Outlaw

What the hell?

He rolled onto his side and ripped open the blue curtains, exposing him to the darkened stateroom. He slid his legs out from under the thin sheet and contorted his body to lower himself to the ground. On unsteady feet, Andy braced himself against another stab of pain deep in his stomach. He wasn’t sure which end it was going to come out of, but he didn’t want to wait around to find out.

“You okay, bro?” Greg asked, looking down at him from the top rack.

Andy opened his mouth to answer but quickly snapped it shut. Instead, he shook his head and took a hesitant step toward the door. He knew it would take all his strength just to make it to the head, several frames down the passageway.

“Andy?”

He stopped walking and doubled over as another wave of nausea slammed into him. “I don’t feel so good.”

As the feeling ebbed, he stood and again set his sights on the stateroom door. But his vision narrowed until all he could see was the handle. He took another step closer and swallowed back his fear. His heart raced faster as his body burned to fight off whatever held him in its grip. He was so focused on reaching the door that he didn’t hear his copilot climb down from his bunk and approach him, resting a hand gently on his back for support.

“What can I do?”

“I… I don’t know,” Andy said. He stopped, closed his eyes, and took a long, slow breath. When he opened them, the room started spinning, and he felt his body listing to counter the roll. “Get Doc.”

“Whoa,” Greg said, gripping his arm to keep him upright. “Easy now. Let’s get you back to bed.”

The nausea had subsided, but he wasn’t convinced returning to his rack was the best idea. Still, he was too weak to argue, and he allowed himself to be steered back to the bunk. Halfway through the turn, his vision again narrowed, and he knew instinctively he wouldn’t be able to stop it. His knees buckled, and he sagged to the floor. But before his copilot could help him back to his feet, his vision went black, and he passed out.

* * *

Doc Crowe sat in the Mace’s ready room, reclined in a chair reserved for guests with her feet propped up on the one in front of her. A projector bolted to the overhead streamed a movie onto a pull-down screen at the front of the room, and she tossed buttered popcorn into her mouth while trying to enjoy a few minutes of normalcy before heading to her rack. The time-honored tradition of watching a “roll ’em” at the end of flight operations was just one way for Doc to forget she was trapped on the aircraft carrier for weeks at a time.

The duty desk phone rang, but Doc was engrossed in watching Ryan Gosling charging up the steps and dancing around trained assassins while dispatching them with ease. She heard the duty officer answer the phone in a hushed tone so as not to interrupt the movie, just as the actor’s advance was cut short by a man in white pants and a trash ’stache.

“Doc,” the duty officer said in a stage whisper. “It’s for you.”

She popped another handful of popcorn into her mouth, then groaned as she climbed out of the ready room chair. She had already spent a full day managing sick call and visiting each of the ready rooms on the ship but still managed a flight in a Growler. All she wanted to do was enjoy the movie without interruption and check off another day on her deployment calendar.

She reached the desk and snatched the cordless phone out of the duty officer’s hand. “Doc Crowe,” she said.

“Doc, it’s Goldy.”

She turned back to the screen just as Ryan Gosling hurled himself through a window, moments before the room exploded. “Hey, Goldy, what’s up?”

“It’s my roommate, Andy. He’s really sick.”

“Have him sleep it off and go to sick call…”

But the Minnesota native wasn’t having it. “I’m worried about him. He’s really sick.”

With a grimace, Doc passed the half-eaten bag of popcorn across the top of the desk to the duty officer. “Where is he?”

“In our room.” Goldy gave her the bullseye — the unique identifier that included numbers and letters and told Doc the C-2 pilots resided in one of the staterooms one deck below in what was known as “Sleepy Hollow.” Doc wrote the information down.

“Let me get my stethoscope, and I’ll be right there.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

She hung up the phone, tossed one more look at the movie on the screen, then headed for the door. Stepping out into the passageway, she was struck by the darkness of the ship and the red glow of lights that gave everything an eerie appearance. The last thing she wanted to do was collect her stethoscope from her office and check in on a sick pilot, but that just came with the job.