Free Recycled by Selina Rosen Page B

know where the life raft is. Call me shithead if you like, I don't give a damn."
     
    She stood perfectly still, then slowly walked over and leaned her head against the hull of the ship. She held her hand up towards them in a silencing gesture, and said in a suddenly calm voice, "Give me a few seconds."
     
    They all nodded silently and waited as their illustrious leader mumbled inaudible whispers to herself. Finally she straightened, turned to look at them and took in a deep breath.
     
    "Jurak?"
     
    "Yes . . . Captain," he said deciding that of his three options this was the least likely to get him slapped.
     
    "Do you know where the safety manual is?"
     
    "Yes."
     
    Drew glared at him and spat, "Then go get it!"
     
    "Yes, of course," he said as sudden realization came to him. He ran off in the direction of the bridge and came back a few minutes later with the electronic manual, which he handed to Drew. Drew snatched it from his hand and started punching the buttons.
     
    She sighed deeply.
     
    "What is it Captain?" Jurak asked.
     
    "We're standing on top of the damned thing. It's under these floor panels." She sighed as she looked from the escape hatch they had already opened to the floor beneath her feet. It made perfect and logical sense."Gee, no wonder we couldn't find it," she mumbled to herself.
     
    It took her another ten minutes to get all the crew off of it so that they could actually remove the floor panels and pull the raft out. The raft was bulky and heavy, and that was before some idiot pulled the handle which started the raft inflating.
     
    "Quick, quick push it out, before it inflates!" Drew yelled.
     
    They only managed to get it half way out before it had finished inflating, successfully lodging it in the escape hatch opening. Drew looked around with total disdain at her crew."Which one of you morons did that?"
     
    A little guy towards the back of the group sheepishly raised his hand.
     
    "Why?"
     
    "I . . . it was heavy, I thought perhaps it was a gravitational lifting device to make it lighter."
     
    Drew pulled her blaster and leveled it at the crewman who had erred.
     
    Jurak quickly grabbed her arm."Captain . . . I'm sure . . ."
     
    "The planet will be a much better place if this stagnant member of the gene pool is never allowed to breed." She jerked easily out of his grasp, as the crewman fell to his knees and crawled over to her.
     
    "My queen, I beg of you . . ."
     
    "Ah, get up, you've ruined it for me now." Drewcila holstered her side arm. Then she turned to glare at Jurak."The moment is gone." She looked at the lodged raft and threw her hands up with a defeated air."All right, everybody push."
     
    Fifteen minutes later the raft broke free and floated down to the surface of the lake, which turned out to be a good twenty feet below them. Drewcila grabbed the raft inflating guy and threw him out the hatch and down into the water.
     
    "You grab the raft and bring it back over here. If it gets away and we have to swim, I'm going to blast your ass and leave you for fish bait. Understand?"
     
    For answer the man swam after the raft, caught it by a rope on the side, and started pulling it back.
     
    After a quick check in the safety manual she found the switch which activated the emergency ladder, and they climbed down the side of the ship into the waiting raft.
     
    They started rowing towards shore, at which point Drewcila announced, "Let us never talk of this incident again." To which they all nodded their silent agreement.
     
    They were halfway to shore when the king's army showed up to "save" them.
     
    Drew slung her hands in the air and flopped back into the raft."Oh, now the bastards show up. Isn't that the way it always is with the cops?"
     
    "I believe it's the military, Captain," Jurak said.
     
    "Police, military, it's always the same thing. Where were they when idiot boy opened the raft in the escape hatch? That's my point. We don't need them