Free Prisoner of Earthside: A Novella (STRYDER'S HORIZON Book 2) by Daniel J. Kirk Page B

for almost an hour,” she said. “You look like someone pissed in your face. Have you even washed your hair in a week?”
    These all seemed like really important questions and I intended to answer all of them, but Alice tugged me off the barstool and guided me through the pub and outside. It was daytime.
    That was the shocker.
    “You never went home last night did you?”
    I tried to play back the night’s events. They began in the evening with a nice burger and a couple of beers. Then they tapped the keg for Workman’s new brew.  I remember wanting to meet that guy and—let’s just say, thank him.
    “Do you even remember you were going to give me a ride to Earthside?” Alice was hands-on-hips stern. Her attitude wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for her, but I felt like telling her to go to Earthside on her own. “I don’t even think you can pilot Old Shepard. Cause you sure as hell didn’t take a pre-toxicator.”
    I said something I don’t think I ever said before, “You can drive.”
     
    I was about sober when I realized Alice’s green hunk of junk was in Gregor’s shop and would likely be there for a long time, hence her needing the ride in the first place. But it was more sobering watching her push Old Shepard up to near 300 MPH without any concern about how my stomach and head were feeling as we vibrated over Burnside’s jagged terrain. I tried to take my mind off it and asked, “So, is this guy cute or something?”
    Alice didn’t answer. I could see the muscles in her leg tensing as she pressed the accelerator hoping to make Old Shepard go faster.
    “Yeah, I bet he’s cute. You said you two went back pretty far. Was he up on Echo Station?”
    Alice jerked the wheel and we spun around. She didn’t stop. She just did it to try and make me throw up. It didn’t work, not completely anyway.
    “Didn’t you watch any of the newsfeed while you got plastered last night? They told you all about him. Yes, I met him on Echo Station. He went to the moon and became a shit ass drill-runner like yourself, and I got into some trouble and ended up here. And is he cute? He was cute. Real cute. Baby blue eyes and two dimples on both sides of his perfect God damn smile!”
    “Eh,” I said.
    “What?”
    “Dimples, never really went for that kind of thing.”
    “You’re going to feel like an asshole when you sober up, Kimmie.”
     
    I did.
    We arrived in Earthside and had a hard time reminding the Colonial officer that I was Kimberly Stryder, the chick that killed all those damned teenagers who went around trying to imitate the Dessup Gang. My celebrity status had worn thin because of my ratty appearance. I tried to explain I was hung over, but that was even more of a faux pas.
    Alice made things worse demanding to see her friend, the recently returned prisoner of war named Thom Crisp.
    “We’ve come all this way and they aren’t going to let us see him,” Alice said. She wasn’t her typical snappy self, there was a quiet sadness to the way she just let the words catch the stillness of the air around us.
    They hung around for a while, like a chain smoker next to a door.
    This is when my sage advice should’ve been delivered, but I didn’t have any.  All I could say was something stupid like, it’ll work out . But I didn’t believe it. Instead I turned to the Colonial Officer who had remained vigilant in denying us access to Thom Crisp and said, “Grand Officer Tourner, please.”
    He turned white, like a flock of seagulls painted him.
    On the inside I had turned white, too. Tourner was a bitch. And I don’t mean that as a compliment. She was stern, irritable, and disgusted by all that was yours truly. It was probably going to ruin the whole trip bumping into her again.
    But I wasn’t going to.
    “Grand Officer Tourner has left Echoearth.” The officer said it as if he wasn’t supposed to.
    “What do you mean?”
    He looked both ways like he wanted to tell me a secret, then decided