OUTWORLD: Sun Dogs

OUTWORLD: Sun Dogs Part 12

Sorcha led the charge out of the Roobarb, trotting down the open ramp and into the hangar. "Do you have Nia's pass card?" she asked Jillian, who was right behind her.

The mutt nodded, showing it to Sorcha. "Sure thing. It was in her dress pocket."

"Great." Sorcha paused to glance back at the ship; Blason and Travis were carrying Nia and Chesney out and laying them on the hangar floor. Sorcha hoped that the sedative would take for long enough this time. Nia.

With that in mind, she and Jillian ran to the explosives lock-up and swiped the passes to get the doors open. "We'll have to take one each, O'Riordan," Jillian told her. "Come back for the third one."

Sorcha was about to reply when Palmer jogged up from behind. "Thought you might need help loading the charges," the burly Wolf said modestly.

"Or that," Sorcha muttered. She went over to the rack of charges and slid one out of its cradle. Jillian and Palmer each took one as well. "This is the dumbest thing I've done since I wore tights with shorts," Jillian sighed.

Sorcha ran a few checks on the device. It was fully operational. "Yours showing the three red lights?" she asked the others. One quick round of affirmative head-bobs later, and they were off again. Sorcha kept her charge tight in her arms, hunched over it.

Palmer suddenly skidded to a stop. "Oh, crap."

Sorcha saw what she meant as she looked up.

Four more security guards had materialized in front of the Roobarb, and standing off to the side was Gallagher. "What the hell are you doing?" the captain spat, his expression incredulous. "You are not leaving this hangar with those charges."

"Captain, we don't have time to explain!" Sorcha told him firmly. "We're taking these explosives and reigniting that sun!"

"That anomaly has knocked out our instruments!" Gallagher shot back. "You really think I'm going to let you lot head back out in that? Sorry, but I don't want to be the officer who lost a whole team because of some shared delusion."

"It's not some delusion," Sorcha barked, impatience and frustration beginning to rile her. "The Dark Sun will consume everything unless we stop it, and now."

"The electromagnetic readings from that event are off the scale," Gallagher went on. "It's clearly scrambled your minds, and unless you put those charges down and return to your quarters so we can get out of this system, I will have you arrested." He gestured to the second squad. "Commander Pedder, do you understand the situation?"

One of the guards, a big Husky, nodded. "Aye, Captain."

"Now, I urge you to reconsider," Gallagher told Sorcha and her companions, specifically Jillian. "Team Leader, order your team to stand down now."

Jillian shook her head after a moment of obvious indecision. "No. No, Captain. On our flight back, I saw and heard things, things that convinced me that this isn't a product of our minds. This is... something else. That Dark Sun out there – I don't know if it's alien, or something else entirely, but it's dangerous. It's already attacked our engineer. You can see her over there, knocked out on the deck." Jillian inclined her mousy-haired head towards the comatose Nia. "We can't leave and risk this having a bigger impact than it's already had."

"Team Leader, you're in hot soup here," Gallagher protested. "Stand down or you're stripped of your position."

Jillian hefted her charge. "Nope. We came here to reignite this sun. And you're stopping us from doing our job."

Gallagher twitched his whiskers. "Fine. Team Leader Toki, you are no longer in charge of your team." He motioned to Pedder. "Commander, please escort Miss Toki to the science commons. Take O'Riordan and Catterick as well. Miss Goodwin and Miss Chesney need to be taken to the medbay."