times, no exceptions. She was probably scared to tell anyone that she had to take her last pill, Austen thought.

She didn’t want Austen to know that she could still lose control. Lose control, that’s what it boiled down to; they were in space, darn it! She just should have told him. Too late now though the damage was done - nothing that detrimental, and nothing that couldn’t be fixed, but she should have told him.