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“I’m sorry I
distracted you with my silly worries,” whispered Rose to Officer Angelo as they
hurried down the hall side by side. “I feel so guilty about it.”
“Turn left at the next passageway,” said Righteous from
the rear.
“It wasn’t your fault,” replied Officer Angelo to Rose.
“Yes it was. I’m so preoccupied with my own problems…”
“Here we go,” said Dutch indicating an entrance marked ‘Authorized Personnel Only. Service and Maintenance
Tunnel.’
They all stopped in front of the door.
“This will take us all the way to the docking bay,” said
Righteous.
‘This is perfect,’ thought Dutch. ‘With such an odd
looking group of people, someone was bound to get suspicious’.
“Let’s go. Open the door,” she said, but Officer Angelo
stood sullenly unmoving in front of the closed door.
“It’s locked.” He said, stalling for time. Dutch
deliberated whether she should slap him silly with the butt of her gun.
“Well use your key,” she said sarcastically, and began caressing
Rose’s earlobe with the muzzle of her gun. For a brief moment Officer Angelo
and Dutch locked eyes, but then his childish rebellion fizzled on the wind.
“Okay, okay,” he said reaching into his top pocket for his
security clearance card. The door clicked open on the first swipe.
Suddenly they were in a different world. No fancy wall
cladding or mood lighting in here…just utilitarian steel grating, work lamps,
and freezing cold. Hundreds of insulated pipes ran along the walls carrying water,
gas and electricity to the inhabitants.
“And remember
Casanova. No heroics or else your girlfriend’s going to be doing the funky
chicken.”
Officer Angelo held up his hands in a gesture of
compliance. It galled him to have to look like a fool in front of Rose. He felt
like a child again and stared daggers at Dutch; but that’s about as dangerous
as he got. She’d made him look like an idiot – and judging by her air of
confidence and control, she wasn’t going to let him rectify the situation any
time soon. Rose, for her part, felt awful for causing him such a problem. It
was her fault after all. She was the one who had distracted him from his duty.
Nonetheless, she still felt a perverse little glow of satisfaction that she had
that kind of power over him. Not only that, but if Dutch hadn’t kidnapped her
she probably would never have seen him again. And here they were now, becoming
fast friends. Strangely enough though, she didn’t feel frightened. She supposed
she should have been, with Dutch threatening to shoot her – but she just didn’t
believe she would. She did feel sorry for Officer Angelo – he was in all kinds
of trouble.
“Wait,” came an imperious command from Righteous at the
rear. “Quiet.”
Everyone stopped and waited. Up ahead they could hear the
clanking of a hatch opening and someone moving about.
“Everyone face down on the floor. Quickly and quietly
now,” said Dutch, positioning herself ready for action. But the noises soon
receded and after a final echoing ‘clunk’, died away altogether. Dutch waited
another minute or two to make sure the coast was clear, then got them all up
and moving again.
“And no more talking…that means you two lovebirds in
front.”
On they trudged: Officer Angelo stewing in front and Sweet
Mary sulking at the rear, the strange humming and pinging sounds of the station
keeping them company.
“Nearly there now,” said Righteous finally. “The docking
hall is just ahead. Once we come out of this tunnel, the entrance will be on
our left.”
Dutch was loathe to admit that Righteous was probably
doing a good job. ‘But we’ll soon see,’ she thought.
“How many people in the bay?”
“Two. There’s another one somewhere but I think he’s on
the ship.”
“Okay. Keep moving everyone but I want you to listen up.
This is how we’re going to do it. You, sad lady, what’s your name again?”
“Rose.”
“Rose. Listen very carefully because I’m only going to say
this once. I want you to…….”
Rose collapsed in a heap in front of a double door
entrance marked ‘FEDERATION ZONE DOCKING TERMINAL – RESTRICTED ACCESS’. One of
her shoes had come off and lay discarded to one side of her body, adding an
authentic touch to the scene. Officer Angelo didn’t hesitate. He went straight
to the Video-Com, stabbed the button repeatedly and started shouting for help.
“….then you tell them there’s a lady in trouble and that
it’s Mrs Darck, Commander Darck’s mother. With a bit of luck they’ll remember
her. They’ll be able to see for themselves through the CCTV. But don’t waste
any time. Go back to her side the moment they acknowledge you and kneel down
beside her…..and stay down. If you stand up into the line of fire so help me
I’ll pop you too.”
The big doors hissed as the pneumatics kicked in and one
of the guards stepped halfway out to assess the situation.
“Help,” said Officer Angelo, flashing his Federation
Officers badge at the man. “I don’t think she’s breathing any more. We need to
do something quickly.”
The guard hesitated on the threshold, not quite sure what
to do. He wasn’t allowed to step out of his station and something didn’t quite
add up. There were too many anomalies in the situation. How did they get here?
What were they doing here anyway? No one had warned them they were coming and why
hadn’t the main guards stopped them?
Dutch prayed fervently under her breath that he would fall
for the ruse. She needed both guards to come out or else they had problems. If
they took down only one, then the other one could simply just close the doors
on them and that would be that. She had told Officer Angelo to cue her with a
catchphrase only when both men had
stepped out into the corridor.
“Hurry,” said Angelo urgently. “I need a couple of people
to help me to get her into a sick bay.” Officer Angelo wondered for a mad
moment whether he should dare add the authentic touch of giving her a bit of
mouth to mouth resuscitation, but reckoned that would be pushing his luck a bit
far.
Finally the guard made up his mind to disregard his
instincts. Refusing to help the mother of the most celebrated commander of the
45th century was not a charge he was willing to face. He called to
his partner.
“Leave that. We can call the report in later. We have to
get her into Meds. Come and help me.”
“Hurry, please hurry. I think she’s dying,” Officer Angelo
intoned the cue words very loudly for Dutch, who, as she heard the two guards
approach the unhappy couple on the floor, sidled round the corner and fired two
short bursts of her gun at nearly point blank range. The guards went down like
skittles, the plasma blasts disrupting their neurological functions and leaving
them flopping around on the floor like two fish out of water.
Officer Angelo helped Rose to her feet and Dutch swept the
little band into the docking hall. Once the door was closed and locked behind
them Dutch breathed a small sigh of relief. She couldn’t quite believe that
they had made it this far.
“We ain’t out of the woods yet. Righteous! What you got?”
Righteous sniffed the air like a dog.
“There’s someone else…..” he said, turning his head from
side to side. “…in there.” He pointed his finger at a door marked ‘Gents’.
