Chapter 15

It had been a half-hour since the initial explosion and, once the survivors were tallied and made comfortable, time passed slowly. The reinforced fire shield provided air to breathe as well as heat to keep the frigid cold of empty space away. At the front end of the crippled Strato-Cruiser, Ronnie and Dave kept the pilot, Jimmy, company while Jimmy talked to his cohort, who was somewhere outside, over the two-way to find out how badly the ship was damaged.

It was over a hour later when the second white space suit came in from the cold. The second space suit was named Yolanda, and she had a luscious head of orange-red hair that fell down almost to her waist. Plus, she was naked inside her suit, her luxurious hair plastered to her soaked, sweaty body.

Ronnie couldn’t help but laugh at the bedraggled, exhausted sight that crawled out of that suit. Yolanda looked like a young adult infant just being born, still covered with her mother’s bodily fluids.

“Here, let me help you,” Ronnie said, stepping forward and helping to pull the girl free. Then Yolanda froze with terror as her body suddenly became surrounded with soft, blue fire. It only lasted a few seconds, then Yolanda was sweat-free and smelling fresh. Even her hair was dry – and it didn’t seem tangled, either!

“How...” she asked, amazed that her body could be cleansed so quickly. “You should patent that! Every space girl would love you forever! By the way, I’m Lannie. And you are Holy Fuck The Evil Bitch Vampire Queen!”

“Yep! That’s me!” Ronnie laughed. It was strange, but, during this horrible disaster, Ronnie was having the time of her life. It wasn’t that she was the center of attention (she was, but she didn’t think that was important), it was because she was ... helping. She’d never been so – useful – before. She’d spent most of her life being protected, and now, she was the one doing the protecting. It felt good! “The Magic evil bitch vampire queen! My real name’s Veronica Simpson. Call me Ronnie – or, your royal majesty, whichever you prefer.”

“Evil bitch queen with the magical flare does it for me,” Yolanda laughed, holding out her hand in greeting. “Welcome aboard, Ronnie.”

“Actually you’re the one coming aboard,” Dave piped up. “Her Majesty was already here,” which got him an evil glare from all three of the others. “Ow! Shooting daggers!” he whined, holding up his hands in mock defense.

“What’s it like out there?” Jimmy the pilot wanted to know.

“It’s a mess,” Yolanda told him. “One of the fuel tanks ruptured; maybe hit by a micro meteor or something. Most of the fuel vented into space, I hope.”

“A lot of it ended up on the other side of that hatchway,” Ronnie told her. “Fireball took out the entire midsection of the ship.”

“We should have broke in half if that’s true,” Yolanda exclaimed. “But I didn’t see any external damage indicating a rupture in the passenger section.”

“That’s because our little fire witch here put it out,” Dave added, nodding to Ronnie and glad to have something informative to add to the conversation.

“I had help,” Ronnie admitted. “My nieces are also ‘fire witches’, and, in addition, I have my most recent class of interns travelling with me as well.”

“Thirty of them,” Dave added, grinning as he enjoyed Yolanda’s un-self-conscious display of her bare naked self.

“Thirty?” Yolanda asked, astounded. “Witches?”

Ronnie sighed. “At last count, there were seventeen. Max-Planck wanted a group of us to check out the living quarters in the new space station. I think thirteen of my students may have died.”

“That’s awful!” the naked pilot lamented, then pulled Ronnie into a close embrace. “It’s a terrible thing to have happen on your very first space flight.”

“It’s a terrible thing to have happen on any space flight,” Jimmy piped up, finally free of his space suit, with Anne-Marie’s help. He was wringing wet as well, and his uniform was soaked with sweat. Anne-Marie wasn’t in much better shape; it was a lot of work pulling that thing off of him.

“How come you stayed in your suit so long?” Dave wanted to know. “Once Ronnie and I were here, it was safe.”

“Rules,” Jimmy replied. “Any time a crew member is outside, the pilot suits up. Somebody’s gotta be able to fly this thing if ‘the worst’ happens.”

“Well, ‘the worst’ happened,” Yolanda chirped. “We’re not going anywhere. No fuel.”

“There are a bunch of other Strato-Cruisers out there,” Ronnie suggested. “Could one of them rescue us?”

Jimmy smirked. “These are basically passenger planes! They don’t have any special military hardware, no special ship-to-ship air locks, no transporter beams, no magic refueling hose like they use on fighter jets, no giant ‘base ship’ with a huge hanger to fly into for repairs. We’re stuck!”

“Don’t die before you count us out,” Dave griped. “Your enthusiasm is decidedly underwhelming!”

“Don’t pick on the nice captain, Dave,” Ronnie gently chastised him. “He’s just upset that we’ve made all this effort to survive and we’re all gonna die anyway.”

“Now who’s being the Royal Defeatist?” Dave snarled. “We’ve got a ship full of fire wizards back there, and you don’t think we can’t get out of this?”

“Too many double negatives,” Yolanda complained. “What are you trying to say? There’s a way out of this?” She dared to look hopeful. Beautifully, nakedly hopeful.

“I always feel so outclassed whenever Lannie’s around,” Anne-Marie sighed, and everybody laughed. “You know, that ‘base ship’ idea is actually valid. The space station is supposed to have hangers like that.”

“They haven’t been constructed yet,” Jimmy replied, dejectedly shooting down his sweetheart’s idea. “But, you know, the ‘finished product’ is supposed to have docking stations for a dozen Strato-Cruisers, and the plan is for the ships to power the station – move it from place to place – even from planet to planet.”

“You mean, like, we could fly the space station to Mars or someplace and use the Strato-Cruisers to go down to the surface of the planet and back?” Ronnie asked.

“Well, probably not us, but ... somebody ... people ... in the future will be able to do that,” Yolanda sighed, really wishing she wasn’t going to die here before that fantastic sci-fi future occurred. “Someday, mankind will go out to the stars. Just ... not me. Not us.” She looked down at her perfect, naked body, definitely feeling sorry for herself. “For all the good this did...”

“You still look good,” Dave said, understanding what she was feeling. “We’ll get through this.”

Yolanda gazed over at him, unshed tears shining in her eyes.

A harsh chirp and the red light over the hatch leading to the passenger compartment turned green. The hatch hissed open and Tia stuck her head in.

“Oh! This is where you’ve been hiding out, huh? Ooo! Naked girl! Hot stuff!” She raised her eyebrows several times, mimicking an old Groucho Marx flatscreen she’d seen years ago. “Oh, by the way, we have air back here.” She grinned, taking in the dramatic visage of the three dumb-struck crew members, one of them naked, floating alongside Ronnie and Dave.