Her Royal Madness

Her Royal Madness Part 14

"Wait a minute! Primary Target? Henry did we get rescued or kidnapped?" 

"Whaddaya mean kidnapped. Of course we were - uh, well what I mean is we were - she's just - I don't know! Well, Juna was working pretty hard to keep us all alive. But that door over there won't open for any of us and when I asked Alvonis to open it for us, she said it wasn't allowed. Mad-Girl I hate when you make me think about stuff. Stop it! You know what, it doesn't matter right now. We can't do nothing about it anyhow. Even if we could get outta this room, I can't drive a spaceship. I don't even have my learner's permit. All we can do now is wait, so let me finish my story. 

"Juna didn't wait for an answer from Alvonis. She just turned and went towards the back of the ship. A door opened up and we went in this room that had a whole bunch of weird looking equipment and three big tanks. Each tank was empty and had, like, an open door in the front. Alvonis was saying 'Boss you worry too much. Just let me handle this. Lady Madelaine is going to be fine. You were right - she's really in bad shape now but her brain waves are OK and don't indicate permanent damage. I'll get her fixed up in no time.' Juna pointed to one of the tanks and told me to dump Nick in it and then go get Mash, uh, 'the other injured male' she called him. 

"I ran outside and found Mash sitting down on the table holding his bad arm. He was about ready to pass out." 

"Okay I admit it. It was starting to hurt. The shock was wearing off. Good thing Hank showed up when he did. He half-pulled me up standing and got us going in the direction of the spaceship. Then Hank noticed one of the lizards was getting up. So Hank gave me a push to get me stumbling in the right direction - I was a little out of it right then - and he walked over and kicked it in the head as hard as he could. He caught back up to me and we started up the ramp. I don't remember much after that!" 

"Like Mash said, we climbed up the ramp into the ship. It started closing before we were all the way in. We made it to the uh, hospital room, or sick bay, I guess you call it, and I shoved Mash into the last tank. You and Nick were already in your tanks. They were almost full of thick goo, kinda like jelly. You two were floating in this stuff. You each had a mask, covering your face, with a hose going up to the top of the tank. There was also a bunch of wires and stuff hooked up to you. And get this, you were both butt-naked." 

"Henry. You didn't have to tell them I was naked." I hissed. 

"Don't worry. Everybody else was passed out by then. Nobody saw nothing. I looked back to Mash and saw that his tank was closed too. A pair of arms had already put the mask on his face and another pair was cutting off his clothes. The goo or jelly or whatever was oozing out from a tube at the top of the tank. It looked kinda gross but Juna told me that it was to protect you from, uh, 'gee-force accelerations during evasive maneuvers.' 

"She told me to come up front with her and to get strapped in and not touch anything. The seats in the cockpit hang from the ceiling and swing in just about any direction. You don't really sit in them; it's almost a lying down position. They're covered with this really soft leather that you just sink right down into, and they got all the controls right in the armrests so you don't even have to move your arms. 

"I don't really know why there's any controls though - Alvonis does everything. Juna strapped herself in like I was and told Alvonis to get outta there fast and kill anybody who was chasing us. Then, all of a sudden, we were moving. I was pushed back into my seat so hard it felt like I weighed a ton. And the sky changed from bright and sunny to pitch black just like that. I couldn't believe it. We were actually in outer space! I couldn't see Earth 'cause it was behind us but the moon was right up front. It was getting bigger and bigger. I thought we were gonna run right into it. 

"All of a sudden," Henry continued, "we were surrounded by five, uh no, six other spaceships. They started shooting at us. 

"Guys, you know me. You know I work best under pressure, but this was too much. I was sweating. Then I looked over at Juna and she was all calm and cool. She was even smiling. She looked over at me and said 'Hang on tight. OK Alvonis, show them you're more than just a pleasure yacht. Hit 'em hard!' 

"Alvonis replied, 'You got it boss. Hang on for evasive maneuvers.' Then I slammed into the seatbelts so hard I thought they were gonna rip. I looked up and there was this huge explosion right in front of us. For a second I was totally weightless, then we took off thataway and I weighed a ton again. The seat spun around so it felt like I was going forward again, even though I wasn't facing the front of the ship anymore. Now I could see outside towards the back of the ship. Two doors had opened up, one on each side, and these huge guns popped up. They started swiveling around, each one pointing at one of the bad guys. Both guns fired at the same time. I didn't really hear anything but I sure felt it. The whole ship shook. Balls of flame erupted where two of the other ships used to be. The guns were already inside the ship and starting back up again - reloading I guess - when felt more guns firing again. I guess there were more that I couldn't see. Then I got slammed around again. It was like getting tackled by Mash. Another near miss. This kept going on for I don't know how long - I kind of lost track of time. The bad guys kept shooting at us and we kept dodging every which way. And all the time, those guns kept firing until there was nobody left but us. 

"Alvonis told Juna it was all clear so Juna told her to take us home fast. The ship turned, a little more gently this time, and we took off. I was pushed back into my seat, but this time I was my normal weight. I turned around to look out and the moon flashed by. It seemed to me that Earth was behind us. I looked over at Juna and said, "Uh, didn't you say we were going home? Cause I'm pretty sure home's back there." 

"Well, now that there was nobody chasing us, she was able to concentrate on ignoring me properly again. She didn't even look at me or say anything. Luckily Alvonis is a little more friendlier. I'm still not sure which one of them is the computer and which one's the person.  

"So Alvonis answered me, but it didn't make me feel any better. She just said, "Oh dear, didn't anyone tell you? That's not your home - you've just been living there for the past eleven years."