The Runaway: It'll be Okay
Posted on 26 Jan 2025 @ 5:28pm by Fernanda Ruiz
Edited on on 27 Jan 2025 @ 4:06pm
Mission:
M4 - Falling Out
Location: Deep in Romulan Space
Timeline: A Few Weeks Ago
2126 words - 4.3 OF Standard Post Measure
Last Time on Runaway:
Chapter I: Stowaway
Chapter II: Catching a Ride
Chapter III: Duped
Chapter IV: Buying Time
Fernanda wasn’t sure how long she sat at the top of the stairs, clutching Buñuelo to her chest and listening to Mamá cry. At some point she fell asleep leaning against the banister only to be startled awake by Mamá stroking her hair. “Let’s go to bed, mi cielo.”
Stumbling back toward her room with Mamá’s guiding hand resting on her shoulder, Fernanda’s fuzzy mind began to clear. She remembered what Papa and Mamá had been fighting about and her stomach knotted into a ball. She understood, as a child does, that she had been the cause of that argument, the harsh words, and the swift departure of the man she considered her father.
As her mother tucked her into bed, Fernanda began to cry, fat tears dangled for a brief moment on her chin, only to be knocked down by more. Her lip quivered; her chest heaved.
“Hush, hush, mija,” Mamá holding her daughter’s head to her breast and stroking her hair. “Hush. It’ll be okay.”
Ry pushed Clarkson down the thin catwalk – only a single-person wide – toward the closest escape craft. His two compatriots were in front of him being forced along by Ry’s shoves. None of the other crew had volunteered to go with the three and Allison hadn’t forced anyone to fill the compliment. Who would want to? If all went well with the three reluctant volunteers, the kids would be next.
Fernanda, followed by Livvy, the twins, and Julia, brought up the rear of the train. Allison had ordered the kids back to an escape craft. They passed octagonal hatches through whose portals Fernanda spied empty compartments of the crafts already launched. Her stomach lurched. The feelings from before – that she was forcing Livvy and the twins to join her in the attempt to escape – came creeping back. Maybe she should go with the unwilling volunteers? It might help alleviate some of her guilt to be punished so and allow the other kids to stay onboard.
She looked around Ry to the three in front. She had never paid much attention to the hired-hands, but Clarkson’s demeanor had only grown darker after Allison essentially threw him off the ship. His jaw, clenched tight, twitched every time Ry pushed him forward. His feet seemed to scuffle along more, never quite lifting off the grown now, and his fists balled up as if he was fighting the urge to take a swing at the much larger man pushing him. He hadn’t fought his expulsion from the mess with much gusto, but now that there was only the few of them there, Clarkson seemed to have rediscovered his courage. After another shove from Ry, Fernanda noticed his hand drop to his pocket at his hip, hovering just above it’s opening.
The small group had to trek to the very back of the compartment. Most of the bays nearest the ship’s hatch were empty having been released during their game with the pursuing Romulans. They reached the first hatch that still had an escape craft on the other side. Clarkson’s compatriots – Fernanda thought their names might be ‘Mick’ and ‘Keef,’ but she wasn’t sure – stood dumbly, as if they’d forgotten how to use the control pad on the side that opened the hatch.
Ry considered them for a moment then barked, “What? You want me to do it for you?”
If the big man expected one of them to snap to and get it open, Ry was disappointed. Mick and Keef remained static, staring back at Clarkson as if asking if he was going to do anything. Clarkson, for his part, remained silent, too, but not totally still. One of his hands rested on the catwalk railing, the other, plunged into his pocket, moved around as it flexed open and closed.
“Alright, alright,” Ry grumbled. He gave Clarkson a jolting push forward so that he almost wound up colliding with the other two. “I’ll do it then. Move forward. Move it!”
As the three stepped a few feet forward, Ry went with them. Fernanda, without thinking, followed closely behind Ry. Clarkson, Mick, and Keef bunched up together as much as they could on the walkway, forcing Ry to lean over to tap the control pad. Just as he did, however, Clarkson yanked his hand of his pocket. Something flashed in the dim light as he lunged at Ry.
Fernanda screamed as she saw the small knife in Clarkson’s hand. She was certain that he was going to stab Ry in the neck, but the big man slid away quicker than she could have believed. Instead of going into his neck, Clarkson immersed its blade into the meat of the big man’s shoulder. Ry’s face twisted into a grimace of pain, but quickly snapped into a look of concentration. He kicked at Clarkson’s knee, but the mutineer proved too speedy, pulling the knife out with a wet thwack and shuffling back before the foot connected.
One of the twins yanked Livvy back down the walkway, her face wearing a shocked ‘o.’ The other twin tried to let his brother and sister passed, but only could retreat with them, leaving Fernanda alone mere feet from the combatants. He may have been yelling at her to follow, but everything was happening so fast. Too fast. Her mind all but shut down as she tried to process the motions: Clarkson whipping his knife back and forth. Flicking it forward with a snap of a wrist. Ry dodging, blocking, and lunging at the tiny openings the space provided. It was a blur.
She felt the wind pushed out of her, as two strong arms wrapped her into a bear hug around her chest. At first, Fernanda didn’t even kick. Then as it dawned on her that the two arms wrapped around her didn’t belong to either of the twins, her befuddled brain did the only thing it could.
A wave of adrenaline coursed through her; now instead of fast, fast, fast the world slowed to a crawl. Turning her head, Fernanda saw that the arms belonged to Keef – or was it Mick? Whoever, they’d somehow managed to slink around the two men fighting on the walkway and grab Fernanda. Exactly what this man’s plan was she wasn’t sure, nor was she wanting to find out. She dropped her chin to her chest and bit down on his bare forearm. The skin of his arm had a burnt chemical taste, like some of the solvents she’d smelled down in the engine room then a thick liquid filled her mouth with a sweet metallic bloom. It took her moment to realize she’d bit down hard enough that she broke through the skin.
Keef-or-Mick – whoever – let out a high-pitch shriek at the top of his lungs. He attempted to drop Fernanda, but she held on tight like some starving piranha who’d gotten hold of its next meal. It took several flaps of his arm for her to lose her bite and fall heavily to the walkway.
She spit something mealy out her mouth (Fernanda didn’t even want to think about what that could have been!) and scrambled away from the man now clutching his arm screeching a high-pitched note broken only by deep inhales.
In her haste to get away she didn’t look where she was going and nearly tripped Ry, who danced around her with a curse while he failed to bat away the knife, which sliced him across the face. He crashed against the wall and slumped to the floor, crimson blood cascading in a sheet down his face. Clarkson with an ugly, twisted look on his face lifted his knife ready to deliver a killing blow.
“Wha – what are you doing?” Mick-or-Keef (whichever one was the person who’d stood silently watching the fight) asked, confusion mixed with shock in his voice. “They’ll kill us, you do that!”
Clarkson gave the man a side eye then shrugged, knife still hovering and ready. “They were trying to kill us anyhow,” he responded dryly, but instead of burying the knife in Ry, he opened the hatch to the escape craft. “Throw him in,” he ordered Mick-or-Keef, “Him and the girl.”
“I’m not touching that girl – she’s psychotic!”
At Mick-or-Keef’s protestation, Clarkson kept his eyes glued on the prostrate Ry, but cocked his ear back to Keef-or-Mick. The wounded man was clutching his arm and moaning on the floor a few feet away, his left hand covering the wound on his right arm. He looked back at Fernanda and waved the knife lazily toward her. “Am I going to have a problem with you?”
Fernanda shook her head slowly back and forth.
Clarkson slapped the control pad next to the escape craft. The door-sized hatch opened with a low woof as black seal that ringed opening broke.
“Get in.”
She crawled slowly backwards into the small interior of the craft and took the farthest seat from the hatch, all the while staring at Clarkson.
He sniffed in amusement and half-turned to Mick-or-Kefnor. “See? It’s all about showing them who’s bos – ”
A yellow-white energy beam sliced through the air and took Clarkson in the chest. With the last word hanging in the air, he collapsed as if his bones had suddenly liquefied. Mick-or-Kefnor yelped, wildly looked around for cover. There was none in the narrow passage way. His eyes fell on the interior of the escape craft. Until that moment, Fernanda had never seen someone’s thoughts betrayed by their eyes, but suddenly she knew that despite his fear of her, Mick-or-Kefnor was going to jump through the hatch. She wanted to share the space with him even less than he with her.
As his knees bent to spring him into the craft, Fernanda scrambled a foot over and hit the control pad. He jumped too late. The hatch closed with a thunk. She heard him hit the outside with his fist and then slide down the outside. A beam must of hit him.
Her fingers trembling from the adrenaline, she reach outed to the control pad to open the hatch. Instead of opening the hatch, however, the screen lit up a bright red. Then she heard the clamps release and the engine engage. She was thrown from her feet, he head hit the hull and she collapsed unconscious to the deck.
-----
“Well?” Allison spat the question as Patrice joined her on the bridge. Her emotions had been swinging from anger to despair since the escape craft had launched. In a few moments, she was sure, she’d want to curl up in a ball and cry.
“The Romulans peeled off after the escape craft. Good news is, it’s headed straight for a field of asteroids about a 50,000 kilometers away from where it launched. It could be they lose something that tiny in the field,” Patrice said as hopefully as he could. “It’s been known to happen, anyway. Maybe they’ll give up the chase and come after us again.”
Allison furiously flicked away a stray tear. “What was I thinking sending the kids down with those three assholes?”
“I know its the last thing you want to hear, but none of this is your fault.”
“I’m the captain. Everything that happens on this ship is my fault. I should’ve...I should’ve...she was a child! Is. Is a child.”
Patrice knew better than to do something like pat her on the shoulder. Instead he leaned against the bulkhead. Truth be told, he felt like his stomach was being squeezed by a gorilla. “When we get back to the Federation – ”
“They better throw me in prison,” Allison bitterly cut him off. “God knows I’m never going to forgive myself.”
A few seconds of silence passed before Patrice said, “Ry’s going to be okay. He said the scar will enhance his looks, but we’d best keep him off duty. You should go back and be with Livvy for a few minutes. I’ll take the Bridge.”
