“Sorry, Chad!” Otherwise Engaged,Part 7
Priest fights in front of the couple!
“Ellie!”
Janbot sprang out of the hole and dashed toward the pirates as fast as its little wheels could take it. It tackled the guy firing the raser.
Ellie bounded back to her feet and made it to the convenient buttress on the other side of the shuttle bay door. Immediately, she started firing at the pirates again. “Idiots! I’m telling the truth! It’s as much for you as for me!”
Raser fire bounced off the buttress just above her head.
She swore in Hoodian.
So did Father Nicholas. He paused in his work to yell, “Guys! She’s not lying! She broke a pipe—”
“Hey!”
“—and is covered in pilthane. You want to blow up the whole shuttle bay?”
A raser blast just missed him.
“Well, it’s an improvement,” he muttered and went back to the wires.
“Is it, really?” Todd demanded as Ellie again laid covering fire. Somehow, she was having better luck than the half-dozen pirates they faced. Maybe Ellie’s words had rattled them, maybe they didn’t want to hurt Father Chris. Maybe they were just bad shots. It hardly mattered; even with Ellie taking some out, more kept flooding in.
“Father!”
“Got it!”
The doors slid open, and they rushed in. Father’s ship was parked beside what looked like a captain’s yacht, a streamlined and heavily armed ship, yet somehow a perfect match for his. A pirate was walking down Father’s gangplank, carrying a statue of the Virgin Mary.
“Put her back!” Father yelled at him.
As if roused from their surprise, the rest of the pirates in the shuttle bay pulled out their weapons and started firing.
“Don’t shoot her!” Todd yelled. “She’s coated in pithane!”
“Pilthane!”
“Whatever! Explosives.”
That went as well as it did in the corridor.
The three ran and ducked behind a pile of containers accommodatingly formed in a kind of horseshoe. They sat with their backs against the boxes, panting. A pirate charged them from the direction of the shuttles. Ellie stunned him.
“You’ve got to get out of those clothes!” Father Nick said.
Ellie pulled the raser rifle off her back and slid it to Todd. “Don’t worry about hitting anything, just keep them occupied.” She started to pull off her shoes. A shot hit the floor just in front of her and she squealed.
Todd stared at the gun in confusion. “Is it on stun? Is the safety off?”
With a huff of frustration, Father pulled it from his hands and shot at the pirate sniping them from a catwalk. The catwalk sparked, and the man threw up his hands and toppled from it into the boxes below.
“Sorry, Chad!” Father called and started murmuring an Act of Contrition.
“S’Okay,” Chad moaned.
“Cover your ears!” Ellie said. “Count three and run to your ship. I’ll make a diversion.”
“What?” Father asked, but Todd was already obeying.
“Maybe you’ll believe me now!” Ellie yelled. She popped up from behind their cover and lobbed her shoe like a grenade, then ducked. A stray raser shot hit it.
The explosion shook the deck.
Todd was already running, and nearly stumbled. Father grabbed his elbow and they ran to the ship’s ramp. Father released him to snatch up the Blessed Virgin, carrying the statue in a football hold as he charged up the ramp, passing Todd who’d stopped to be sure Ellie was following.
“Ellie!” He turned and saw her running to the captain’s yacht, one foot still squelching in its shoe, Janbot hot on her heels.
“I’ll cover you!” she yelled back. The yacht’s lift lowered and opened—Janbot must have activated it—and the two disappeared inside.
“I hope she knows what she’s doing,” Father said. Raser fire whizzed past him, just missing him but close enough to singe his hair. It struck the wall above the door, charring the cross below Jesus’ feet.
“Oh, come on, guys!” Father moaned. “That was from the Archbishop of Andromeda Five!”
He slapped the ramp door controls to shut it and he and Todd ran to the cockpit. He told Todd to strap in as they passed the living space, but Todd followed him to the controls and stood behind his chair, scanning the viewscreen for…he didn’t know. He just wanted to make sure Ellie was all right.
Just then, the doors started opening, and he saw people on the catwalks running for safety as the bay’s lights strobed red. The captain’s yacht flew out when the doors had barely opened enough to allow it to pass through. A moment later, their ship was caught in a tractor beam and yanked out as well.
Father’s hands flew over the console. He didn’t announce what he was doing (which was activating deflector shields and sending out a distress signal while the engines warmed up.) Instead, he said, “That’s some woman you have.”
Todd laughed. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“Doall to Malta,” Ellie’s voice came over the comms, quickly followed by visuals. She was pulling off her shoe and handing it to janbot who whooped and sped away. “Take lead. Keep me between you and the pirate ship.”
“The Heartbreaker,” Father clarified. “And don’t get me started on that. Taking lead now.”
“What are you doing?” Todd asked. She’d pulled off her pants and was slicing them with a knife she’d taken off a pirate. She seemed almost gleeful.
“They’re coming after us!” Father warned.
“You’ll see! Keep me between you two!”
The screen went dark. A moment later, they were hailed by the Heartbreaker.
Captain Celeste came on. She seemed at once disappointed, proud, and a little bit vindicated. “You blew up my shuttle bay and made off with my yacht? Old habits die hard, my love.”
“Celeste, I haven’t loved you in years. Even before I got captured, you knew I was ready to leave the pirate life. And this, this obsession of yours is not love! Please just let us go.”
“I have a counterproposal. Join me in the yacht, and I’ll let your precious couple go. Otherwise, I’ll take out both your ships and start introducing your friends to the meaning of pain.”
Then Ellie cut in. “You don’t want to do that, Heartbreaker.”
Todd gaped at her. Father gaped at her. In fact, everyone on the bridge of the Heartbeat gaped at her.
“Are you on my yacht—in your underwear?” Captain Celeste gasped, outraged and a little confused.
“Your faulty pipes showered me in pilthane, so I’ve made the most of it. I’ve stashed pieces of pilthane-coated cloth in all the vital areas of this ship. Shoot me, and you’ll blow up your pretty little yacht.”
On the console of the Malta, a text message appeared. “When I drop the tractor beam, run. I’ll catch up.”
“You are a feisty one,” Celeste said. “Who are you?”
“Who am I?” Ellie laughed, but her eyes flashed with haughtiness. “I am Ellie Elizabeth Doall. HuFleet Lieutenant. Daughter of Hiro and Natalia Doall, Ambassadors to Chatway, the founding planet of the Union. Godmother to Princess Ellie Fardin of Chatway. Known among my crewmates as “Ellie-Saves-the-Ship.” I broke an alternate universe with a bad romance. My brain once powered an entire colony. I midwifed the species that has defeated the Cybers. And I gave birth to an interdimensional being just so he could experience human love. I’m the catch that got away while you were too busy mooning over a man who doesn’t want you.”
She paused. Behind Captain Celeste, her bridge crew looked at each other doubtfully.
Ellie’s expression softened. “Bradward spoke highly of you as a captain, and it’s obvious you inspire loyalty. We can fight, and you can lose this ship and maybe the regard of your crew and still not get your man. Everyone loses. Or you can beam aboard, and we can discuss this like rational beings.”
There was a tense silence as the crew of the Heartbreaker (and on the viewscreen, Todd and Father Nicholas) watched Captain Celeste for her reaction. Her face transformed from shock to fury to a little bit of confusion to thought. Ellie, meanwhile, waited with an expression of sweetness and patience, as if she’d asked some shy classmate out to tea and had not just invited a pirate captain to a pow wow while wearing nothing but a sports bra and boy shorts.
Finally, the captain spoke. “You broke an alternate universe?”
She spread her hands. “Alternate me did—by falling for the wrong man. I myself had to go set things right.”
The captain stared at her a bit longer, as if trying to decide if she was crazy, lying, or telling the truth. Finally, she shook her head, chuckling. “Alright, Lieutenant Ellie Elizabeth Doall, daughter of ambassadors and godmother to royalty, I’ll listen to what you have to say. But, if I don’t like what I hear, you will be my hostage.”
“Deal. Boys, don’t wait up. We ladies have a lot to talk about.”
Ellie dropped the tractor beam.
Father hit the warp drive and had them light-years away before Todd could protest.
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Check out Space Traipse: Hold My Beer, Season 8, and all the other adventures you may have missed.