BUaDS – Chapter 23 – Gold and Photographs
Dante Valderez started gasping in a choking, gurgling way, with his black eyes starting to roll upwards and only showing the whites. Leanna O’Regan backed away from him, staring in facination at Dante’s disfigured face, now fully revealed after she had inadvertantly pulled his face-mask away. She could see that Dante had no nose or lips, only a space that showed the inside of his nasal cavity and his mouth. His tongue move around behind his exposed teeth and jaws, and Leanna could clearly see the back of his throat and roof of his mouth. Dante staggered as he grasped for his respirator, and finding it, put it over the unnatural hole on his face. He took a few deep, ragged breaths, and was able to stand steady again. His eyes rolled forward again and became focussed, coughing a bit as he clenched and unclenched his fists. Regaining his composure, Dante only stared at Leanna and let his arms and hands loosen at his sides.
General Thompson shifted his stance, and cleared his throat in annoyance. “Princess, and I only use that to address you because I don’t know what else to call you, will you now tell us more about the gold and the slides?”
With a look of pity on her face, Leanna looked away from Dante to speak to the chubby middle-aged man in the black uniform. “No, I don’t think so.” she said quietly.
The General sighed, and turned to the two guards still nearby. “Take her back to the holding cell,” he barked at them. He glared at Dante and said, “I’ll leave it up to you to find out what we need to know.” Dante bowed slightly and nodded at the two guards in light-grey armour. They swiftly grabbed Leanna under each shoulder, and forcefully pushed her towards the stairs to exit the bridge. General Thompson shouted across the bridge, “And what do the idiot PABs have to say about the guided missile reaching its target?”
“Sir, um, we’re getting reports now that there was an explosion and fire outside the town of Ojai,” an officer replied from behind a console at the far end of the bridge.
“And was the target destroyed?” General Thompson asked eagerly.
“That is not clear, no,” the officer answered. “There is no mention of ‘Paraiso en la Tierra’. Apparently, it does not exist.”
General Thompson roared back in a rage, “Does not exist? I might have known that the Princess would not conciously betray her CIM friends!” He shouted at Leanna, now being dragged away, “You’re finished! Throw her overboard, she is no use to us!”
Dante turned to the quivering middle-aged man, General Thompson’s plump face now purple and even uglier than before. “As you command, sir.” Dante shoved Leanna’s back, pushing her forward into the stairwell. “Bring her to the starboard deck on level 1,” he commanded the two guards holding on to her.
General Thompson turned away, moving to another part of the bridge, leaving the two guards, Leanna and Dante to exit down the stairs. Out of the corner of Leanna’s eye, she noticed that the officer who relayed the PAB report got up to follow them. She dipped her head down, causing the hood of her yellow hoodie to flip over her head. She kept her head down as they trudged down the stairs, listening for any footsteps behind them.
They reached level 1, and exited the stairwell to the exterior deck of the battle station. Leanna could hear the ocean waves crashing against the hull of the massive ship, and shivered in the cool breezes of the open sea. From under her hood, she could see that they were heading towards a section of the bridge that led to the edge of the ship, and she shuddered involuntarily.
Dante grabbed her by the neck and pushed her head over the railing to force her to look at the bottomless depths of the water glittering in the mid-day sun. “I am giving you one last chance. Who is the gold for and what is the significance of the slides?”, Dante growled at her from behind his respirator.
Leanna stared into the crashing waves far below, starting to speak but hesitating. She closed her eyes and waited for the guards holding her arms to throw her over.
“Let her go!” a voice shouted from behind them. “I have orders from General Thompson that she must return to the bridge!”
*** This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. ***