Banished Worlds by Grant Workman, Mary Workman Page B

was in space at the time, and the pilots were caught unaware. Strapped in their seats, they looked mummified.
    The spaceship crashed blindly between the two buildings. Straight-on stupid luck had kept the bird from plowing through one of them, ending everyone’s life at once. The controls were not damaged, and someone surviving the crash had come up here and turned them off. There was nothing here to learn, and my five minutes were up. I headed aft toward the mid deck and Roberts.
    At the far end of the common area, Roberts was just returning forward. “Find anything?” I asked, as I joined her.
    “I have one locked hatch with music on the other side, no bodies though.”
    “Forward are two dead pilots. No clue what happened to the rest of the people. Windscreens are gone, lost in hard vacuum.”
    Roberts pulled two new Tasers out of her pocket and handed one to me. “I got these out of the security locker. Last two, eight missing, if the locker was full.”
    “The President’s daughter, it was full,” I told her.
    “That one is fully charged. This one is almost full. Want to tell anyone else about them?”
    “No,” I said, and the noise behind us caught our attention. “I have something for you later too.” We watched Nelson enter the ship from his building.
    “Any sign of her so far?” he asked.
    “We were just going to open this hatch and continue aft. There is music back this way,” Roberts told him. She turned and thumbed the control panel. This door still had power and hummed to life before it opened.
    “Daiman is watching our exit from the port hatch, what about your team?” I asked, as we three moved into the next aft compartment.
    “I left them watching the starboard side. In case you didn’t notice, that section of the ship’s fuselage is missing,” Nelson informed me.
    “I noticed.” I stepped into the compartment after Roberts.
    “Ms. Garrett, Agent Roberts, I’m here to get you out. Answer up, please.” Slowly, Roberts walked deeper into the area and toward the next hatch. The music was louder here, coming from the next section. Roberts held her pistol in her right hand and touched the hatch door control with her left. “It is disabled from inside,” she reported to me.
    “You ready, Nelson?” I asked over my right shoulder.
    His hands rested on the controls of his flamethrower as mine did. He nodded.
    Roberts pulled the door hatch lever. “Unlocked,” she whispered and opened the door. “Ms. Garrett, Agent Roberts here.”
    I followed her into the private area belonging to the President’s daughter. Both sides of the bulkhead walls were lined with plush sofas. The back wall was dimly lit from failing battery power, even as the music played. The back wall held a wet bar with three padded chairs. Sitting on the center stool was a young woman; I presumed she was our target.
    “Jane, it’s Mia,” Roberts told the woman.
    The woman turned slightly with a nearly empty bottle of brandy in her left hand.
    “Jane,” Mia repeated.
    I could see she was trying to focus, to understand what she was seeing. She turned and faced us.
    “Gun,” I called out and rushed Jane Garrett. At my side was Roberts. I took the weapon before it registered to Jane that I was charging her.
    Mia Roberts took the empty bottle away, as she pushed the drunk woman back deeper into the bar stool backing. “Jane, look at me, it’s Mia, Mia Roberts! Remember me?”
    “Mia.” Jane smiled. “Sure, make me a drink, Mia. Hey, how’d you get here?”
    “Your dad sent us,” Nelson announced to the woman over my shoulder.
    Jane lost her smile. “Go away then, be gone.”
    “We can’t do that, Ms. Garrett,” I said and looked around the ship. “Where is the rest of the crew, your private guard?”
    She shook her head and got a dazed look on her face. “This is a horrible place. You can’t imagine how bad it is here.”
    “Your private guards, Ms. Garrett, where are your private guards?” I asked